“Where are the two of you going?” Torin said, noticing every scowling face in the rocks they passed and all the hungry ferlies in the grass. The eastern wind was blowing with a smudge of wings overhead that gave Torin more chills than the river had. But he kept following Adaira and Jack, relieved to see them together as they should be, and he remembered how the ember from the fire had whispered his cousin’s name.
Torin still wasn’t sure why he needed to find Adaira. He wondered if she had a role to play in the riddle’s answer, but he was beginning to think not; perhaps hissing her name was the only way the ember could prompt him to venture west. Torin worried he might be wasting his time chasing after his cousin until she and Jack came to a stop in a copse of trees.
They hobbled their horses and entered the shadows of the wood, Torin close behind. It felt strange to be invisible, and he had to battle the temptation to reach out and embrace Adaira, to call her eyes to him.
Soon, Torin told himself. That word kept him stitched together and kept him going. Soon she will see you again. Soon you will be home.
Torin trailed Jack and Adaira to a dark-watered loch. He halted to stare at the strange place. There was a dilapidated cottage on a small island in the center of the water, but stranger than that was the air, which felt cold and empty. He swiftly realized that no wind blew here. Adaira and Jack seemed to have stepped into a rift of time, a place where the past still burned.
“Is this Loch Ivorra?” Jack said.
Adaira’s head turned to him. “What is Loch Ivorra?”
“A place where the last Bard of the West lived, before music fell out of favor,” Jack explained.
An incredulous but pleased expression passed over Adaira’s countenance. “How do you know this, old menace?”
“Rab,” Jack replied simply. “He thought I had stolen my harp from here.”
Adaira said nothing, rolling her lips together instead. She led Jack across the narrow earthen bridge to the cottage, Torin close behind them. He didn’t like the way this place made him feel, and he glanced down into the quiet, still waters of the loch. There was no sign of its corresponding spirit, but Torin sensed their presence. An old, dangerous being who lurked in the depths.
“Should I be wary of what you’re about to show me, Adaira?” Jack said as they approached the cottage door. The kail yard was a disaster. Thistles bent, sharpening their needles, and weeds stretched out their pollen-drenched tendrils, as if to capture both Adaira and Jack. Torin was swift to follow, frowning at the spirits until they minded themselves and dutifully retreated.
“No,” Adaira said, but then she proceeded to slice her finger on the edge of her sword.
“What are you doing?” Jack hissed as she held up her bleeding hand and laid it on the door.
There was the unmistakable pop of a lock turning.
“An enchanted door,” she said, nudging the wood open.
She passed over the threshold first. Jack followed.
Torin trailed them into the cottage, impressed by the door’s lock. He took note of how rotten the air smelled. A sweet rot, like honey and moldy paper, covering a grave. But he soon forgot all about the smell when he saw what was within the walls.
A spirit of the wind was sitting on the edge of a palliasse, her indigo hair pooling on her shoulders. She was thin and lean, her skin the shade of the sky at springtime. She was clothed in silver linked armor, and she slowly rose to her feet, tattered iridescent wings dragging on the ground behind her.
Torin merely stared at her, overcome with worry. He didn’t realize that Adaira and Jack could also see the spirit until his cousin said, “Jack? This is my friend Kae.”
Jack released a long, deep breath. He was just as surprised and awed as Torin was to find a spirit in the flesh here, and Torin’s mind reeled. He longed to know what had happened for this wind spirit to be manifested in the natural realm. Was this a common occurrence?
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. The spirit’s attention drifted beyond Jack and Adaira to the shadow where Torin stood. He waited, expecting to feel her gaze slice through him like Sidra’s, like Maisie’s. He was getting accustomed to this feeling, as if he had always been a phantom. But the spirit’s eyes traced his broad build. The contours of his face.
His breath caught when her gaze united with his own.
Chapter 27
Jack sat across from Kae at the well-worn kitchen table, watching as Adaira set out a small spread of food. Dark brown bread, pickled onions, a wheel of soft cheese, and wild cherries. She was pouring them each a small cup of gra when Jack glanced at the musical composition scattered across the far end of the table. The brittle sheets of parchment were the color of honey, with ragged edges, and the inked notes were fading and smudged.