“Yes.”
“Speak your mind then, Cora.”
Adaira glanced into the adjacent room. The door was open, and she could see David sitting at a worktable, sifting through dried herbs.
“I can send him away if you want,” Innes said.
“No, he’s fine. But can he hear us?”
“I can,” David drawled.
“Good. Because there are some things I don’t want to have to say twice,” Adaira said. She took another sip from her cup, trying to rouse her courage.
“You want to know if I was aware that it was Jack in the arena,” Innes said in a careful voice.
Adaira swallowed. “Yes.”
“I had no idea, Cora. They brought him up from the dungeons fully helmed and introduced him as ‘John Breccan.’ They said nothing about him stealing a harp.”
“Does that not concern you?” Adaira said. “That members of your clan are being killed for crimes you aren’t familiar with? That innocent people could be dying beneath gags and locked helms?”
Innes was silent. She didn’t even seem to be breathing. From the corner of Adaira’s eye, David was also frozen at his worktable, his back angled to them.
“Where is the honor in such death if it’s unjust?” Adaira asked.
“Your husband should have made it clear he was in the west,” Innes countered in a brisk tone. “He came by river. He trespassed onto my lands. If I had known he was coming, he would have never ended up in the dungeons.”
“I won’t deny that it would have been helpful if he had been forthright,” said Adaira. “But he did, in fact, write and tell me he was coming. We’ve been writing to each other in code because you continue to read my post like I’m—” She cut her words short.
“Like you’re a prisoner here?” Innes finished, her tone edging colder. “Have I treated you like one?”
“No. But—”
“The fact of the matter is that your husband is from the enemy clan. He also brought a harp with him,” Innes said. “That breaks a law of the land.”
“A harp he hasn’t played,” Adaira cut in.
“But he plans to?”
Adaira was quiet. She wouldn’t deny Jack if he wanted to play.
Innes threw back the remainder of her gra and set her cup aside. “As I thought. Jack is welcome here, Cora, but he must abide by the laws. I can’t risk him causing another storm.”
“I know.”
A lull came between them. Adaira wanted to ask about Niall, but after hearing the tension in Innes’s voice, it didn’t seem like a good moment. She hesitated, feeling how little time she had left to redeem Jack’s father. But she also felt like she was standing in a ditch—she needed better footing before broaching a topic that was sure to pick at old wounds.
Her innuendo that Innes had been complicit in Jack’s near-death hadn’t helped.
“What else?” Innes prompted.
Adaira decided to move on to the last topic on her list. The blight.
She began to tell Innes what Jack had shared with her. That the orchards in the east were sickened, and the spirits ailing. That Tamerlaines too were catching the blight.
By the time she finished speaking, David had come to stand on the threshold, her words reeling him closer. Innes, however, wore an impassive expression that instantly roused Adaira’s suspicion, because she was coming to learn her mother’s many masks.
“That’s unfortunate for the east,” Innes said. “But I don’t see how we can help them with such a matter, Cora.”
“You know the blight is already here in the west, though, don’t you?” Adaira said. “For how long? When did you first notice it?”
“It’s been six weeks,” David said softly. “It first appeared in a copse of trees many kilometers south of here.”
“How many Breccans are sick?”
“We aren’t entirely certain,” David replied.
Adaira didn’t know whether to take his statement as truth or conclude that her parents wanted to keep that number hidden from her. She didn’t give herself time to be offended and said, “I’d like to write to Sidra about this, with your permission, of course. She is a renowned healer in the east, and if the blight is something they have also been facing, she may have answers we need.”
“No,” Innes said swiftly.
“Why not?” Adaira replied. “This is not a matter of one side looking weaker or more vulnerable that the other. Not when it is affecting us both.”