Page 61 of Fletcher

“It’s Lady Joana’s ring.” Lark reached down, and the moment she touched the ring it slid onto her finger.

Do you wish live? a deep voice asked.

“’Tis my sire’s voice,” Fletcher murmured, as if he could hear it as well.

Lark recognized it as the same male voice she’d heard in the Bethesda Fountain. “Yes, as long as I can be with Fletcher, I do.”

Tiny green and blue lights appeared and whirled around her and her lover. At the same time the yellow glow coming from the bars snapped and fizzled as if the enchantment was somehow short-circuiting. Then the glow and the lights disappeared, and the cell door swung open.

Fletcher took hold of her hand. “Try lifting the hatch door, my lady.”

Lark extended her hand, and as soon as she thought of doing just that, the gem in the ring took on an eerie glow. A second later the door blew off its hinges, and when they hurried over to look through the open hatch they saw it still soaring into the sky. The screeches from above deck told her that the Cait Sith had seen it, too.

Her lover faced her. “Now take us into the skies.”

When the seamstress did not come to the infirmary that afternoon Duncan decided to go and see if she had broken her promise to him. He found the sewing room empty, and nearly left when he heard someone whisper his name from the adjoining room. There he found Idonea on the floor, and quickly turned her over to see one side of her face drooping.

The seamstress opened her eyes, one of which had gone scarlet with blood, and gave Duncan a twisted smile.

“You’ve good ears, lad,” she said, slurring the words.

After checking her neck and back, he lifted her onto the bed in the corner of the room. Loosening the laces of her bodice to ease her breathing, he encountered something hard and shaped like a star. He slipped his hand inside and pulled out a small poppet with several strands of long red hair wound around its head, and black thorns embedded all over the body. The hair had a small clump of dried, bloodied flesh that matched the wound on Lark Ambrose’s scalp.

“Aye, ’tis from the lass,” Idonea said in a thready whisper. “My payment for luring her to them. I fashioned the thing while I lay abed so it might sicken her, only the old charm didnae work.”

Duncan didn’t wish to touch her now, but forced himself to check her heartbeat, which only thumped sluggishly. The scarlet-colored eye had an expanded pupil, and he found more blood in the ear on the same side.

“The blow to your head caused slow bleeding inside,” he finally told her. “Why didnae you come to me when the pain grew worse?”

“He saved her, that heartless bastart.” She let out a stuttering sigh. “I cannae bear remain alive and watch him love another again. ’Tis why I took her outside, that those Finfolk might take her away. I regret I didnae end her when I had the chance as I did the others that came between me and Fletcher.”

His gut knotted as he realized what she meant. “You murdered Shoran and Tilly?”

“Those disgusting hoors.” She took her hand away as her upper lip lifted away from her teeth. “I followed and hid and watched him with them. ’Twas no matter to me that he swived them, for he’s a man, aye? Only once he had them, I heard them offer him their hearts as well as their quims. So I sent them on their way. Some weever spines in Shoran’s boot, and a brew made of fairy’s glove for Tilly did the work nicely.”

Icy sweat broke out on Duncan’s brow. “What of Aili?”

“The widow on the mainland?” She made a dry, rasping sound that might have been a chuckle. “I’m but mortal, Healer. I cursed her name, but I couldnae send a nag from the island to trample her. ’Twas the happiest day for me when I heard the news. Mayhap the Gods attended to her for me.”

“If you truly cared for Fletcher, then why cause him such misery?” he demanded, sickened now by every word she said.

“You’ve never loved, or you should ken what ’tis, being denied the one you want. Your sweetness sours, and your desires stab you like a thousand awls whenever you see him.” Her eyelids drooped. “In the end you reckon if you cannae love him, then no one else ever shall.”

Duncan could not remember ever experiencing happiness at the death of any mortal, but when Idonea’s chest stopped moving a short time later, relief surged through him. Some of that came from the sudden end of the terrible headache he’d suffered for days without knowing the cause. The rest was knowing Idonea had taken her hideous love for his brother with her into death.

He covered her face with the sheet, and then rose and left her chamber. Out in the passage he paused when he saw the torchlight flicker and change the patterns of light and dark on the walls. His imagination, ever too easily roused, would be haunted for days now.

Walking through the passages did not help dispel his outrage or his sorrow. Too often his patients confided their misdeeds to him, as if he were some shaman, keeping their worst secrets. Now Idonea had burdened him with this horrid revelation that no one ever should have discovered.

Shaw stepped out of the shadows and into his path. “You cannae tell him, Healer.”

Now he understood why the torchlight had moved in such a strange fashion. “Our brother blames himself for those women dying. He deserves ken the truth.”

“What reckon you Fletch shall do when you reveal the seamstress murdered them to appease her selfish heart?” The chieftain shook his head. “Leave him love his wee lady in peace.”

He eyed the chieftain. “You keep too many secrets, Brother.”

“And you dinnae?” Shaw made a scathing sound, and then suddenly tossed his unmarked arm around his shoulders. “Come and drink with me tonight. We shall speak of the loveliest of ladies and the stupitest of men, and how they plague our lives.”