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Hannah peered around Tristan, frantically scanning the room. Empty, but for the two men who’d been sent to seek information. Only then did Hannah realize she’d expected—hoped—her sisters would be standing in the solar.

Suddenly, it registered that Tristan and the scouts were all watching her. He must have introduced her to them.

“Good eve, sirs,” she said, not having caught their names.

They bowed, murmuring their welcome. Were the men brothers? They looked almost like twins with their bushy brown hair and full beards. And they were nearly as tall as Tristan, though one was just slightly smaller than the other.

“What did you find?” Tristan said, thankfully not wasting any time.

When both men looked at her, Hannah’s heart began to race once again. They knew something. She could feel it.

“We spoke to many about the falls, inquired after the two women you had described.”

“And?” Rude, undoubtedly, but she couldn’t help it. Hannah was just about ready to burst.

“There are rumors.” The smaller brother frowned.

“What rumors?” she asked.

“All who knew of Leannan Falls had a different tale to tell,” the bigger brother said.

The two exchanged an odd look, and the smaller man spoke next. “Some say a faerie lives beneath the water, and others insist she had a lover, a knight—”

“But all agree there is something . . . special . . . about those falls,” finished the bigger one.

“Special?” she and Tristan said in unison. Perhaps this meant her sisters had indeed come through the falls with her.

Big brother shifted, as if speaking of such things meant he himself believed them. “Magical,” he said, mumbling the word.

Little brother rolled his eyes. “As I said, some insist a faerie lives beneath the water and that she once fell in love with a man, a knight, and had the chance to become human to be with him.”

“And though she loved him”—big brother warmed to the topic—“she decided to remain a faerie, vowing to bring true love together for all of eternity.”

Hannah froze.

“Nonsense, of course,” he added. “How exactly does a faerie who lives beneath the water accomplish such a thing?”

But Hannah already knew the answer.

Little brother shrugged his shoulders. “A merchant in Auld Town claimed the knight visited her on the banks of the falls every day until he died.”

Hannah would have been as skeptical as the brothers if not for the fact that she’d literally fallen through the water into the fourteenth century. This talk of healing properties and an ancient legend reminded her of the innkeeper’s words on the morning she and her sisters left for Leannan Falls—the falls will bring soulmates together. A different story, but a legend nonetheless. Rumors about the falls had persisted for at least six hundred years.

Hannah waited expectantly.

“Then, on our last day in Edinburgh, our inquiries led us to an old woman—”

“An odd old woman,” little brother added.

“Who claimed to have knowledge of Lady Hannah and her sisters.” He turned to Tristan. “It took all of the coin you gave us to retrieve that information.”

“What did the woman say?” he asked.

It seemed she was not the only impatient one.

“She was reluctant to speak to us. All we could gather from her was that ‘three women arrived in Scotland’ and that ‘they were meant to be here.’”