“Leinth was here.”
Phelan stared up at the ceiling, his breathing shallow and his face pale in the lamplight. He swallowed hard, his gaze never wavering from the rough beams above his head, the bundles of herbs hung to dry there. “Was she?” he whispered, lips barely moving. “What did she want, leannán? Do you know?”
I reached over and brushed some of Phelan’s hair away from his brow. He winced and turned his face toward mine. “Cameron,” I said. “She wanted to talk to Cameron. He didn’t really feel like it. Neve freaked out.”
Phelan snorted softly, almost laughing, then winced. “Ooh. Bloody hole in me is going to be the death of me.”
“No it’s not,” I said, feeling my stomach twist painfully, bile rising high in my throat for a brief moment before I swallowed it back again. “Don’t say shit like that when you’re flat on your back like this, Phelan. One of us might forget that Jac and Jay said you’d be fine and believe you.”
“Right,” he said, his gaze drifting back toward the herbs he’d hung to dry weeks ago. “So they both freaked out?”
“I’m surprised you’re not,” I said softly, drawing my bad knee up to my chest, wincing a little as the stitches pulled. “Not after the way she reacted. She said that Leinth betrayed…I guess everyone.”
Phelan’s eyes drifted shut. “That’s how she remembers it, anyway. She didn’t know everything.”
Another mystery, Phelan? Just what we need, right? More intrigues, more secrets. It’s never ending. “What did she miss?” I asked softly. “You’re not angry.”
“Leinth loved Seamus,” Phelan said simply, his eyes still closed. “I knew that she did when I saw her last. I could practically taste her desperation, the pain when she brought word that Rasenyr fell during the wars. She knew that Seamus had been there when it fell. I saw the pain. He meant the world to her.” A shudder ran through him and he opened his eyes. “Anything she did, she did it to protect everyone she loved. I can’t fault her for anything she’s done. But Neve never saw that—she never had the opportunity to. All she ever knew were the stories, the legends. Leinth had betrayed her people. Winter befouled the grand boot. I’m sure some would have blamed more on her if they could have found a way to do it.”
I wet my lips. “She came to warn Cameron because of who he is.” I had to swallow bile back down again. “Did you know, Phelan?”
“Depends on what you’re asking.”
“She wants to know if you knew that Cameron was Seamus’s descendant,” Neve said from the doorway. I hadn’t heard her come in over the sound of the wind that still screamed above the rooftops. The storm was unrelenting.
Neve shuffled forward on her crutches, her expression bleak. “Did you know, Phelan?”
He didn’t answer—he just looked away. That was how I knew.
He’s known all along. Somehow, he’s known all along.
