“Miriam?” she cal ed softly into the dark.
Silence.
She reached out with her mind, straining for the whisper 4 8
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
of his presence, trying to pick out his scent, his heartbeat.
The effort made her tired brain throb.
Or was that an echo of his pain?
“Justin? Dr. Kioni?”
Nothing.
Her feet fol owed her thoughts down the deserted corridor.
She threw open doors as she passed, caution melting into anxiety. “Justin.”
His room.
His room.
Empty.
She stood in the doorway, her gaze scraping the rumpled hospital bed. He was gone, the only signs he’d ever been there the wrinkled sheets and the black sheath on the table.
He was gone. A sudden chil chased over her skin.
Escaped.
She picked up the knife left lying on the table.
Zayin’s words mocked her. “Still think he’s harmless?”
4
Th e s k y wa s pe w t e r a n d pa l e g o l d, t h e s u n just breaking through the clouds to shimmer on the surface of the western sea.
Lucy Hunter sat alone in the inner bailey of Caer Subai, listening to the splash of the fountain and the restless murmur of the ocean outside the wal s. After seven years, the work of rebuilding the selkie stronghold of Sanctuary was nearly complete. The towers rose tal and strong, wreathed in mists and magic. The scent of apple blossoms blew from the hil s, mingling with the wild brine of the sea and the rich perfume of her garden.
Roses rioted everywhere, cascading pinks and bold reds, bright yel ows and starry whites gleaming like constel ations against the thick, dark foliage.
Her hands clenched in her lap. Not everything on the island was barren.
“You are up early.” A deep voice disturbed her reverie.
She turned her head.
A man stood in the shadow of the castle wal, watching her with eyes the color of rain. Tal, broad, and handsome, his hair blue-black like a mussel shel. Conn ap Llyr, prince of the merfolk, lord of the sea. Even now, the sight of him had the power to steal her breath and stir her heart.
“Or couldn’t you sleep?” he asked.
She turned away, unwil ing to burden him with her growing sense of failure. “I had a dream.”
His deerhound, Madagh, left his side to thrust a cold nose against her colder fingers. She stroked the dog’s gray, bearded muzzle. It was easy to take comfort from the dog.
“You could have woken me.” Conn’s voice was too measured for reproach.
She stiffened anyway. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
In recent months — since the Thing She Didn’t Think About had happened — he had withdrawn further and further into his duties, burying his own grief in the demands of rulership.
Once he would have taken her in his arms, this selkie male who did not touch except as a prelude to sex or a fight.
Now he stood cool and immovable as a statue, separated by his natural reserve and her unspoken resentment.
“You are my consort.” His tone was patient, control ed.
“My mate. What concerns you concerns me. Tel me.”
She gripped her hands together in her lap. “I dreamed I heard a child crying.”
Something moved in his eyes, like water surging under the ice. “Lucy. ”
“Not a baby,” she said hastily. “A boy. A lost boy.”
The wind sighed through the garden, releasing the scent of the roses. The bush he had given her threw petals like drops of blood upon the grass.
“You are upset,” Conn said careful y. “Such dreams are natural.”
“It’s not that,” she said impatiently. She couldn’t stand to think about that. She could not bear any more of his wel meant reassurances. “This boy was lost, Conn. Like Iestyn.”
“Iestyn is not a boy any longer. He’s been gone for seven years. They al are gone.”
“I feel responsible.”
Conn’s face set in familiar, formidable lines. “It was my decision to send them away. My failure to keep them safe.”
“You sent them away because of me. Because I didn’t stay and protect Sanctuary.”
“You saved your brothers and their wives and children.
You made the better choice for the future of our people.”
She was grasping desperately at straws. At hope. At control. “But suppose they’re stil out there somewhere?
Iestyn and the others.”
“They would have found their way home by now.”
“Unless they can’t. Maybe my dream was a. a message.
A sending.”
Conn was silent.
“Is it possible you are focusing on one loss to the exclusion of another?” he asked at last.
“You think I’m making things up,” she said bitterly.
“Lucy.” His voice was no less urgent for being gentle.
“You are stil the targair inghean.”
Her heart burned. Her throat ached. Locked in her grief, she did not, could not, answer.
He waited long moments while the fountain played and the wind mourned through the battlements.
And then he went away.
Lucy sat with her hands in her lap, staring sightlessly at the sparkling water. She was the targair inghean, the promised daughter of the children of the sea. Long ago, before she had loved him, before he loved her, Conn had stolen her from her human home so she would bear his children.
“I need you, ” he had told her then. “Your children.
Ours. Your blood and my seed to save my people.”
She put her head down among the roses and wept.
5
H e wa s o u t t h e r e s o m e w h e r e. S h e c o u l d feel him, just like this morning.
Lara skimmed along the tree-lined walk, her flat shoes crunching the pea gravel. She imagined Justin blundering in the dark, dazed and bleeding, hurt and resentful, a danger to himself. or to others.
She needed to find him. For his sake. For hers.
She had to tel somebody. Tel Simon.
Her stomach churned. The thought of facing the governors, of Zayin’s scorn and Simon’s disappointment, made her sick inside.
But she had no choice. A trickle of sweat rol ed down her spine. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
The distinctive pitched roof line of the headmaster’s residence poked over the trees — six chimneys and a weathervane shaped like an eagle.
Simon Axton lived alone in the original Colonial farmhouse, set apart from the other school buildings behind the main hal. Lara had been invited inside exactly eight times. To the sunroom to take tea with her cohort on graduation day. To the book-lined library for cocktails with the schoolmasters and other proctors over the holidays.
Once or twice to bring Simon a file he’d left at the office.
Lara approached the front porch, her steps slowing, anticipation burning a hole in her gut. Too late, she realized she should have cal ed. But what would she say?
What could she say? She was supposed to be in her room.
Simon’s cool dismissal pounded in her head. “If you’re quite satisfied, I believe we’re done here. ”
The thought of his displeasure dried her mouth. She stared up at the darkened windows, listening to the whisperings and rustlings and cracklings of the overgrown garden. A soft thump sounded from the back of the house, some smal, nocturnal animal hunting in the night.