Wreathed in Tide and Torment: A Romantic Fantasy Novel (The Eskalian Fey: Book 1) by Rowan MacKay

Author:Rowan MacKay [MacKay, Rowan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wise Ink
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Seven

Aly was shaking as they stepped into the street. Grant had hired the Cailleach to kill Gibson. And he hadn’t told her. She took a quivering breath that caught in her throat.

“Maybe she’s lying,” Calum said tentatively. “The evidence all still points to Gibson’s wife.”

“What reason would she have to lie?” Aly countered. If the Cailleach had been hired by Gibson’s widow, she could have refused to give Aly information at all. “And why would she tell a lie like that, when I could ask Grant and hear him deny it?” She shook her head. “She wouldn’t have said that unless she thought he’d admit to it.”

Calum’s face crumpled. “Don’t go back to him.”

Aly whirled to face him. “What? I have to.”

“It’s too dangerous.” It had started drizzling, and raindrops glistened in Calum’s hair as he bent his head towards her.

“Do you think it’s safe if I just walk out on him?” Aly gave a hollow laugh. “He’s already suspicious—he asked me last night if I’d seen you again since you arrested me.”

“He what?” Anxiety edged Calum’s voice.

Aly ran a hand through her hair. “I think he was fishing more than anything, but . . . he hired an assassin without telling me, he lied to me to get me to blackmail a burgess, and then he started asking me about you.” She slumped against the damp stone wall. “At first I thought maybe someone had seen us, but Gibson died before I met you and he was already hiding things from me then.” She glanced at Calum. The drizzle had settled over his shoulders like a mantle, beading on the wool of his coat. “I think he’s up to something more. He knows that I know that he’s pushing for harsher penalties for criminals, but he’s still being secretive and demanding shows of trust, and last night . . .” The scars on her arms stung, and she shuddered at the memory of the cold creeping through her bones. Never before had he drained her to unconsciousness and left her there, unconcerned as to whether she lived or died.

“You don’t think he’s the one kidnapping salchs, do you?” The colour drained from Calum’s face.

Aly stared at him, horror washing through her. “Kidnapping salchs? Is that what you think is happening to them?”

“How else are they disappearing?”

Aly laid out how she’d assumed there was a new salching market in town, one that wasn’t bothering to protect its employees. “It fits with the most recent missing person you have—the orphan boy. If he just started salching, he wouldn’t know which markets are relatively safe and which ones aren’t.”

“What about Flora? You said the market she salched at was one of the better ones.”

“Aye, it was. In part because the Caoineag places limits on how long or often folk can salch for. If she was desperate enough for money, she might have gone elsewhere.”

Calum scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “All this time, you didn’t think they’d been abducted, but you’ve still helped me look for them.

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