Sidra hesitated. She glanced across the room at Graeme, whom she had all but forgotten about. Her father-in-law stood by the door, still holding the two glasses of whiskey. He nodded to her, quietly encouraging her to tell Torin. . . .

“It wasn’t a spirit,” Sidra said.

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

She explained about spirit blood.

“Are you certain, Sidra?” Torin asked. “This isn’t your blood?”

“I gave him a flesh wound in the back,” she said flatly. “This is not my blood, nor is it a spirit’s.”

“Then if it was a man . . .” Torin exhaled through his teeth. “Describe him to me. How tall was he? What did his voice sound like?”

Sidra struggled to put her memory, which felt distorted by night and terror, into something that Torin could identify.

He listened, bent toward her words, but she could sense his frustration. “You didn’t recognize his voice, but he asked for my daughter in particular?”

“Yes, Torin.”

“So he knows me. He must be a clansman, someone I’ve brushed shoulders with, or trained in the guard. Someone who knows the lay of the east.” Torin pressed a knuckle to his lips and shut his eyes. He still looked far too pale, as if the blood had drained from him.

“Torin,” Sidra whispered, reaching for his hand. She knew what he was feeling. That horrible wave of distress, to know it was a man stealing the lasses. To ask oneself, Why would a man kidnap little girls?

His eyes opened. He held Sidra’s gaze for a beat, but there was no hope, no reassurance in him. There was only anguish, and she felt responsible for it. She should have fought harder. She should have run faster. She should have screamed for Graeme.

Her hand fell back to her side, but Torin reached for her fingers, drawing her across the room and out the front door.

“If you wounded him, he could not have gotten far. Show me the exact place where it happened,” he said.

Sidra tripped as she matched his pace. She was still barefoot, and the brightness of the sun was a shock to her. She squinted, then realized that several of Torin’s guards were present, waiting by the road. They instantly moved forward when they saw her bloodied clothes.

“It was here, Torin,” she said, stopping halfway down the hill. The heather around her was crushed, a testament to her struggle. “I stabbed him. And he . . .” She bit off the rest, but Torin’s eyes were keen.

“What did he do next, Sidra?”

She resisted the urge to embrace herself and shivered. “He kicked me. In the chest. I rolled to there and lost the dirk on the way down.”