Frae gasped, her eyes round as saucers. She clapped her hand over her lips when Mirin and Jack both glanced at her.

Her brother was marrying Adaira.

Frae loved Adaira. She wanted to grow up to become Adaira. And now the heiress was going to be her sister.

Her heart began to pound with excitement. She could hardly keep still, and she felt like dancing.

“Marriage isn’t a game, Jack,” Mirin continued in a voice Frae rarely heard. A sharp, pointed cadence.

Jack shifted his weight. Frae could sense his anger. “I know what marriage is, and I don’t step into it lightly, Mum.”

“Do you love her?”

Jack was silent.

Frae laced her fingers together and gazed up at him, waiting to hear him say that he did.

“I care for her,” he eventually said. “She has asked this of me, and I’m doing it because she wants it, and it’s for the good of the clan.”

Mirin’s eyes thawed at last—Frae knew the worst of her temper was gone now. Her mother laid a hand over her throat, as if to calm her pulse. “What about your university, Jack?”

Frae winced, waiting for his reply. Would he take Adaira away with him?

“I’m done with teaching.” The words slipped out of him in a growl. “I don’t want to go back.”

Frae almost jumped, a cheer rising in her throat. But she held it in, gazing up at her brother. Did that mean he was staying forever?

“And what do you plan to do here?” Mirin asked. “Other than be Adaira’s partner?”

“She has asked me to become Bard of the East.”

This time Frae couldn’t hold in her excitement. She squealed and threw her arms around him. Sometimes Jack still felt stiff when she embraced him. But not that day. He hugged her back.

“This is a great honor she’s giving you,” Mirin said. “When is the wedding then?”

Jack hesitated before speaking in a very low voice. So deep Frae almost didn’t catch his reply. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mirin shouted.

“Adaira’s decision. Not mine.”

“And what are you going to wear?”

“Clothes, I suppose.”

Mirin swatted him, but she was hiding a smile, and the tension faded between them. “You’ve taken a few years off my life, Jack. Just . . . look at you. How did you convince her to ask you?”

He sighed. Frae studied him. She saw the dirt staining his nails, the splinters that had worked their way beneath his skin, the hay that hung in his hair like threads of gold.

He looked like he finally belonged here with them.

“Adaira asked me, and I said yes. Simple as that.”

Mirin appeared unconvinced, but Frae knew better. She saw the light in her brother. She knew why Adaira had chosen him.