They passed the croft of Torin’s father, Graeme Tamerlaine, the laird’s brother. Jack noticed the kail yard was beset with brambles and the cottage looked dismal. The front door was framed with gossamer. Vines snaked across the stone walls, and Jack wondered if Torin’s father still lived there, or if he had passed away. And then he remembered that Graeme Tamerlaine had become a recluse in his old age and rarely left his croft. Not even for feast days in the castle hall, when all of Eastern Cadence gathered to celebrate.

“Your father . . . ?” Jack asked, uncertain.

“Is quite well,” Torin said, but his voice was firm, as if he didn’t want to speak of his father. As if the dilapidation of Graeme Tamerlaine’s croft was the norm.

They walked onward as the road rose and fell with the lay of the hills, which were green from spring storms. Foxglove grew wild in the sun, dancing with the wind, and starlings soared and trilled against a low swath of clouds. In the distance, the morning fog began to burn away, revealing a glimpse of the ocean, endlessly blue and sparkling with light.

Jack soaked in the beauty, but he remained guarded against it. He didn’t like the way the isle made him feel alive and whole, as if he were a part of it, when he wanted to remain a distant observer. A mortal who could come and go as he pleased and suffer nothing for it.

He thought of his classes again. His students. A few of them had burst into tears when he shared the news that he had been called away for the summer. Others had been relieved, as he was known to be one of the strictest of teaching assistants. But if a pupil was going to take his class, he wanted to ensure they had grown in skill by the end of it.

His thoughts were still centered on the mainland when he and Torin reached Sloane. The city was just as Jack remembered. The road had been transformed into smooth cobbles winding between the buildings, houses built close to each other, their walls made of stone and cob with thatched roofs. Smoke rose from the forges, the market brimmed with activity, and the castle sat in the heart of it, a fortress made of dark stones dressed in banners. The sigil of the Tamerlaines snapped from the parapets, betraying which wind blew that afternoon.

“I think a few people are happy to see you, Jack,” Torin said.

Caught off guard by that statement, Jack began to pay attention.

People were noticing him as he passed. Old fishermen sitting beneath canopies, mending their nets with gnarled hands. Bakers carrying baskets of warm bannocks. Milkmaids with their swinging pails. Lads with wooden swords, and lasses toting books and quivers of arrows. The blacksmiths between strikes on their anvils.