He didn’t slow his pace, and no one dared to stop him. Most of all, he didn’t expect to witness their excitement, their smiles as they watched him pass.

“I have no idea why,” Jack said dryly to Torin.

As a boy, he had been disliked and mistreated because of his status. If Mirin had sent him into town to buy some bread, the baker would give him the burnt loaf. If Mirin asked him to bargain for a new pair of boots in the market, the cobbler would give him a used pair with worn leather thongs that would break before the winter snows had melted. If Mirin gave him a silver mark to buy a honey cake, he would be given the sweet after it had fallen on the ground.

Bastard followed him in whispers, more than his own name. Some of the wives in the market would study Jack’s face to compare against their husbands’, wondering and suspicious despite the fact that Jack was an unforgiving reflection of his mother and unfaithfulness was rare in Cadence.

When Mirin began weaving enchanted plaids, the people who had snubbed Jack suddenly became a little kinder, because no one could rival Mirin’s handiwork, and she suddenly knew everyone’s darkest secrets while they had yet to learn hers. But by then he had begun carrying every slight around like a bruise in his spirit. He had provoked fights at school, broken windows with rocks, refused to bargain with certain people when Mirin sent him to the market.

For him, it was bizarre now to acknowledge how eager the clan was to see him, as if they had been waiting for the day he would return home as a bard.

“This is where I leave you, Jack,” Torin said when they reached the castle courtyard. “But I suppose I’ll see you again soon?”

Jack nodded, stiff with nerves. “Thank you again for breakfast. And the clothes. I’ll have them returned as soon as I’m able.”

Torin waved away his gratitude and led his horse into the stable. Jack was admitted into the castle by a set of guards.

The hall was lonely and quiet, a place for ghosts to gather. Thick shadows hung in the rafters and in the corners; the only light streamed in through the arched windows, casting bright squares on the floor. The trestle tables were coated in dust, the benches tucked beneath them. The hearth was cold and swept clean of ashes. Jack remembered visiting with Mirin every full moon to feast and listen to Lorna Tamerlaine, Bard of the East and the wife of the laird, play her harp and sing. Once a month, this hall had been a lively place, a place for the clan to come together for fellowship after a day of work.