Jack’s first assumption was that she had called him home to play for her father, since the laird looked gravely ill. Which meant that Adaira was about to ascend as laird herself. Jack felt a pang of awe, imagining her crowned.

His eyes traced the thistle blossoms, tucked within her braids.

“You saw Torin earlier, yes?” Adaira asked.

Jack frowned. “I did. How did you—?”

“The wind,” she said, as if he should remember how it gossiped. “Did my cousin tell you about the two lasses who have gone missing?”

“Yes. But he didn’t provide much detail, other than that he believes the spirits are at fault.”

Adaira glanced across the room, her face solemn. “Two weeks ago, eight-year-old Eliza Elliott went missing on her walk home from school. We searched acres of land, from the school to her family’s croft, but we found little trace of her. Only a few places in the grass and heather, where it looked like she walked, only to vanish.” She paused, her eyes returning to his. “I’m sure you remember the ways of the isle, Jack.”

He did.

He remembered the perks as well as the dangers of straying from Cadence roads. The roads were pathways that resisted enchantments. The spirits couldn’t influence the roads, but they could toy with the grass and rocks and wind and water and trees of the isle. They could turn three hills into one, and one hill into four, but even then, there were ways of knowing the lay of the land, and which parts of it were prone to shift, and which landmarks remained fixed. Many children who didn’t know that secret map had gotten lost for hours if they wandered from the road.

“You believe the folk have tricked her?” Jack questioned.

Adaira nodded. “Not a week after her disappearance, another lass went missing. Annabel Ranald. Her mother says she went to tend to the sheep one afternoon and never returned. She is only ten years old. And we searched all the way to the northern coast. We searched their croft, every cave and loch, the hills and the glens, but there is no sign of her, save for a trail in a patch of heather that ends abruptly. As it was with Eliza’s disappearance, like a portal had opened to them.”

Jack raked his hand through his hair. “This is troubling, and I’m sorry to hear of it. But I don’t know how I can help in this endeavor.”

Adaira hesitated. “What I am about to tell you must remain between us, Jack. Do you agree to hold this confidence?”

“I agree.”

And yet she still faltered, doubtful. It irked him, and he said, “You don’t trust me?”

“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have called you home for this,” she countered.

He waited, all of his attention bent upon her, and she released a deep sigh.