“No, Jack. You are perfect. Although I must dress you in better garments!” She laughed in delight. “I’m so surprised to see you. I wasn’t expecting you to visit until you had finished your teaching assistance. What brings you home?”

“I was summoned by the laird,” Jack replied. Not quite a lie, but he didn’t want to bring up Adaira yet.

“That is good of you, Jack. Come in, come in,” she beckoned. “It looks like the storm caught you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I got lost on the way here, or else I would have arrived sooner.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t travel by hill for a while,” Mirin said, shutting the door behind him.

Jack only snorted.

It was strange how his mother’s cottage hadn’t changed. It looked exactly the way it had the day he left.

The loom still commanded the main chamber. It had been here before the cottage, the loom built from timber harvested from the nearby Aithwood. Jack’s attention drifted away from it, touching the stretch of rug made of woven grass, the clutter of mismatched furniture, the baskets of dyed yarn and folds of freshly woven plaids and shawls. The hearth was adorned with a chain of dried flowers and a family of silver candlesticks. A cauldron of soup simmered over the fire. The ceiling rafters were dappled from Jack’s slingshot; he looked up at the small dents in the wooden beams and fondly remembered how he had sprawled on the hassock, shooting at the ceiling with river stones.

“Jack,” Mirin said, stifling a cough.

The sound of that wet cough roused bad memories for Jack, and he looked at her. She was wringing her hands; her face suddenly looked pale in the firelight.

“What is it, Mum?”

He watched her swallow. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” Mirin paused, glancing at his old bedroom door, which was closed. “Come out, Frae.”

Jack was frozen as he watched the bedchamber door swing open. Out walked a young lass, barefoot and shyly beaming, her long auburn hair tamed by two braids.

Jack’s initial thought was that she was Mirin’s apprentice. But the girl came right to Mirin, wrapping her arms around his mother in a terribly familiar way. The little stranger smiled up at Jack, her eyes brightly curious.

No. No, this cannot be . . . His heart beat wildly with shock the longer he beheld the lass.

His gaze rose to Mirin. His mother was unable to hold his stare; her hand trembled as she stroked the girl’s copper braids.

And then came her words, words that pierced Jack like a sword, and it took everything within him not to double over as Mirin said, “Jack? This is your younger sister, Fraedah.”

Chapter 4

Jack’s bones were leaden as he stared at the girl, his sister—his sister—and somehow managed to say, “It’s nice to meet you, Fraedah. I’m Jack.”