I HAD COME up to our bedroom—after providing Jamie and Mr. Cloudtree with a plate of rolls stuffed with cheese and my backwoods version of Branston pickle—but I was in no mood for sleep. My backbone had gone cold at Aaron’s story and hadn’t thawed a bit, though my innards were pulsing with an angry heat.

I’d been trying to distract my mind by reading The Two Towers, which Jamie had left by the bed, but kept imagining Captain Cunningham as Shelob in a gold-laced hat and wondering whether I might nickname my syringe Sting.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I muttered, putting the book aside and flouncing out of bed. The floor was cold underfoot, but I didn’t care. I paced round the room like a dog in a kennel, fuming. I did realize that I was stoking my anger in order not to be overwhelmed by fright, but it was a losing battle. How the bloody hell was I going to look Elspeth Cunningham in the face? I was bound to see her on Sunday, if not before. Bunking off church wouldn’t help; if she thought I was ill, she’d be round promptly to dose me.

Did she know what the captain was up to? I wondered, stepping over Adso, who was stretched out on his side on the rag rug in front of the hearth, flattened in sleep. If she did—what might she do?

Likely nothing. She’d warned me, after all. And I’d warned her.

A burning stick broke in the hearth with a sharp crack and sparks sprayed up in a tiny fountain. A few caught in the fire screen Bree had made, glowing red for an instant before dying. The cat twitched an ear, but remained unperturbed.

I felt, rather than heard, the front door closing: a muffled vibration through the bones of the house. Aaron Cloudtree was gone. I pulled my wrapper close and went downstairs, leaving Adso to mind the fire.

“DO YOU THINK this Scotchee can help?” I asked dubiously. Mr. Cloudtree had departed, full of whisky and pickle, with a sealed note—written in Gaelic and carefully unsigned, in case of interception or indiscretion—in his pocket, and we were sitting by the kitchen fire, sharing the rest of the whisky with the peace of the resting house around us. It was very late—perhaps two or three o’clock in the morning, judging from the deep, chilly stillness of the air outside—but neither of us wanted to go to bed.

“I dinna ken,” Jamie admitted. He rubbed both hands over his face, then shook his head, leaving his hair rumpled and flyaway, short hairs rising from his crown, red in the firelight. He yawned, blinked, and shook his head, more to dispel mental fog than to acknowledge onrushing sleep, I thought.