“I’m no likely to forget it,” she said, her face darkening. Nor would she; that had been during Ian’s long dying, a terrible time for them all, but worst by far for her. He hated to bring it back to her, even for a moment, but couldn’t think how else to begin.

“Ye’ll remember, then, what Claire told ye all—about … where she came from.”

Jenny looked blankly at him, her mind clearly still shadowed by memories, but then she blinked, frowning.

“Aye …” she said cautiously. “Some taradiddle about stone circles and faeries, as I recall.”

“Aye, that’s the bit. Now—can ye maybe cast your mind back a bit further, to—to the time I was away in Paris, just before Da died?”

“I can,” she said tersely, glaring up at him. “But I dinna want to. Why are ye plaguing me wi’ that, of all things?”

He patted the air with his palm, urging her to hear him out.

“There was a man came to Lallybroch, looking for his kidnapped son. A dark-haired man, called Roger MacKenzie, from Lochalsh, he said. Do ye remember him?”

The sun was coming down, but there was plenty of light left to show him the blood draining from her face. She swallowed visibly and nodded, once.

“His wee lad was named Jeremiah,” she said. “I remember, because Da got a wee bawbee sent him from the garrison commander”—her lips compressed, and he kent she was thinking of Jack Randall—“and when the dark-haired man came back, Da gave it to him, and I heard Mr. MacKenzie talking to his friend later, and saying that it must have belonged to his own father, who was named Jeremiah, like … Jemmy. His son’s name was Jeremiah and they called him Jemmy.” She stopped talking and stared at him, her eyes round as three-penny bits. “Ye’re tellin’ me your grandson is that Jemmy, and the dark-haired man is …”

“I am,” he said, and let his breath out.

She sat down again, very slowly.

He let her alone, remembering all too well the mix of incredulity, bewilderment, and fear that he’d felt when Claire, battered and hysterical after he’d rescued her from the witch trial in Cranesmuir, had finally told him what she was.

He also remembered vividly what he’d said at the time. “It would ha’ been easier if ye’d only been a witch.” That made him smile, and he squatted down in front of his sister.

“Aye, I ken,” he said to her. “But it’s no really different than if they’d come from … Spain, maybe. Or Timbuktu, say.”

She darted a sharp look at him and snorted, but her hands—clenched in her lap—relaxed.

“So the way of it is that Roger Mac and Brianna were each of them at Lallybroch—then. Ye met Brianna when she came to find us. But ye’d met Roger Mac years earlier, looking for his wee lad. Brianna came again a bit later wi’ the bairns, looking for Roger. Ye didna meet her then, but she saw Da.”