Merida came forward, her white hair swooped around her head. She stared hard into Ella’s eyes as if searching for secrets, and then her gaze moved along Ella’s face. “I lived with Alec Sutherland for ten years before driving him mad enough to send me away.” The woman was known as an insane witch at Dunrobin. Many older maids passed the sign of the cross before them whenever she was mentioned.

Merida caught her wispy hair together and moved it to one side, turning around. On the nape of her neck was a brand, a wild cat, clan crest of Sutherland. She dropped her hair and turned back, her mouth quirked. “He liked to mark his property, did he not?”

Ella’s fingers moved, without thought, to her own scar that marked her as her father’s possession. She swallowed hard, remembering the searing pain that came with the burn as his trusted men held her down. She was only seventeen when she’d picked the lock on her bedroom door to find Jamie and flee the brutality that surrounded her at Dunrobin. But she’d been caught, and her father had branded her with the Sutherland crest in punishment. Ye are mine. Wherever ye go. His words still haunted her.

“That does not mean you wish me well,” Ella said softly.

“True,” Merida said, nodding. She tipped her head back and forth as if weighing her words. “Trust needs to be earned, and that takes time. Outward appearances are not always truth.” She grinned. “As ye have surely heard about my time at Dunrobin. The masks men and women wear for the world can be quite the opposite of what lies in a person’s heart.”

“I have no interest in knowing what lies in Sinclair hearts. I will not be at Girnigoe long enough to confirm the evil that lurks here.” Either she would escape, die trying, or be executed by Cain’s brother, Bàs. But she wasn’t planning to stay long.

Merida’s grin increased to show her little teeth. “We will see,” she said knowingly, and a chill ran up Ella’s arms. If the woman truly had the sight to see the future, would she know when and how Ella would try to escape?

The door clicked shut behind her, and Ella heard a second key turn in the large iron lock. Who else had a key to the room? There was no board to place across the door and nothing of weight enough to shove against it.