“Oh, pardon, milady,” Thomas said from where he stood at the open door, his eyes going wide. She tucked the knight in the folds of her skirt and marched toward him. He flattened himself against the curved stone wall as best he could as she brushed past to hike to her small tower room.

…

“And ye told her that no more food would be coming up to her?” Cain asked Merida.

“Aye. The stubborn lass has heard it from Hannah, Thomas, and me. For three days now, she says only thank ye and lets her cat out or back in. The little puss definitely knows where it sleeps.”

“She did ask for a bit of parchment and ink,” Hannah whispered, her eyes downcast. “I brought her some.”

“Did she give ye a letter for us to take to her steward at Dunrobin?” Cain asked.

Hannah shook her head no, her face turning red as she fished something from the folds in her skirts. “She asked me to give ye this.”

“When?” Cain asked, holding out his hand.

Hannah dropped a small object wrapped in a scrap of bed linen into his palm. “This morn.”

“A gift?” Joshua asked, standing from the table to get a better view. Since Gideon had left for Edinburgh, his second brother was spending more time in the great hall, annoying Cain.

“I do not think ye will like it,” Hannah said, her fingernails pinching at her bottom lip.

Cain unwrapped the linen and out tumbled a chess piece. It was the white knight from his father’s chessboard above, the one Ella had decided represented him when he’d found her hiding on the ceiling beams. With his chess-playing brother, Gideon, gone to Edinburgh, he hadn’t noticed it missing.

The piece had the same markings about it, but it felt different, lighter. Hannah stood with her hand over her mouth as Joshua and Merida leaned closer.

“Did she maim it?” Joshua asked.

“I do not see anything wrong with it,” Merida said.

“Look on the bottom,” Hannah squeaked.

Cain turned it over to find the entire bottom of the wooden chess piece gone, as if she had spent hours delicately slicing away the inside of the horse without harming the outside. He held it up to look in the hole and saw a small scrap of parchment folded. Plucking it out, he smoothed the creases to read the one word that she had penned onto it.

“Hollow,” Joshua read over his shoulder and chuckled lightly. His hand came down hard on Cain’s shoulder. “She is calling ye hollow, dear brother.”