The priestess’s eyes lit up. “You mean a secret love letter? That kind of note?”

“Can you do it?” Callista repeated.

The girl bit the tip of her finger as she thought. “I heard whispers he’s being held in the north tower. That’s usually Sister Lissa’s domain, but I can manage easy enough.”

“Callista, what are you planning?” Katherine asked, an uneasy look on her face.

“I can’t allow David to be locked away forever because of me. I need to see him. Need to let him know . . .” She shook her head. “I need him. That’s all. I need him.”

Sister Clara jumped to her feet. “You write the note, miss. I’ll deliver it.”

Callista sat down at the desk. Stared long and hard out the narrow window onto the busy yard below, where sisters in gray moved about their daily chores, a herd of cows was being shepherded by a girl in a kirtle and apron, and a boy was riding a mule with a dog at his side. Riders streamed in through the fortress gate, with nothing about them to signal who they were but for the swords at their hips, the daggers at their belts, and the stern looks in their hard faces—Amhas-draoi. Scathach’s warriors. Guardians of the divide between human and Fey. Was this the beginning of the war Gray and the Duncallans feared?

With a shiver, she bent pen to paper in a frightened scribble and prayed David would come.

* * *

“Callista? Are you down here?” David’s footsteps and voice echoed against the brick walls as he stepped off into a long room lit only by high slitted vents, a welcome breeze riffling down to stir the hairs at the back of his neck. Otherwise, the air hung heavy and damp against his skin. Stone benches ran the perimeter of the room, rounded and softened by thousands of years of use. High buttresses of intricately carved marble rose and then were lost in the dark of the ceiling, while steps to his left descended into a murky green pool.

He knelt and dipped his hand in the water. Pleasantly hot. Horribly stinky. And bitter on his tongue. He splashed it on his face to relieve his faint dizziness; let it trickle under his collar to ease the fever heat and the tightening and cramping of his muscles. Too much magic. Too small a space. It was like having every nerve plucked and every breath laced with needles. His brain hummed while his flesh crawled. He doused his head with another handful. Slapped his wet hair off his face with a flick of his neck and closed his eyes until the worst passed. Felt a hand on his shoulder.

He wheeled around, reaching for the dagger that wasn’t there, his body a live fuse.

“David, it’s me.”

He breathed a silent prayer to the Mother. Callista. Whole. Unharmed. A few shadows that hadn’t been there before. A strain in her face and around her eyes, but otherwise untouched. He could take solace knowing that whatever else happened, Corey had failed. The door to death would not swing open. Callista would not be the key to the king of the stews becoming the king of the world.

“Orneai aimara,” he said in the language of the ancients. “My beautiful.” He cupped her face in his hands and drank in a deep thirst-quenching kiss, his body alive now with more than sickness.

“You’re ill. And burning with fever.”

“It’s nothing.”

She gave a small shake of her head, but otherwise didn’t argue. Instead she gripped his arms, her gaze clear, though he saw the fear lurking just beneath the surface. “I wasn’t certain you’d get my note . . . or if you’d be able to come.”

“I’ve offered my parole. I’m free to move about the fortress as long as I don’t attempt to leave. Your aunt is playing nice for the moment.”

“For the moment is well and good, but you need to escape before they change their minds. Sister Clara can smuggle you out when she goes to visit her mother tomorrow at dawn. She thinks you’re brilliant and our story’s a romantic adventure straight out of Sir Walter Scott.”

“Did any of those stories end well?”

“Don’t joke, David. The Amhas-draoi will never let you go. They’ll hold you captive until they pull every last secret of the Imnada out of you. Then they’ll go after the clans. You have to run while you can.”

“I thought you didn’t want me running.”

“It’s different now. Didn’t you say this place was the heart of the enemy? That you’d never be caught within its walls?”

He took her hands. Brushed a kiss upon her forehead. “Don’t fear for me, Callista. As long as I’m their only connection to the Imnada, they’ll treat me with respect.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he placed a finger on her lips. “To show their good faith, the commander of the garrison sent men to search for Corey and your brother. An army of dead ravaging Great Britain is in no one’s interest, shapechanger or Fey-blood.”

She molded herself against him, the leap of her pulse in her throat and the catch of her breath making his own body respond.

“You’re finally free, my love. No longer forced to hide. You can find a life anywhere and be anyone you wish to be.”

“With you?” she asked.

He couldn’t keep the sorrow from his gaze. It reflected back to him in the dark of her eyes.

“I meant what I said to my aunt, David. Every syllable. I love you.”

“Then unsay it. Take it back and never think on it again.”

“Love doesn’t work that way.”

“I did what I set out to do, Callista. The book is safe with Gray. You’re safe from Corey. And Beskin is a frozen corpse. I can die a happy man.”

She frowned. “Stop it. Stop talking that way. There are other convents and other priestesses. We’ll search them out. Scour their libraries and their archives. Find a bandraoi more powerful than any living here and convince them to help, but you need to escape before it’s too late.”

“Is this what the spirits have shown you? Is this my future?”

Anger flashed in her face. “The spirits know nothing.”

“You saw my death, didn’t you?” he asked. She did not deny it, but there was a stiffening of her body and she slid her gaze to the wall behind him. “You saw your death as well, didn’t you?”

“Prophecies are not fact,” she argued.

“Why ask the question if you won’t believe the answer?”

“To change the answer. I’ve stepped from the path once. I can do it again.”

He pushed a curl behind her ear, caressed the curve of her cheek. “You make me almost believe.”

“I won’t stop trying until you do.” She pulled him down to her, her kiss sweet with sherry. Her tongue dipped to taste, her teeth nibbled at his lip. He drank her in, the scent of her hair and her skin, the honey warmth of her mouth. She answered with a rising passion, her back arching as she melted into his touch.

Then, just as suddenly, she stepped clear of his arms. Holding his gaze, she unbuttoned the ugly brown wool gown they had given her and let it fall to the bricks. Slowly, sensuously, she untied the prim ribbons of her chemise, drew one arm free and then the other, and the slip of cotton soon joined the gown as a puddle at her feet.

Her skin glowed pink and silver, golden and white as milk. The heat from the baths moistened her breasts, a trickle of sweat sliding into the valley between them. Her dark hair curled over her shoulders in the humid air, little ringlets damp against her forehead and temple.

She passed him, hips swaying with just a hint of come-hither sensuality, the earthy scents of sex mingling with the mineral tang of the baths. Stepped into the murky water, a slow step at a time. It lapped at her ankles, her knees, the junction between her legs.

A smile lit her face, and she slapped at the surface of the pool, sending spray to douse him. “Wake up!”

He answered her smile with an encouraging grin. “Minx.” Shed his clothing, pausing upon the top step, his need for her evident. “Where’s the shy maiden who knew nothing of kisses and shrank from my touch?

“I left part of her in a closet in Cumberland Place, another piece in a wagon between Grantham and Newcastle, and finally shed her in a castle bed high above the North Sea.”

He descended into the bath, dropped below the water, letting it wash away his last hesitation. He surfaced with a flick of water from his face to find her molten gaze devouring him as if he were a confection. “Much warmer than that creek.”

She took his hands. “You didn’t touch me then.”

“I wanted to.”

“Touch me now.”

“Gladly.”

He lapped at her skin, sucking the water from her shoulders, her collarbone, her breasts; took her nipples in his mouth and suckled until they hardened under his tongue. His hands moved in the water, gliding over hips and the flat of her stomach, touching the brush between her legs, the cleft of her mound. She gasped, the water moving with them, stirred by their desire.

She guided him inside her, the dark wrapping close around them, the damp air warm in their lungs, dripping down their cheeks, silvering their hair. He held her, feeling her close around him, sheathed tight inside her. He made no move. And then slowly . . . very slowly he withdrew and plunged deep again. Each stroke a torture. Each thrust dragging him closer to the edge. He locked his gaze with hers, dilated pupils and parted lips, clawing fingernails and wet skin. Her pleasure aroused him further until lightning licked along every raw nerve.

This was the end between them. He tried to console himself. She was not the first woman he had walked away from without a backward glance. Yet his heart ached as he pictured the future that might have been theirs, the family they might have had, the life they might have lived. And for the first time, David felt an irresistible urge to fight tooth and claw against his fate rather than resign himself to the inevitable. Because, for the first time, he had someone worth fighting for.