Page 141 of First Light

“Hmm.” He glanced at the bed. “It took you a while to get to sleep.”

“I was tired, but I couldn’t make my brain shut off.”

“I never sleep well in unfamiliar places,” he muttered. “Don’t blame you. I think Cadell is sleeping on the roof.”

She looked over at Duncan. He was rumpled, his short hair mussed in the front and his beard tangled. He’d taken off his heavy wool sweater to sleep, and the shirt beneath it was open at the neck.

“Keep looking at me that way” —his voice rumbled like soft thunder— “and I’ll forget all my strict rules about patience.”

She looked away. “Sorry.”

“Remind you of him?”

“No.” She couldn’t say it fast enough. “I wouldn’t worry about my ever getting you and your brother confused.”

“I could say the same thing about you and Seren.”

She looked up. “That’s the point, right? Our Shadowkin are our secret selves. Our opposites. Theferaltwins.”

Duncan stepped closer. “Are they? Tell me, Carys Morgan, who’s the more feral? Lachlan or me?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She picked up an apple and the journal. “We should get going to the forge.”

The úruisg staredat the journal that Carys held out, examining the ruined pages. “It was thrown in the loch.”

“Possibly,” Carys said.

“No, definitely.”

“Can you make it readable?”

“Can Epona revive her daughters?”

Carys narrowed her eyes. “Yes?”

Angus shook his head. “That was a rhetorical question, Brightkin. But one you should think about.” He snapped the book closed and handed it back to her. “Here.”

“You’re not going to translate it for me?”

“I did.” Angus trod on his graceful goat legs over to Duncan. “The dragon isn’t with her.”

Carys immediately flipped open the journal, then closed it when she recognized the words. She didn’t want to be rude and read in front of them.

Well, shewantedto, but she wouldn’t. Duncan had warned her that úruisg were easily offended, so she didn’t want to chance it.

“Carys is safe with me right now, and being human tires Cadell.” Duncan was plucking hammers from the wall and hanging them in different places. “Why do you live to irritate me?”

“Because you put them in the wrong places.” Angus snatched a wooden tool from Duncan’s hand. “Stop playing with my forming hammers.”

“This ismyforge, Angus.”

“Of course it is.” The úruisg hung the wooden hammer back on the wall. “And I organize it for you.”

Duncan muttered something under his breath.

Carys tried to be polite. “How is the progress on the sword? Is it… swordlike?”

Angus stared at her through his ropy grey hair. “You’re an odd human. I’ll be finished soon. The blade is done.”

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