Page 105 of Threadbound

And Bran hated it. He also had no idea why it was happening or what to do about it.

The Sluagh cleared his throat and tried to ask a benign question. “And what does your book say to do with it?”

Jamie answered immediately, the tension beginning to leave his voice. “Add it to a bunch of other things—hyssop, elderflower, milk, honey, blood, and bread. And one or two herbs more, I think. And a few other ingredients. Gold. Pearl.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t remember what I’m supposed to do with it after that.” Jamie still sounded a little resentful, but his natural curiosity was coming through.

Bran wasn’t familiar with anything that used that particular mix—but that made a certain amount of sense, he supposed, given that it was a human book and a human recipe. Well, a partially-human recipe. That, too, raised questions, and Bran found himself caught up by Jamie’s curiosity. “Where did you find this book?” he asked.

“The library,” Jamie answered with a slight shrug. “At the university. I think the librarian said it came in with a bunch of donated books that hadn’t been catalogued or scanned yet.” Jamie was clearly warming up to his subject, and his lightening tone eased some of Bran’s tension. “I asked if they had anything medieval or early modern that might be an herbal or medical text, and that’s what she pointed me to.”

“The librarian?”

“Yeah. They’d done just a preliminary pass through the donation. I went through them again while I was trying to figure out whatthisthing—” He gestured at theanail an duine mhairbh.“—was. There were a couple other things from the same period. Just a prayer book and a psalter. Nothing else about herbs or medicine or magic.”

Then, oddly, Jamie’s cheeks turned a slight pink, which roused Bran’s curiosity.

“I—uh.” The half-breed swallowed. “Might have gone looking for some way to find you. After you went into the tree.”

“Crossed through the the Carraig Gate,” Bran corrected, almost absently, preoccupied by the fact that Jamie had wanted to find him after he’d been injured and had come back to Elfhame to be healed.

“The what?” Jamie asked.

Bran swallowed, then licked his lips, squinting against even the dappled brightness in the forest. “The Carraig Gate. It’s the closest Gate to Dunehame.”

“You call them Gates? The trees?”

Bran nodded. “Aye, although they’re not all trees. Many things can anchor a Gate from Elfhame to Dunehame. An archway. A tree. A door. The one in Greyfriars happens to be a tree.”

“Oh. Did someone have tomakeit a Gate? Or was it already there?”

“A bit of both, really,” Bran answered. “There are places where the worlds touch—where passing from one to the other is easier. Someone, most likely long, long ago, created a Gate to make it even simpler.”

“So youcould, in theory, just… pop between Elfhame and Edinburgh?—”

“Anywhere in Dunehame,” Bran corrected. “Aye. If you had enough strength of magic. But most people dinna have that, so some magus made a Gate so that it would take much less magic to move between our world and yours.”

“A magus? Like a… wizard? Or sorcerer?”

“Those are terms your people have used for us, aye.”

“Us? You’re a magus?”

Bran looked out into the flickering light and shadows of the forest. “I used to be, anyway. I’m… not sure if you could still call me such.”

“Because of the poison?” Jamie asked. “Or… because of me?” There was something sharp to the second set of words, something bitter, and it brought Bran’s head around to study Jamie’s tight features.

“Nothing you’ve done has harmed my magic,” Bran answered, although it wasn’t exactly a response to the question Jamie had asked. Because even in his irritable mood, Bran knew that Jamie wasn’t to blame for his failing magic and weakness—thegeàrd soilleir’s poison and his own stubborn stupidity were responsible, even if the latter had ultimately been caused by his tie to Jamie.

The expression Jamie turned on him was deeply skeptical. The problem with Jamie’s cleverness was that he knew when he was being told half-truths, and he didn’t like it.

“I haven’t helped it, either,” was what he said.

Bran sighed. “You have,” he replied. “Without the threadbond, I’d be in a much worse state.”

Jamie still looked uncertain, but he either accepted Bran’s answer or decided not to push it. Either way, Bran appreciated being done with the topic.

“So what do you know about this…anailthing?” Jamie asked him. “Other than the fact that it can raise the dead.”

Bran regarded the plant for a moment. “You dinna want to touch it with your bare hands,” he replied. The sap of theanail an duine mhairbhwas caustic, and while it wouldn’t cause a lot of damage just from a casual brush against the living plant, if it wasn’t washed off, it would eventually start to burn. Cutting the damn thing was far more dangerous—the sap would eat through skin in minutes, causing a raw sore that was extremely painful and difficult to heal.

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