Page 84 of Threadbound

Bran had seen no indication that Jamie had magic. But… The trow’s words now left him doubtful. Doubtful and afraid that he was losing even more of his own abilities. Even though he’dmade that decision—had decided to embrace madness and even death rather than complete the threadbond—Bran didn’t want either of those things to happen.

And now, it seemed, neither would. Not fully, anyway, although now Bran was concerned that he’d gone too long to be able to completely salvage his magic. It was worse to have changed his mind, to have given in to the desire to tie himself to Jamie, to selfishly shore up his own magic, to have subjected Jamie tothis—which Jamie was actually handling a bit better than Bran would have expected, although he wouldn’t call itwell—and not to have done so when it could have saved all of his magic, instead of the pathetic tatters that now remained.

Behind him, Bran heard Jamie make a small mewling sound, and he turned to find out why. Jamie had frozen in the middle of the pathway—given the circumstances, it wasn’t a bad choice, although Bran knew that there were just as many creatures in Elfhame for which freezing would have been catastrophic. But agealach marcaichewouldn’t hurt Jamie—couldn’t hurt him. Not that Jamie knew that.

As far as Jamie was concerned, a gigantic, fuzzy, flyingthinghad just landed on his chest.Gealach marcaichewere about the size of a house cat, but with six long limbs with wide-spread shallow claws to enable them to cling to trees or to the face of a sun-warmed wall. Their backs were soft and furry, and their rounded heads and wide bat-ears were feathered with long, pale greenish-grey fur. The part of them that was eerily beautiful were the iridescent wings that spread out on either side of the exposed bone of their spines, the pale dots on the moth-like wings echoing the gleam of bone in the moonlight.

Thegealach marcaichewere drawn to warmth—this one was pressed up against the heat of Jamie’s broad chest. A heat that Bran remembered being cradled against. One he wouldn’t mindbeing held against again. And then Jamie made another sound of distress, pulling Bran from his contemplation of Jamie’s pecs.

“It willna hurt you,” Bran told Jamie, taking pity on him. Jamie’s blue eyes—indigo in the darkness—were pleading. “It canna hurt you,” Bran clarified. “Thegealach marcaichedrink from thedubh blàth.”

“The…”

“I suppose the best translation would be… ink flower. They drink the nectar.”

Some of the tightness left Jamie’s shoulders. He didn’t relax, exactly, but he looked a little less terrified. “Will I hurt it if I try to get it… off?”

Bran couldn’t help the twitch of his lips. “They like to cling,” he replied. “And their wings are verra delicate.”

“Why me?” Jamie asked, and Bran smothered his amusement because Jamie still sounded genuinely distressed. Not terrified any more, but definitely not happy, either.

“They like warmth,” Bran replied. “And you are verra warm.”

Jamie’s cheeks flamed, and Bran felt his eyebrows rise in return. “I’m not that warm,” Jamie muttered.

“Warm enough for thegealach marcaiche,” Bran replied mildly, stepping forward to gently slide his hand under one graspy foot, the back of his fingers brushing against Jamie’s stomach as he tried to ease thegealachoff Jamie’s torso. The creature wasn’t cooperating, the finger-like feet of its other five limbs tightening in Jamie’s shirt even as Bran worked the one foot loose. Even given the circumstances, Bran couldn’t help smiling. “It likes you.” He couldn’t blame it for not wanting to let Jamie go.

Bran certainly didn’t.

That thought twisted the smile on his lips into a frown as guilt punched his stomach with nausea. Or perhaps the nauseacame from stress or his unpredictable magic. Either way, they needed to get moving.

Unlike thegealach. “Your new friend is not cooperating,” Bran observed.

“Um.”

“It canna hurt you and it willna try,” Bran reminded him. “Besides, they’re supposed to bring luck.”

“Oookay.” Jamie didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

Thegealachclung to Jamie the entire descent down the hillside and into the valley below as they threaded their way through a grove of birch trees, the moonlight creating bars of light between the shadows cast by the long, thin trunks.

As they emerged from the trees, Jamie made a small noise, and Bran turned to find that thegealachhad moved—crawling its way up his chest to perch on one broad shoulder.

Bran suppressed the smile that tried to slide across his lips. It was neither the time nor the place to tease Jamie about his nervousness around the creature, which turned its fuzzy head to study Bran with big black eyes. A long tongue slid out of its narrow mouth and licked at the skin on Jamie’s neck, causing the half-breed to jump.

“It likes the salt,” Bran told him.

“I thought it liked nectar,” Jamie countered, clearly nervous.

“Aye, that, too,” Bran replied. “But they also like salt—they go down to the shore to lick the stones at low tide.”

“You have an ocean here?” Jamie asked.

“Aye. You have oceans in Dunehame, so why shouldn’t we?”

“Is… everything the same here? You have an ocean where we do?” Even as he asked the question, Jamie realized that couldn’t be the case. The Gate they’d come through at the tree in the Kirkyard wasn’t on top of a steep, empty hill. While Edinburgh Castle was on a hill—a crag, to be specific—the Kirkyard wasn’t.

“No,” came Bran’s answer. “But our worlds have the same things—oceans and mountains and valleys?—”

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