Page 110 of Threadbound

He did want to go home for himself, too. Because Edinburgh was the first place he’d felt like he could belong—and Elfhame definitely didn’t feel that way.

“There are always problems,” is what he finally said out loud. “No matter where you are. But at least that’s home.” And then Jamie cursed inwardly as Bran’s expression clouded.

“I—I can take you back,” the fae said softly, and the heaviness in his tone made Jamie wonder if maybe Bran actually wantedhim to stay. Then the fae shifted, pushing himself to his feet. “Will tomorrow be soon enough?” Bran asked, and whatever Jamie’d thought he heard in Bran’s tone was gone.

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed, mingled excitement and disappointment churning together in his gut. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Bran nodded once. “Verra well. I will see you after dark, then.” And the fae walked out, leaving Jamie to scribble down whatever other notes he could before heading back to his rooms to pull together the few things he considered his.

Bran ledthe way back down the pathway, trying to ignore both the weight in his chest and the sound of Jamie talking to thegealach marcaichethat he’d named ‘Patch.’ Bran hadn’t told him that no one ever named agealach marcaiche, partly because Jamie seemed so fond of the damn thing, and partly because he’d never seen one actually attach itself to someone the way this one had. Maybe it liked having a name.

Bran also couldn’t blame the damn thing for clinging to Jamie. He’d done the same himself, and he hadn’t evenwantedto. He’d tried his bestnotto be, and yet here they were, threadbound.

Then again, he was walking Jamie back to the Carraig Gate so that the half-breed could return to Dunehame.

Bran wasn’t surprised that Jamie wanted to go home. He wasn’t really disappointed, either—not about Jamie wanting to go back to Dunehame. He had been at first, of course, but it made sense that Jamie would feel more comfortable in Edinburgh. Now Bran was disappointed that Jamie hadn’t expressed a desire for Bran to come with him. Or even visit.

In fact, Jamie was saying more to thegealach marcaichethan he had to Bran. And that also stung. So did the fact thatBran was fairly sure Jamie would miss Patch more than the half-breed would miss him.

Bran had no idea what had gone wrong. He’d been over the past few weeks again and again, trying to determine when the magnetism between them had turned to repulsion—at least on Jamie’s side. It was still definitely magnetism for Bran, who found himself annoyingly tongue-tied when in a room with Jamie, caught up in the web of his own emotions and unable to find the words he needed to smooth over the roughness that marred the space between them.

Bran suppressed a sigh as he climbed the hill leading up to the Gate, trying to ignore the leaden feeling in his legs. The threadbond had gone a long way to improving things—his magic was much more stable and steady, and simple spells no longer left him shaking, but if he’d expected to go back to the way he’d been at twenty-five before the threadbond had started leeching away his magic, he was sorely mistaken.

It was also possible that thegeàrd soilleir’s poisoned blade was responsible for Bran’s continued weakness, as his father and Maigdeann seemed to think. Bran wasn’t so certain. Yes, his magic felt more like it used to, but the magic still drained him far faster than it should have, and in addition to the exhaustion and weakness, he had occasional bouts of feeling feverish and dizzy, both of which he remembered clearly from before thegeàrdattack.

And perhaps the symptoms only persisted because of the poison, where they would not have without it, but they had no way of knowing. Which also meant that Bran had no way of knowing if his current failures as a warrior and magus were to be laid at the feet of the Sidhe King or his own sharp talons. If he were being honest with himself—which he’d been too often in recent days—it was probably both.

Either way, Bran knew that he was failing not only his people, his father, and his family, but also Jamie. Because Bran was under no illusions that the Sidhe King was going to be dissuaded from his murderous intent where Jamie was concerned just because they had completed the threadbond. If anything, it likely meant that Jamie could be in evenmoredanger.

Fear settled in his chest, hot and tight. He wanted to warn Jamie, to beg him to stay in Elfhame where he could be kept safe at the Court of Shades. But that wasn’t fair to Jamie. It was clear that the half-breed was still uncomfortable in Elfhame—that he felt as though he didn’t belong. And Bran wasn’t blind. He’d seen the looks that some of the other Sluagh at Court had shot in Jamie’s direction. Even the handful of Sidhe—like Maigdeann and his mother, Gaotha nì A’Mhuir—who lived at the Court of Shades were uncertain what to do either with or about Jamie Weaver.

He was clearly a creature of daylight—his inability to adjust to the nocturnal schedule of the Sluagh Court, his squeamishness about the casual violence of combat training, and his overall discomfort with the darker magics of the Sluagh were testament enough to that. But the Court would adjust, as it had to Gaotha, when Cairn mac Darach had brought her home as his bride a thousand years ago.

Not that Jamie was going to want to wait the several centuries it would take.

Which was another thing he hadn’t asked and Bran hadn’t mentioned. Now that he was threadbound to Bran, Jamie’s lifespan would slow and move at the same pace as that of any other fae. He would watch the people he loved in Dunehame age while staying—to their short-lived eyes—exactly the same age. And he would watch their children, and their children’s children do the same, if he stayed close enough.

It was that, the change in time, that drove most human threadbound to return, in time, to Elfhame. To beg to be brought back to a place where the people they knew aged as they did, instead of growing old and dying in the short span of a century.

Bran hadn’t had the heart to tell Jamie that the people he was returning for would die long before he would—assuming he survived the Sidhe King’s next attempts on his life.

Bran was going back with him. Not right at this moment—Jamie would object, loudly, and Bran both didn’t have the stomach for it and wasn’t going to listen anyway. It was because of him that Jamie was at risk, and that obligated him to keep Jamie safe, whether or not Jamie agreed.

Legs and lungs tight, Bran crested the top of Carraig Cnoc, the hilltop on which the Gate sat that led to the massive gnarled tree in Greyfriars Kirkyard. He paused beside the archway, stone and moss and twisted vines, that would give Jamie passage back to Dunehame. He didn’t turn around, although he heard Jamie’s feet come to a stop on the pathway behind him.

“Will—Will you take him?” Jamie asked, and Bran swallowed back the knot that had formed in his throat at the first word, wanting the question to have been different. Jamie was holding thegealach marcaiche, looking over its head at Bran. The creature’s ears were back, and it was clearly not happy. As though it understood something of what Jamie had been telling it.

“Aye,” Bran answered, even though he had no intention of staying in Elfhame more than a handful of days after Jamie left. He had a few things to take care of—his father to convince, for one. Not that he thought thegealach marcaichewould need caring for, since he was fairly certain the creature would fly off as soon as Jamie was gone. If not—well, that would be something else he’d have to figure out.

So he let Jamie coax Patch onto his much narrower shoulders, where the creature huddled uncomfortably, making small cries that Bran wasn’t sure Jamie could hear, but which broke his heart. Or maybe his heart was breaking anyway, and thegealach marcaichewas simply voicing what they both felt.

“Ready?” Bran asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Yeah,” Jamie answered, then flashed a smile that seemed uncertain, but still genuine. “Ready to go home.” There was satisfaction in his tone. Anticipation. What Bran didn’t hear was regret or hesitation.

So, with a nod, he began the spell that would open Carraig Gate, drawing magic from the ground, the sky, the twisted vines and moss and stone of the Gate itself. It was more difficult than it should have been, but not so much that he wouldn’t be able to walk back down the hill,gealach marcaicheon his shoulders.

Within the frame of the Gate, the air shimmered, rippling like water, the crests and troughs of the waves undulating between the greens of Elfhame and the grey stone and brown grass of the Kirkyard in winter, glass and steel rising beyond the stone walls. A tingle started on the back of Bran’s neck, but it was bearable. It also might have been thegealach marcaiche’s fur, but he couldn’t let himself be distracted by it.

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