Page 127 of Threadbound

“Does that mean—” Jamie didn’t finish the question.

“Except that it’sAthairwho has been keeping him on the threshold of death.” Bran’s voice was heavy with despair.

“Athair?” Jamie repeated.

“It means father.”

“Ah.” Jamie kept gently stroking his fingers through Bran’s hair, the motion as much to soothe himself as to comfort Bran. He didn’t know how to ask his next question—so what will happen to the Holly King now?—without seeming callous.

Bran answered him anyway. “It’s just a question of time, now.” His voice broke. “They’re already—already dead. Just… still breathing.”

Jamie sucked in a breath.

Bran pulled back. “What?”

“Just—something someone said to me.”

“What?” Bran repeated.

“An old woman. Well,” he corrected himself. “Shelookedlike an old woman. She said to me that I would help the breathing dead men.”

Bran pulled back farther, and his green eyes were wide. “TheBean Nighe?”

“She said that’s what people called her, yeah.”

“She said you would ‘help the breathing dead men’? Those exact words?” Bran was a little breathless and oddly excited.

“Yes?”

“Did she say what that meant?” Bran asked.

“No,” Jamie replied. “But it’s weirdly close to the name of that stupid recipe?—”

“Lugh damn it, of course it is!” Bran pulled away from him and began to pace. Then he stopped and turned back toward Jamie, his green eyes bright. “Habetrot and Taranis bless it—that recipe.” He paused, his eyes searching Jamie’s. “Jamie, what does itdo?”

Jamie shook his head. “I don’t know. Only that it’s called aDraught for the Breathing Dead.”

“Withanail an duine mhairbh… andseudan a ainnir.”

Bran had said, when they’d found the plant, that it could raise the dead. And another of the Elfhame herbs—the maiden’s jewels—was an antidote.

“You don’t suppose…” Jamie stopped himself from asking the question.

“Whatexactlydid theBean Nighesay to you?” Bran demanded, crossing the room again and gripping Jamie’s arms so tightly he thought the fae might leave bruises. He didn’t complain—he repeated everything he could remember about his encounter with the crone.

“Jamie,” Bran said when Jamie had finished, his voice urgent and tense. “We have to try.”

Chapter

Forty-Four

Bran had awakened Iolair, one of his brothers, to tell him that they were going back to Dunehame. There had been an argument, although held in low tones that Jamie hadn’t been able to follow. Bran had snapped something about being useful rather than standing a deathwatch, and then he’d stormed from the room, leaving Jamie to follow.

He’d caught up to Bran in the corridor, his long legs easily able to close the distance, despite the speed of Bran’s stride. But Jamie didn’t know what to say, so he kept his thoughts to himself—his worries that they were going to try to brew the recipe and something would go wrong, that they wouldn’t be able to make it at all, or that they’d succeed, but that the resulting potion wouldn’t do what they hoped it would.

Jamie followed Bran back to his rooms—he hadn’t known it, but Jamie been taken to Bran’s rooms, although he wasn’t certain if that was because they were bondmates or if it was somehow obvious to the Sluagh that they were… what? Dating? A couple? Bran had agreed that he wanted more than just casual sex, but they hadn’t actually talked about what their relationshipwas, or on what terms they were in it.

Now was definitely not the time to bring that up for discussion.

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