Page 194 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“He was going to kill you.”
“I know.”
Her chin quivered as she tried to remain strong, but then something in her expression broke, and she fell into fresh sobs that racked her body.
I buckled under her embrace, and Ciarán steadied me. Familiar strawberry curls rushed to Orla’s side to help her back to the table.
“Sabrina?” I asked.
Sabrina’s head snapped towards me, and her eyes, black and orange like Ciarán’s, caught me off guard.
“My Lady Saergrim.” She knelt down on one knee. As if that wasn’t mortifying enough, several others in the room followed suit.
“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t do that. You tried to shoot me.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” she growled, and I got the sense she loved kneeling for me just as much as I loved being kneeled for.
“What are you doing out of bed, girl?” One of the few who hadn’t knelt bustled over. “Ciarán, you should have called me.”
The woman’s floor length robes of leather and fur weren’t something she’d ever worn in Keel Watch, but the sharp nose and chin were unmistakable.
“Sarah?” I asked.
“It’s pronounced Sorcha here.” Sarah prodded at my side, and I yelped in pain. “Back up the stairs with you. Ciarán, you might have to carry her.”
“I want my grandmother,” I pressed. “Where is she?”
“Ethel is fine,” Sarah grunted.
Ciarán tried to lead me away, but I held a hand up.
“You called her Ethel,” I said.
“All those decades, and all those Nightmares in Keel Watch Harbor.” Sarah smirked. “One of us was bound to be lucid.”
“Two of us.” The other woman still stood over the pot of stew. She waved the dripping ladle at me. The white hair she kept so short in Keel Watch was long and braided into a crown that wrapped around her head here. “And who else was going to keep Ethel updated on Skalterra?”
“Gladys?” I asked.
“Aoife is my name here, my Lady.” She shuffled over and shoved a horn full of steaming red liquid into my hands. She nodded to a man standing by the hearth. “And that’s Ronan, but you know him already too.”
Ronan, who looked an awful lot like Mr. Ronald Lane the Librarian, bowed his head to me.
“Please, sit. Drink.” Aoife-Gladys pointed to Orla’s table. “You’ll feel better.”
“I’ll feel better when someone tells me where my grandmother is.”
Sarah, or Sorcha, frowned.
“Go ahead then.” She shrugged at Ciarán. “Show her. And then it’s straight back upstairs. I don’t care whose granddaughter you are. You have a fever.”
“Show me what?” I demanded. Ciarán helped me forward to the low-framed door past the tables.
Night was heavy outside, but the stars shined bright in the bitter cold. I still didn’t have shoes on, and I held Ciarán’s cloak tighter around my shoulders as I stepped out onto the snow-covered path.
Despite the clear night, thunder rolled in the distance, and a sharp wind tugged at the cloak.
“Careful, Blue,” Ciarán murmured.
