Page 89 of Savage Blooms
“We tried that in the eighteenth century,” Eileen said. “The boulders mysteriously came loose during the night and rolled down the hill towards the house, damaging the east wing.”
“What about negotiating the contract?” Nicola asked. “Has anyone ever tried that?”
“Yes, a Kirkfoyle tried in the 1920s. He went out to the cave with every mind to make peace and was never heard from again.”
“Nobody inside that cave has any interest in peace,” Finley said.
“Why should they?” Eileen scoffed. “Legend has it they live for centuries. Why lift a finger to make amends when they can just wait my family out while we drop like flies?”
A somber atmosphere settled over the room, and Eileen glowered down at her hands. Suddenly, Adam slapped his thighs and shot to his feet, as though he couldn’t bear to sit for a moment longer.
“I need air, and I need to think. I’m going into town.”
“Not alone you aren’t,” Eileen said. “Finley, you’re with him.”
“I don’t need a chaperone,” Adam replied.
“Regardless, it’s too dangerous for you to wander around alone. Do you really want to face whatever bit you out at the cave, or whatever grabbed you in the loch, again, alone? They can cause you plenty of distress without touching you, iron ring or no.”
Adam fell silent at that.
“I need to stretch my legs anyway,” Finley said, pulling himself to his feet. “And I won’t say no to a porter from the pub. Adam, mind some company?”
“Not if you buy the first round,” Adam said, arching a playful eyebrow. Finley smiled back, and Eileen once again noticed the way the air between them sometimes warmed, heated by barely hidden flirtation.
“Godspeed,” she said, surrendering herself to whatever the night may hold. “And good luck.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Adam
Adam and Finley squeezed into a table in the darkest corner of the Hound and Grouse, knees jostling against each other. Adam hadn’t been at Craigmar long but he already felt the place rooting down inside him, filling his chest with gorse flowers and creeping thistle. It wasn’t home to him, but he felt strangely unsteady even a few miles away from the house, as though he had forgotten how to exist in a world beyond the boundaries of its sultry magic. He had convinced himself Craigmar was the fantasy world, but now he realized that it was only at Craigmar that he felt truly real. That the shadows of the pub swirled in the corners of his vision as though in a dream.
Finley started them off with two porters in sweating glasses, setting them down on the table with a decisivethumpthat roused Adam from his thoughts.
“Cheers,” Finley said.
“Sláinte,” Adam replied, clinking their glasses together.
“Nice accent. You’re going native.”
Adam took a long pull of his beer before replying.
“Just trying to keep up with you and Eileen.”
They drank in awkward silence for a few more moments, disappearing half a beer each, and then Finley leaned across the table, crossing his hands on the wood. His iron earrings glinted in the firelight, a reminder of the debt they all had to pay to Craigmar, to its wild magic. Adam’s iron ring chafed against his skin. He had asked Eileen once, over a late lunch of croissant sandwiches in the library, why Finley wore iron so faithfully if he wasn’t a Kirkfoyle. Eileen’s eyes had clouded over with emotion, and she had muttered something about faeries delighting in robbing Kirkfoyles of whatever it was they cared for most. Her response had confused him then. Now, Adam was starting to understand.
“I didn’t thank you properly,” Adam said eventually. “For pulling me out of the water.”
“It was nothing,” Finley said, shrugging one shoulder. “It was the decent thing to do.”
“It was the thing for a decentpersonto do,” Adam corrected.
Finley tugged on his lip with his teeth, looking away. He always broke eye contact when Adam got too serious with him, or looked at him too hard. “Thanks,” he said eventually.
They drained their first beers quickly and Finleydisappeared to produce a second round. When he returned to the table, his face was lit up with delight.
“She says it’s on the house,” he said, nodding over his shoulder at the pretty red-headed bartender with well-worn smile lines who was running the show that night. She was probably ten years older than Adam, freckled and tall. “She says it’s because you’re easy on the eyes.”
