Page 68 of Broken Veil
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They passed a colorful penny tree and turned right to climb the wooden stile over the stacked stone wall that bordered Duncan’s cottage.
“This is your house here?” Laura’s voice was delighted. “I’m so jealous. I don’t have a house in California. Well, not on the other side of the gate.”
Duncan frowned. “Why not? You’re a messenger, right? Like a diplomat? You have more of a role here than I do.”
Laura shrugged. “I always sleep at Kere’s when I’m there.”
“I stay at the castle sometimes,” Duncan said. “But I like having my own space, and this is a little more… private.” He winked at Carys.
Carys’s cheeks burned at the memory of a few heated nights in Duncan’s cottage when the tension between them felt like it might set the thatch roof on fire.
“Auld Mags will have felt us coming,” Duncan said. “She always knows when I cross the gate.”
“Will I see her? Finally?” Carys turned to Laura. “Auld Mags is Duncan’s broonie.”
“Technically she belongs to the house,” he said. “Or the house belongs to her, to be more accurate. Most of the time I feel like I’m the one who’s intruding.”
Laura, Carys, and Duncan passed through a dense stand of rowan trees, and as they turned the corner, a low moo greeted them.
Carys looked up. “You got her a cow.”
There was a pretty brown cow munching on a few scattered flowers someone had thrown along the edge of the garden. She was wearing a straw hat that just covered the flop of long shaggy hair falling over her eyes.
“Ladies, meet Daisy.”
“Daisy!” Laura was in raptures. “Look at her.”
The cow trotted over and bumped Duncan’s arm with her head. “She has a little one about somewhere.” He craned his neck. “Come on now, lad.”
There was a tumbling sound from behind the woodpile, and then a shaggy-headed calf with a white star on his forehead popped his head up and bleated a bright, small moo.
“Oh my god, I could die.” Laura pressed her hands together. “I want one.”
“I know. It looks like a fairy tale.” Carys patted Daisy’s side. “This whole place is like one of my?—”
“Your mom’s paintings!” Laura’s voice rose. “Oh my god! It so is.”
“Auld Mags won’t come out until night,” Duncan said. “So we should probably freshen up, grab some milk, then head to the forge.”
“Milk?”
Carys nodded. “That’s partly why Daisy comes in handy.”
Walkingto the forge where they would meet Angus, Carys held a clay pitcher of fresh milk, and Laura had gathered a small bouquet of snowbells, daffodils, and a large clutch of bluebells under Carys’s direction.
Duncan was holding a hefty bag nearly tearing at the seams. “Copper,” he said bluntly. “Old copper wire. He loves messing about with it.”
“Okay.” Laura nodded slowly.
“So Angus is an ùruisg,” Duncan explained, “which I always thought was some kind of fae, but Carys and the dragon tell me I’m mistaken, and obviously they’re right, because he and I have…” Duncan cleared his throat and looked at the arched trees overhead. “I’ll tell you later.”
They had forged dragon steel, her boyfriend, her dragon, and the mysterious ùruisg who spoke in any language.
They walked through a forest and then down into a grotto-type area lined with stone where a small bridge crossed a brook of cold, tumbling water that danced over the rocks, singing along with the birds in the filtered light under the trees.
Laura noticed the difference as soon as they crossed the bridge. “No birds.”
