“I’m glad ye approve,” Duncan said before chewing on his own leaf.
I didn’t just approve of the Doonian equivalent of gum; I heartily, emphatically
lauded
it — yes, that was the Doon-appropriate word — I
lauded
it with every cell in my body. Mouth open wide, I pursed my lips in a perfect O-shape and exhaled at Duncan.
He watched me — or more accurately, my mouth, with a slight frown. For a moment, his index finger brushed absently across his lower lip as he blinked at me. Then with a playful glint in his eyes, he exhaled back. I met his unspoken challenge by blasting him with another burst of minty air. Suddenly we were mere inches apart and laughing. Then abruptly as it started, the laughter stopped.
For a tiny eternity, we considered one another. I could sense the exact moment he started closing off, and grabbed his arm. “Last night is a little jumbled. Did you carry me here?”
Duncan quirked his lips into something half smile, half grimace. “Aye.”
“Up out of the ravine?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Elsie, who despite outward appearances was most likely as shocked as I was. “And down the side of a mountain.”
He nodded.
“Was I unconscious?”
“You were in and out. You hit your head pretty hard.”
That I remembered. “Did I say anything?”
He snickered. “You mumbled a fair bit.”
In addition to the nausea, I now had a sinking feeling. “What did I say?”
“You kept saying some lass named Mimi needed Roger and asking if we could jump over the moon.” He glanced away, a faint redness washing over his cheeks. “You also said Marius was an idiot. That he should’ve loved Eponine while he had the chance.”
Of course he’d pick up on my barely coherent
Les Mis
reference. If I remembered correctly, he kept a first edition written in French among his personal collection. “Well, he should have.”
Duncan leveled his gaze on me. “Marius had given his heart away. ’Twas impossible to have affection for some other lass, even if he wanted to.”
“Agree to disagree.” Of course he’d pick pretty, perfect Cosette’s side. ’Ponine was a work in progress, full of passion and life. She deserved more than to die in the rain in the arms of someone who could never be hers. “He fell in love with the wrong girl in the first place.”
His face was an inscrutable mask as he conceded, “Perhaps.”
He started to get up, and I stood alongside of him. “You saved my life last night. But I also saved yours.” Before he could remind me that he’d ordered me not to, I added, “In some cultures, we’d be bound to one another for life.”
Duncan opened his mouth, most likely to protest, but I cut him off. “What I’m saying is I owe you but you owe me too. So how about we call a truce?”
His eyebrows lifted, questioning my point and giving me the courage to continue. “I’d really like to put the past behind us and be friends.”
“Friends?” He tried the word on like he’d never heard it before. The soft rustle of barn animals filled the void as I
waited Duncan out. Finally, he smiled. “Aye, Mackenna. We can be friends.”
Acting on pure instinct, I hugged him. My hands slid around his chest like they were going home and I pulled him close. Instead of hugging me back, his hands stayed at his side. But he didn’t push me away either, which was progress. Baby steps, I reminded myself. Repairing the damage I’d caused would be a slow process. Unfortunately, patience had never been one of my virtues.
When I finally let go, Duncan began to gather our things. Amazingly, in all the chaos of the previous evening he’d managed to hang on to our bags. I bit back the need to apologize to him for having to heft me and my overstuffed luggage down the side of a mountain. Instead, I wondered aloud, “What time is it?”
“’Tis after noon.” His voice was still a little husky with sleep. “We should eat and get going.”
“Eat what? Hay? Or is there a farm nearby?” A farm would be fantastic. I could already smell the bacon. My mouth began to salivate anticipating fresh-baked bread, fried eggs, and coffee.
Duncan flashed me a self-satisfied grin. “This barn has a store of food, weapons, and useful sundries. We’ve got provisions stashed in stables all over Doon.”
“Because of your war games?”
“Training exercises,” he corrected as he walked to a long wooden chest built into the side of the barn and opened it. He reached inside and grabbed a sword, which he set on the hay bale next to the trunk, followed by a foot-long dagger, a smaller knife, a water pouch, and a green apple.
He also produced a new set of boots, and what looked like fresh clothes. When he was finished, he took the knife and began to slice the apple into quarters.
“Think you got enough weapons there?”
Nonplussed, he paused mid-slice. “Just three . . . A dagger, a sword, and this wee knife.”
“Oh, is that all?” I reached for the water pouch and masked my smirk by taking a long drink.
“Aye.” He looked at me plainly. “Do ye think I should carry more?”
“More?” I wasn’t sure what else he could possibly want — an Uzi or submachine gun maybe. But I was pretty sure those weapons weren’t all that easy to get a hold of — unless a Navy SEAL had crossed over with the new crop of Destined.
He lowered his face to finish cutting and then handed me a piece of apple. “Jamie also carries a hunting bow. ’Tis handy for bears.”
Bears — oh my
. I knew Vee’d encountered one, but I chalked it up to Doon trying to stop her from crossing the borders and breaking the Covenant. I never considered there might be more roaming around. “Does Doon have a lot of bears?”
“Nay. And they’re mostly in the highlands. I dinna expect to encounter any this low.”
“What about lions and tigers?”
A deep scowl crossed his face, as if I’d noticed something essential that he’d missed.
“Relax.” I bit into the tangy green apple, finding it better than expected. Usually I hated green, but this wasn’t the time to be picky. “I was just teasing you.”
“Oh.” Duncan popped a slice into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “I guess I’m a little out of practice, friend.”
We ate in silence. When we finished, Duncan carefully wiped his knife and placed it alongside the dagger. Taking the pile of fresh clothes, he announced his intention to step outside and change. As he crossed to the door, I noted that his pants
ended in tattered ruins like a shipwrecked castaway. His feet were cut and caked with dirt, like he’d walked down the mountain barefoot. Which I guess he had . . .
I was really going to have to make it up to him.
Just before he slipped through the barn doors, Duncan flashed me a mischievous grin. “This is always dangerous territory for a lad, but you might want to freshen up a bit too. We wouldn’t want to scare the townsfolk, would we?” With a wink, he was gone.
I looked down and discovered new depths of mortification. My pink pajama shirt was the color of dung. Several large holes in the fabric exposed my filthy sports bra. My bottoms were equally ragged. And I didn’t even want to think about my face or hair.
I crossed to my bag and pulled out the only other soft clothes I’d thought to pack, another set of jammies. This sleep shirt was black with teal lettering that said “Make musicals, not war.” Quickly, I replaced my destroyed top with the clean one. Then I stepped out of my pink flannel bottoms and into fresh black-and-teal-striped ones. Movement outside a barn window caught my eye, and I looked out just in time to see Duncan strip off his shirt. I caught a glimpse of belly button and smooth, tan abdominal muscles. Holy Marvin Hamlisch and the cast of
A Chorus Line
, he was an inny — something I’d failed to notice back at Muir Lea.
As much as I wanted to gawk, I forced my gaze away before I got caught looking. Friends don’t ogle other friends. I was fairly certain on this. And I definitely didn’t want him spying on me — at least not in my current state. A moment later, Duncan reentered the barn, fully dressed except his bare feet. For the first time since Muir Lea, his face was alight with expectant energy. “I just need to get on my boots and weapons, then we can depart.”
“Sure.” The sight of Duncan’s stomach — even clothed — caused my skin to feel supercharged and tight. The insides of my knees tingled with little bursts of electric current. I swayed unsteadily, and Duncan’s hand shot out, hovering just under my elbow in case I needed support. He waited as I regained my balance and then stepped away.
I watched in silence as he finished dressing. After slipping on his boots, he sheathed his sword on his left side and strapped the foot-long dagger to his right. Then he slipped the three-inch knife he’d been using to slice apples into his boot.
There were so many things I wanted to apologize for. But I settled on the one I could vocalize without becoming an emotional basket case. “I’m sorry about your feet.”
“’Tis nothing,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve sustained much worse than this from playing my war games.”
I laughed, liking the easiness between us. Being friends was good. It felt like a positive step toward repairing our relationship. Duncan hefted both our bags, clearly eager to get home. “Ready?”
With a parting nod to Elsie, I headed for the door. Halfway there Duncan stepped in my way. “Mackenna, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Pushing away thoughts of love declarations, I tried to anticipate what one friend would say to another. “Okay. Shoot.”
“No one in Doon knows that I came for you except for the queen, my brother, Fergus, Fiona, and Analisa, who helped with my papers. But even she dinna get the entire story. For now we’re keeping the limbus quiet. There’s enough discord in the kingdom — some of the citizens oppose Veronica being our ruler. Jamie thinks if those people hear that the witch is cursing the land, they might become violent.”
A chill crept up my spine. I remembered all too well the
angry mob that we’d faced the last time. “So where do the people think you are?”
This time there was no trace of humor lightening Duncan’s eyes, no sardonic quirk of his lips as he answered, “Training exercise.”
That explained his absence, but my sudden arrival? Even if the hazardous trip had been the opposite of traveling by bubble, the effect might be the same. If I magically appeared in Doon without a good cover story, I might as well be carrying a
Wicked
umbrella.
C
astle MacCrae flickered ahead in the darkness like a beacon. Vee and I had talked every day since kindergarten, even the days after my mom died and her dad went MIA. Even when my dad uprooted me to Arkansas right before senior year.
We’d shared every high and low — the day I got the lead in
Once Upon a Mattress
; the first time the Fighting Badgers quarterback, Eric Russo, asked her out; me being pursued by Greg the stage tech; her making the cheerleading squad despite Stephanie Heartford’s best efforts to cheerblock her. These past ten months had been dismal without her to start and end my day.
“We’re nearly there.” Duncan’s soft voice urged me on. “We’ll enter through the kitchens, which should be nearly deserted this time of morning.”
Which led to a good question. “What time is it, do you think?” My phone stopped telling time the second we crossed into Doon.
Duncan scanned the starry sky. This was the first break
in the clouds we’d had since I arrived. Fiona had explained a bit about the connection the protected kingdom had with the weather. When Doon was most vulnerable, it experienced turbulent storms. The funeral of the previous king had been accompanied with torrential rains. And when Vee had tried to breech the borders to get rid of my aunt’s cursed journal, she’d instigated a blizzard.
Duncan pointed to a clump of stars. “Based on Ursa Major, I’d say ’tis between three and four.”
We’d been walking forever. I felt like that hobbit from the
Lord of the Rings
movies Vee’d tortured me with on multiple occasions after I’d flat-out refused to read the books. In my opinion, that series would’ve seriously benefitted from some Bollywood-esque musical numbers.
The road we’d been following forked. Duncan pointed down the smaller cart path toward a stone wall on the back end of the castle. “We go through there.”
“The first thing I’m going to do after I see Vee is soak in that giant tub of yours.” Ever since the barn, I’d been fantasizing about the Jacuzzi-sized tub in Duncan’s private bathroom. I’d even packed a bubble bath for every occasion: Coco-Lime Cocktail, Bashful Blossom, Enchanted Midnight, Extraordinary Orchid, and Lavender Dreams. I also had a bottle of Vee’s personal fav, Grapefruit Crush.
Duncan reached the gate first. He flipped the latch and held the heavy door open for me to pass. Following me inside, he refastened the door and chuckled. His eyes twinkled as he offered me a contrite smile. “Now that we’re here, I guess I should tell ye . . . Veronica’s no longer staying in my chambers. She has quarters of her own, including a guest suite for you.”
I’d just assumed since Vee and I crashed in Duncan’s rooms during our first visit that Vee was still there. It made perfect
sense that Doon’s new queen would vacate her boyfriend’s brother’s rooms in favor of her own space. Part of me felt disappointed that I wouldn’t be surrounded by Duncan’s things. But the other part of me was mortified that he’d let me go on and on about the things I wanted to do in his bath.
“You stupid ogre!” I backhanded him across his bicep. “Since the barn, you’ve let me blabber on about taking a swim in your tub. Couldn’t you have managed to tell me sooner about the guest suite?”
He shrugged innocently. “Mackenna, if ye wish to use my tub, you may. My friends are always welcome to share my bath.” The last sentence was punctuated by tiny guffaws that were so reminiscent of the old Duncan, my irritation melted away.
I refused to dwell on his flirty innuendo when I was so close to reuniting with my best friend. With a playful tap on his arm, I suggested, “How about you take me to Vee!”