Shadows and Light

to know enough about herbs to make a drink from those plants. Just cook it on the stove, right next to the day’s soup. Pour it into jugs and hide everything in the pantry until it was time to go. Then, in the Old Place, a cup someone had hidden in a skirt pocket. The jug passed around. Stretch out on the ground, with your arms around a daughter or a friend, and just slip away from the world, following Death’s song.
    It wouldn’t have been violent. There would have been no pain. But even for the oldest of them, it had been a life that had ended too soon.
    Hearing footsteps, Breanna forced herself to lift her head. She jabbed her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face.
    The dining room door opened. Nuala came in first, followed by Padrick, who carried a tea tray. Liam came in last, shutting the door behind him.
    Just the four of them now. The large room had been crammed with the adults while Padrick and Liam had talked about what had happened at the barons’ council—and had broken the news about what had happened in Pickworth, while she and Nuala had told them everything they could remember about the things Aiden and Lyrra had said about the Black Coats and the nighthunter creatures that may have been created when the Black Coats who had come to Willowsbrook had drawn power from the Old Place.
    He’s exhausted, Breanna thought as she watched Liam take a seat at the table. And he’s still far from well.
    “I won’t take much more of your time,” Padrick said. “There are still a couple more things I need to know.”

    Breanna accepted the cup of tea Nuala poured for her, then set it on the table untouched. “What do you want to know?”
    “Thank you,” Padrick said, taking the tea Nuala offered. “I need to return home as quickly as I can.”
    “Yes,” Nuala said. “I suppose you’d like to know how the vote turned out, and the other barons can tell you that.”
    Padrick shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how the vote turned out. The west will never accept what the eastern barons have done. I’m not as concerned about that as I am about my family.”
    Breanna saw Liam jolt, saw his face become paler.
    “You think the barons or the Black Coats might go after your family because you helped me?” Liam said.
    “They came here, Liam,” Padrick said. “Whether they came here to finish what they’d started in Durham or to do harm to your family and your people doesn’t matter; They came here. The Inquisitors aren’t stupid men. Once they questioned the men who had been hired to kill you and make it look like a robbery—”
    “Wait,” Breanna said. “How can being poisoned possibly look like robbery?”
    “They sent men after him,” Padrick said. “If he’d been beaten to death, the physician who was called to confirm the death wouldn’t have looked for anything else.”
    “Padrick got me away from them,” Liam said. “But I was already poisoned. At my club.”
    “So it wouldn’t have taken the Inquisitors long to have someone report on which barons didn’t show up the next morning for the vote, question the men for a description of the man who got you away from them, and come to the conclusion that it was me,” Padrick said. “If they took a ship, or simply rode hard, there would have been plenty of time for them to get to the west and find my wife and children.”
    “You’ve known that all along, haven’t you?” Liam said. “You knew that the first night, when you offered to help me get home instead of riding straight for the west.”
    Padrick didn’t answer.
    That had taken courage, Breanna decided. To help a man you barely knew, and all during the days of that journey, aware that an enemy might be approaching your own family. “What do you want to know?”
    “It’s dangerous for me to ride south, and going north will take too long,” Padrick said. He hesitated. “
    Would the ones who rule the Mother’s Hills object to my going through their land?”
    “The House of Gaian lives in the Mother’s Hills,” Breanna said, her voice a bit sharp. Did the man know so little about witches that he truly believed he’d come to harm just because he traveled the roads through the Mother’s Hills?
    “I know that, Mistress Breanna,” Padrick said. “That’s why I’m asking you, one of the Mother’s Daughters, if the House of Gaian would object.”
    “You’re a baron,” Liam said, rubbing his forehead as if it pained him. “The baron who rules