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That chill inside Wil thawed all at once. He really should have known better than to think… whatever he’d 252

Carole Cummings

been thinking. That any intention this man had could be anything less than honorable. Dallin really was, very simply, a good man.

“That right there,” Wil told him, quiet and a little hoarse, “that’s what makes it possible to ask you. That’s how I know. And I’m not quite as helpless as I was. You don’t need to protect me from you. I can do that well enough on my own.” He paused, shook his head. “It isn’t that people want
me
, surely you see that? They want what’s in me, even if they don’t know what it is—some would open my chest and dig out my heart looking for it, and still not realize they didn’t know what they were looking for. What you want…” A flush rose, hot and tight. “You
see
me. It’s just…” There really was no good word for what it was, at least not in Wil’s vocabulary.

“It’s just
different
.”

He watched as Dallin sighed in defeat, knew he’d won something for which he hadn’t even meant to contend.

Except now that the necessity had evolved out of the murky disarray at the bottom of his consciousness, it made too much sense to put away again. Anyway, now that he was in it…

Wil set his jaw. “Calder said your magic felt green, untapped. He said he shouldn’t’ve been able to read you, which means you ought to be able to deny anyone you don’t want mucking about in there. The Old Ones can all do it. You’ve more in you than any one of them. And you must’ve been doing
some
thing all this time—I looked for you. I looked hard.”

He paused, thought carefully about what he actually wanted here, and what he ought to want, and what he ought to be saying to get it. And how he was going to do it without making an obviously touchy matter into something altogether untouchable.

It was hard work, this caring thing. And knowing 253

The Aisling Book Two Dream

that you were cared for in return—probably more, and cleaner—made it all the harder. Made it… heavy.

“I don’t want to be inside your head.” Wil spoke it very clearly, putting all his sincerity behind it. “I don’t want you inside mine. But I also don’t want anyone finding me the way I found you in Lind.” He swallowed as Dallin shot a narrow look at him, but kept his voice calm and his expression open. “That second Watcher—he heard me. And I wasn’t even calling for him. Or, at least, I didn’t know I was. What if there comes a time when I need you to hear me? It’s selfish, I know, and I’m sorry, but… Don’t you think we need all the ammunition we can get?”

It wasn’t fair. He was using Dallin’s own sense of honor against him. But that didn’t make the need any less needful. Perhaps Wil had only just thought of it, but now that he had and voiced the concern, there was no choice but to see it as imperative.

“Would you, um…?” Wil hesitated, shifted a little.

“Should you maybe ask Calder if he could—?”

“Not on your bloody life,” Dallin cut in, terse.

Wil sighed. “Then you’re stuck with me, I guess.”

Dallin’s jaw tightened, gaze gone flat, almost angry.

“Right,” he muttered, low and gruff. Irritably, he picked up the drenched blanket, only to throw it back down to the floor with a heavy
splat
. “I expect it’s your turn as tutor. Let’s get on, then.”

After all of the apprehension, all of the heavy sighs and clenched teeth from Dallin, it turned out to be incredibly easy. Wil had wondered, after he’d more-or-less tricked Dallin into it all, if it could actually work. Wil had tried very hard to push him that night in Dudley, after all.

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There was no push to this, no patterns, no chaos.

There was merely a reaching out, a concentrated call.

And then a diffident rebuff that rocked Wil’s mind only slightly. Some gentle cajoling, assurance, a request for trust. Then, finally, an answer. Hesitant.

Permission.

Connection.

Warp and Weft.

I will do whatever it takes
, Dallin had told Wil. There couldn’t be more profound proof of that statement.

The denial was so much simpler. Almost nothing more than a mental
No
. For Wil, it was like butting his mind against a stone wall. He was fairly confident it would be the same for anyone else who might decide to give it a go. Dallin’s belief was hard in coming—the knee-jerk
Prove It
in him endlessly walking his mental watchtower, Reason and Logic its sentries—but once it came, it was unflinching.

They were both fairly exhausted by the time Dallin declared them through and himself tired and in need of the sleep he hadn’t got last night. He still had that broodiness about him, his mood dark and discomfited, so Wil didn’t argue. Anyway, it had to be going on midday by now, and he was starting to get hungry. They’d had a good morning’s work, and though he was genuinely regretful that the exhilaration of taming fire—taming bloody
fire
—

had been so thoroughly dampened by what followed, he couldn’t regret the result.

“You’ll need it,” Wil told Dallin as they finished up assembling and loading the weapons. He made his voice soft and sympathetic. “We had to do it.”

“I know,” Dallin replied, stretched his neck, loosing a heavy sigh. “Anyway, I’m glad it’s done, and I’m glad you thought of it. It was… necessary.”

Wil gave him a rueful smile and a lift of an eyebrow.

“Glad?”

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The Aisling Book Two Dream

A return smile, though fairly subdued—almost sad.

“All right, resentful as hell with no right to be. Just… It’ll seem less appalling after I’ve slept, I’ve no doubt. I’m not angry with you. I’m not even angry, really, I’m just… out of sorts. Sorry.”

“It’s a lot to—”

Wil’s response was cut short by the sound of booted feet tripping quickly down the cellar steps. Almost running along the passageway. Urgency was behind the steps. Hurried purpose. Without even thinking about it, Wil’s hand settled on the rifle. He dragged it close, finger resting over the trigger. Dallin did the same with one of the revolvers.

The Guard, perhaps? Had Wil’s visits to Shaw’s room been observed, reported? Had the Brethren managed to track their trail, followed the wanted bills and the local gossip to the Temple’s steps? A cold hand clenched around Wil’s gut—Siofra?

Calder swung around the doorframe. He didn’t even pause at the state of the room, the smudges of soot, the shards of glass from the little explosion in the hall they had yet to clean up. He only stopped short in the doorway, peered intently at each of their wary faces in turn.

“They’re here.”

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Well, naturally, Dallin thought. He’d been idiotic enough to forego sleep again last night, and then spent the morning trying to keep the Temple from burning down while breaking down the very last barrier standing between him and the completely unbelievable—letting down the ramparts of his own
mind
, for pity’s sake, and to someone who’d very frankly stated that he’d use him then kill him if he had to—and all of this after having jumped into bed with that very same man, who was, in point of fact, supposed to be his prisoner and who was convinced that they were going to be the end of each other. Jumped into bed with him not once but twice. Without, as had been bluntly pointed out to him, even the smallest protest. Quite eagerly, in fact.

One day after having woken up from a stab wound from which he’d apparently healed himself.

Oh yes, and there was also the small matter of promising the man for whom he was beginning to think he’d fallen quite hard—before he’d even begun to
like
him, for pity’s sake, go figure that one—that he’d put a bullet through his head if it turned out Dallin couldn’t protect him like he kept promising he would.

So, of
course
they were here.

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The Aisling Book Two Dream

“Who’s here?” he demanded.

“A company of red and gold came through the gates about two hours ago,” Calder informed him. “There’s a small contingent in blue and brown, plus a few civilians with them. They’re at the Constabulary now.”

A moment of strangled silence as the statement sank in, twisted itself slowly from one possibility in a string of conjectures and into too-firm reality. Blue and brown.

Fuck
.

“All right,” Dallin finally said hollowly, a hand going unconsciously to the weave of his shirt, which was not—

and had not been for several weeks now—the blue and brown of his Putnam Constabulary surcoat. A heavy twinge of loss hit him all at once, and he closed the hand into a fist. It was set, for better or worse. There would be no going back from whatever happened now.

Shaw arrived silently behind Calder, his mien edged with concern. “At least two of the civilians…” He paused, cut a troubled glance at Wil and cleared his throat. “They’re Dominionites.” He shook his head, near-incredulity.

“Ríocht civilians traveling with Commonwealth soldiers.

I’d never have believed it if I’d not seen it myself.”

Dominionites. Surely Chief Jagger wouldn’t have allowed Siofra to ride along all the way from Putnam? Or ride along at all.

Dallin gave Wil a quick glance, saw attentive worry and not panic, and so turned back to Shaw. “You were there?” he asked.

“I didn’t see them arrive,” Shaw told him. “Brother Tranter was assisting one of the midwives last night and was on his way back to the Temple when the gates opened. When he reported what he’d seen, I went to the Constabulary to see what I could find out.”

Dallin winced. “You went to—”

“He knows better than what you’re thinking,” Calder put in.

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“Oh, yes, I should hope so,” Shaw agreed. “I took some pots to the smithy’s to be patched and re-cast. The shop happens to be only several doors down from the Constabulary. I didn’t actually speak to anyone, but I saw the soldiers idling in front of the building. They were giving the Dominion men a wide berth, but it was obvious they were together.”

“What did they look like?” Wil’s voice was far too soft. He doubted the others could tell, but Dallin marked the sharp reluctance beneath the question. Wil had asked because he had to, but he didn’t really want to know.

Calder merely narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on Wil and all too knowing, keen and calculating. Shaw took up the silence: “Dark-haired and fair,” he answered with a shrug. “Sorry, I was trying not to look like I was looking.”

“Thin?” Wil pressed quietly. “Sort of… narrow-faced?”

Shaw seemed to twig to the disquiet this time. He frowned, softly sympathetic. “One of them, yes. He seemed to be the one in charge.”

Shit
. Dallin’s gut curled as he watched Wil pull in on himself, watched paralyzing fear crowd out even the hungry intelligence in eyes gone dull and panicked.

And there was nothing Dallin could do about it. An arm around the shoulders, a quiet reassurance—useless and perhaps not even wise. If ever there was a time for fear, right now was it.

Dallin nodded, stepped over to his pack where he’d draped his holsters and started strapping them on. So much for an afternoon kip.

“And what of those in the blue and brown?” he asked over his shoulder.

Shaw shook his head. “I didn’t see any of those. I expect they were inside, and I didn’t want to linger ’til they came out.”

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Dallin nodded again, slipping on his sword-belt. “It sounds like you did the right thing. I thank you.” He shifted his glance between Shaw and Calder. “What happens if they come knocking?”

“We don’t have to let them in,” Shaw said dubiously.

“But if we didn’t, they’d know why.” He shrugged apology. “I’ve nowhere to hide you but here. I suppose you could stay ahead of them in the passageways for a while, but it isn’t as though this place is a secret. They’d catch you up eventually.”

That was… all too logical. Dallin blew out a long breath. “I don’t suppose either of you knows of a safe place to exit the city unseen in broad daylight?”

Calder and Shaw exchanged an uneasy glance, some sort of dubious mental conversation going on between them by way of frowns and meaningful twists of eyebrows.

“Not quite unseen,” Shaw ventured, “but there is a place where you might perhaps be purposefully unremarked.”

“Where?”

“It’ll take some coin.”

Dallin rubbed at his brow. “It always does,” he muttered. “Where?”

“Not far from where we first… met,” Calder put in. “I can take you.”

“Right.” Dallin sighed. He’d known all along that when they left here, it would likely be with Calder as their guide, but he’d never really liked the idea. He’d much prefer Calder simply pointed a finger in the right direction and left them to their own plotting. As usual these days, Dallin’s options were limited. He turned to Wil. “Go get your kit together. Make sure that gun is loaded. I’ll be down in a moment to collect the ammunition. We leave in five minutes.”

Wil just stared at him with those hunted eyes. For a moment, Dallin thought he wouldn’t move, perhaps 260

Carole Cummings

couldn’t, but then he just dipped a quick, jerky nod and silently quit the room. Dallin turned back to Shaw. “Have you got anything he can take with him to eat? Food, it seems to—”

“Calm him, yes, I’d noticed.” Shaw nodded. “Don’t go ’til I get back.” And then he too was gone.

Calder waited until Shaw’s light steps faded as he climbed the stone stairs, then he narrowed a sharp glance at Dallin. “It’s him, isn’t it?” he wanted to know. “And you’re not even surprised.”

“Why should I be?” Dallin replied, checking the tethers and ties, then stooping to slide his pack over his shoulder. “I’ve been Watching, haven’t I then?”

He didn’t expand, just walked past Calder and down the passageway until he fetched up at the doorway of Wil’s room. Wil was already in his coat, crouched on the floor over his own pack, his back to the door. The tension around him was so tight Dallin thought he could reach out and twang it like the over-wound string of a lute.