Chapter 16‘With your permission, I’ll escort you back to your home, ma’am,’ Nilsson said very politely as Marna emerged unsteadily from the spiral staircase that led down from Rannick’s eyrie. As he spoke, he casually brushed his forefinger across his lips, and, with an incongruously paternal gesture, touched a wisp of her hair that was being disturbed by a draught from somewhere.
Then he cast a significant glance up the stairs.
It was then that Marna realized that the persistent draught that had been ruffling her hair and causing the lanterns along the unnervingly steep stairs to flicker was more than it seemed. It was a lingering touch from her would-be lord and lover. Or, if she understood Nilsson correctly, was it perhaps a spy?
Whatever the truth, its irksome, spider’s-web touch wa
