Helena roused from a light slumber to find weak afternoon light slanting through the shutters. The fire had burned low, but the hut was still warm—hot, in fact, under all her blankets.

She licked dry lips, wishing she’d asked Logan to leave her a cup of water before he’d left. She glanced at the chamber door at the back of the hut. Though Logan had told her to ask Mairin for help, uncertainty made Helena hesitant to disturb the girl.

Her eyes landed on a bucket of water waiting to be used in the corner that served as the kitchen. Swallowing in anticipation, she threw back the heavy blankets.

With Logan’s imposing form and penetrating stare no longer present, she had no qualms about rising in only her shift. Her legs and feet had other ideas, though.

When she swung her legs over the side of the cot, they screamed in protest, her muscles stiff and twinging with pain. She sucked in a sharp breath as her raw feet met the ground. Aye, she would be paying for the abuse she’d given her body over the last fortnight for several more days.

Legs wobbling, Helena balanced precariously on the balls of her feet, trying to keep as much of her sore soles off the ground as she could. She hobbled forward, eyes fixed on the bucket

“Ye arenae supposed to do that.”

Helena started, nearly falling flat on her face at the sound of the girl’s voice right behind her.

“Ye arenae supposed to walk on those feet,” Mairin said, stepping in front of Helena. The girl moved like a ghost. Helena hadn’t even heard her emerge from her chamber only a few feet away.

She let out a ragged breath. “Aye, but I was thirsty, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Sit,” Mairin said flatly.

When Helena began awkwardly limping back toward the cot, Mairin sighed softly. Her thin fingers wrapped around Helena’s arm. The girl’s touch was as delicate as an alighting bird, but it provided enough added stability to get Helena to the cot with a great deal more ease.

As Helena sank gratefully back onto the cot, Mairin filled a wooden cup with water from the bucket. Helena accepted the cup from Mairin’s outstretched hand, but when her fingers brushed the girl’s, Mairin recoiled.

The girl began to back away toward her chamber, her dove-gray eyes guarded and watchful on Helena.

That haunted, hollow gray stare was so like Logan’s—especially when he spoke of his sister. His words came back to her. Mairin has been through a great deal for a lass so young. And he’d alluded to the fact that sometimes she never came out of her chamber.

“Is the weather normally so harsh this early in autumn?” Helena blurted. It was a clumsy and feeble attempt to coax Mairin to stay, but she hadn’t had time to form a better question.

Mairin blinked, and her feet stopped moving backward. “I dinnae ken,” she said after a moment.

“I wonder if the snow has stopped. I’ve never seen a storm quite like that before,” Helena went on, aiming for cheeriness but sounding more awkward to her own ears.

Grudgingly, Mairin strode to the hut’s window and drew back the shutters. “It is no longer snowing,” she reported flatly. “The ground is still covered, but it looks to be melting.”

“Does it often snow before Michaelmas here?”

“As I said, I dinnae ken,” Mairin replied, closing the shutters. “I havenae lived in the Highlands these past six years. And I remember little of the weather before then.”

Mairin’s voice hardened to stone as she spoke. Helena bit her lip. Mairin’s long absence from her home in Scotland must have something to do with the difficulties Logan had mentioned. It was clearly a thorny subject, but she forged on, looking for a foothold to gain purchase with the girl.

As Mairin turned away from the window and began striding back to her chamber, Helena quickly assessed the girl’s slim frame.

“You are about fourteen years of age?”

“I am sixteen,” Mairin retorted, “and I will be seventeen come winter.” She looked sideways at Helena. “I’m just small. I…I didnae have much to eat the last six years.”

Helena felt her eyes round. “But you have enough now, don’t you?”

“Aye,” Mairin shot back. But then the fierce, defensive set of her delicate features softened. “Logan makes sure of it.”

“Your older brother is a good man.”

Once the words were out, Helena flinched internally. Not only was it presumptive of her to make such a statement when she hardly knew the man, but it also seemed to cross a line of propriety, putting her in the middle of Logan and Mairin’s family affairs.

Mairin must have felt the same way, for she crossed her slim arms over her chest. “Aye,” she replied, eyeing Helena coldly.

Helena released a slow sigh, suddenly feeling very weary. “You don’t like to talk to me very much, do you?” The question was blunt, but she couldn’t seem to find the energy to soften it.

“Nay.”

“Why?”

Helena watched Mairin’s eyes turn from flat to hollow. A terrible sadness filled them before she hardened her gaze on Helena. “Because ye’re English.”

With that, the girl turned and stepped into her chamber, closing the door behind her.