“Ainsley,” Marcus muttered absently. “What brings you here?” he asked as he picked up a slipper from the trunk and dangled it from his fingers.
“Not molesting Cecelia’s things, that’s for certain.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You should respect her privacy, Marcus,” she warned.
“Why are you here?” Marcus asked again.
Ainsley sighed heavily. “I just wanted to see if it was true.”
“If what was true?”
She scratched her head. “If she really left,” Ainsley clarified. “I’d hoped the gnomes were wrong. She needed to be here. More than anyone else, she needed to spend some time in this world.”
What the devil did she mean by that? He dropped the slipper back into the trunk. “Did she say anything to you?” he asked. He watched Ainsley’s face closely.
She winced. “It’s what Cecelia doesn’t say that you have to pay attention to.”
“Why would she leave her things here?” he asked.
“That would only happen if there were an emergency and she had to leave,” Ainsley said.
“What could be such an emergency that she would leave without saying good-bye?”
“Only the worst kind,” Ainsley whispered.
“Tell me what you know, Ainsley,” he warned.
But she was already walking out the door. “It’s not my secret to tell.”
“Does she have a fiancé at home?” Marcus blurted out. Perhaps there really was someone in the land of the fae.
“No one at home has her attention the way you do, Marcus,” Ainsley said. She knew something. Marcus could tell.
“Please tell me what you know,” Marcus pleaded. Much more of this and he would be on his knees begging.
“They sent the wind for her.”
Marcus spun around quickly. “Last night?”
“Yes, late.”
The fae only sent the wind to and from the land of the fae in dire emergencies. “What was the emergency?”
“I don’t know,” Ainsley whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.
“But she, specifically, was needed.” It was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. But too many pieces were missing.
Ainsley nodded. “Apparently.” She met his gaze. “Things have been different at home since her mother died.”
Cecelia’s mother had died? When?
He didn’t even get to ask the question before Ainsley said, “Right after you left six months ago.”
Marcus sank down onto the side of bed, afraid once again that his legs would not support him. Cecelia hadn’t told him that her mother had died. It had been more than six months, and he hadn’t even paid his respects. “How?”
“A carriage accident when she was on a mission in this world.”
“How is her father doing?”
“Poorly.”