Druids Sword by Sara Douglass

set the holdall down by the bed, and folded back the bed covers. “May I fetch you some cocoa?” he said as he pulled the sheets tight.
    “If you will, Malcolm.”
    Malcolm dipped his head, and left.
    Jack wandered over to the bed and sat down, overcome with weariness. It wasn’t the journey at fault, but the strain of the meeting in the drawing room of Faerie Hill Manor. All that tenseness, all that expectation, their damned history of conflict and love and disappointment swirling all about them.
    And Grace.
    Jack thought she epitomised all of that conflict and love and disappointment and all of the mistakes they had made throughout so many lives. She was a lovely young girl, and should have been carefree and happy. But what was she instead? A shell of a girl, racked with agony, because of the blunders and screw-ups of others.
    Or was she their fate made flesh? Was she everything that had ever gone wrong turned into breath and blood?
    Jack rubbed his eyes. Grace. Our doom.
    He didn’t know what to do. Why had he come back? What did they want of him?
    What did he want?
    It was such a mess. A morass of stupidity. What the hell was he doing here? What could he do? What could he do?
    “Sir?”
    Jack jumped, and looked to where Malcolm stood in the doorway, a cup of steaming cocoa in his hands.
    “Sir, I am sorry, but there is a visitor at the front door. I—”
    Jack felt his stomach drop away with dread. He knew who it was.
    “Set out a chair for her by the fire below,” he said. “I will be with her shortly.”
    Malcolm set the cocoa down on the table by the chair, and left.
    Jack sat a moment, then stood, wandering over to look down at the cocoa.
    “Fuck it,” he whispered, and walked towards the stairs.
    She was standing before the fire, her hands held out as if for warmth. She’d heard him approach, he knew it, and she must have sensed the moment hestarted down the stairs, he knew that as well, but now she turned as if caught unawares, an expression of pleasant surprise on her face as though his step had startled her.
    The expression faltered and died within the moment at the sight of his face.
    Jack felt a little sick. She was so lovely, and he hated it that he yearned for her now as strongly as he had three hundred years ago.
    “I’m sorry, Jack,” Noah said. “What happened at Faerie Hill Manor wasn’t particularly pleasant. We were all too tense.”
    “What have you told Weyland? That you were stepping out to admire the stars?”
    “I told him I wanted to talk with you alone,” she said quietly.
    “Ah. Then I suppose Weyland is lurking about the windows to make sure I don’t throw myself at you.”
    “Jack,” she said. “Don’t.”
    He walked past her to pour himself a glass of whatever the decanter held. He didn’t want anything to drink, but he desperately needed to do something with his hands. He held the decanter over another glass, raising his eyebrows to Noah.
    She shook her head. “Jack—”
    “But it is good whisky,” Jack said. “Are you sure you won’t have—”
    “Jack—”
    “Shit,” he said. He put the decanter to one side, stepped forward, and took Noah’s face in his hands. She started to pull back, but his hands tightened, and he leaned forward and kissed her with such an intensity that when Noah finally managed to wrench herself free her face was flushed and her breath rough.
    “Have you tired of Weyland, then?” he said. “Have you come to tell me that you’ve got over yourfoolishness? That you want what we both should have had four thousand years ago?”
    “No,” she said. “I love Weyland still.” More than ever I loved you.
    “Then what the fuck are you doing here, Noah? What do you want?”
    “I wanted to welcome you home, Jack. I didn’t get a chance at Faerie Hill Manor.”
    Of course not. She’d been bound and gagged and couldn’t get a word in edgewise. So she’d had to come out here in the middle of the night.
    He wondered if Weyland should