I avoided him for a couple of hours: easy enough, since he was surrounded by his captains, by adoring women (and some men), and one particular smitten girl. Girl. He had noticed Eili was almost a woman: that was obvious to me. He flushed now when her eyes lingered too long on his, but on the rare occasions she looked away, his own gaze was drawn helplessly to her. I knew I was over her because it made me laugh. Poor Conal: I knew he’d fight it, because he wasn’t used to thinking of her as a grown Sithe, but I knew that in the end he’d lose. And poor Eili: he wouldn’t touch her till she was twenty, and probably not for a long time after. She had at least three years of frustrated, infatuated chastity ahead of her. Not a problem for me, I thought smugly. Catriona stayed close to me, which I didn’t mind now, but I grew tired of Sionnach giving me meaningful looks, Eili an occasional disbelieving one, and Feorag making lewd whisky-fuelled jokes about full-mortals and What They Say About Quiet Ones.
