Brendan set another piece down, then turned to listen at the ‘at first.’
“I can’t say exactly what went wrong. I don’t think there was any one specific thing. She got very impatient with what she called my shortcomings, and we began fighting more and more. Finally I guess she’d had enough. She left me behind. I’ve been on my own since, trying to get by with what little she taught me.”
“Wait,” Brandon said. “She left you here? Not back in our part of the world?”
“Not here in this specific part of the world, but yes, she left me without bringing me back home.”
Sorcha was quiet and still; it reminded him a great deal of her behavior while she’d been observing him at the office. Her eyes were fixed intently on Lena, and almost seemed to glow as she took in everything the girl said. He could almost have sworn her ears twitched forward, she was listening so intently.
“The behavior you describe is unusual for one of my kind,” she said at last. “Not unheard of. But rare. Very rare. And to leave you essentially stranded? This is serious, Lena. You don’t know what prompted her to such action?”
“Personality clash? We didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye about how to handle jobs we were on. She seemed to prefer … um … excessive methods.”
Sorcha’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Excessive? What do you mean?”
“Well, take this job for instance. If she’d been here handling it like you did, she’d have chosen the same method. But where you don’t like it and wish there was another way to handle it, I’m certain she would have enjoyed it.”