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    Michaelmas wished she could feel the power sweep through her again. Tempted, she lifted her hands hesitantly and held them above Jean’s chest. She closed her eyes and waited, heart pounding. Within moments, warmth began to flood into her hands. Frightened suddenly, she snatched her hands into her lap, clenching her fingers tightly as if to stop the force that gathered there. The healing touch still existed in her. But fear flooded through her with greater strength, banishing any urge to use her gift.
    Tears stung her eyes. She could not do as Jean advised, and just let heaven and the gift guide her. Over the years, she had neglected the heated force in her hands until she felt only a shadow of what once had been. She had deliberately replaced it with the educated touch of a physician.
    Once, long ago, Gavin had told her of his struggle to accept his own healing ability. Michaelmas had been a young girl then, and had felt no such conflict within herself. Her own trial of spirit came later. She had never told Gavin about the trial or the terror that came afterward. He did even not know that she had promised Ibrahim to abandon the gift.
    Leaning her face into her hands, she began to cry, a hot stream of tears for herself, for Jean. Her friend was wrong. The Highlander was wrong too. Lady Miracle did not exist.
    He watched her through the shadows, leaning a shoulder against the wall just inside the door. She had not seen him slip into the common room, for she had been occupied mixing medicines and speaking with an old woman, a patient.
    Earlier, he had overheard one of the novices mention that Lady Michael would sit with the patients after midnight. He had left his pallet—a plaid thrown on the ground beside his horse, outside the hospital enclosure—and had come here hoping to talk to her again, more peaceably this time.
    She sat with the old woman, who slept now. Michael’s face in candlelight was delicately planed, smooth as cream and roses. Her slight form and countenance were simple and serene; she was the image of a saint in that veil and black gown. He remembered her hair as a young girl, pale as moonglow, and longed to see it.
    He frowned and admonished himself for letting his thoughts stray into fancy. He ached to talk to her, but he did not want anyone nearby to wake or listen. Perhaps he would wait until she left the room. This afternoon he had frightened her, but he meant to try again to convince her that he was no lunatic, and that he truly believed that she could do such a thing.
    He had to let her know how necessary she was to him, to Brigit. And he thought of his sister Sorcha, whose pain was not physical but of the heart, a tragic suffering that was a constant part of her life: one child after another, lost at birth. He wondered, standing in the shadows, if the little widow could bring her miraculous powers to Glas Eilean too, where Sorcha awaited the birth—and the loss—of yet another babe. No one could save those lost children, but perhaps Michael would know some way to heal his sister’s grief.
    But he had no time to explain all of this to her in ways she could understand, and he knew he lacked the talent to cajole and charm. Blunt, honest, direct—he was little more than that, he knew. No wonder he had frightened her. Sorcha, if she had known his plans, would have advised him how to phrase every statement tactfully and graciously. Not that he could carry any of it out. He sighed, determined to try his best to make Michael see his sincerity and his total belief in her power to heal. Once he had been a healer, too, but with other means—surgery, bonesetting, wound repair. All that had been eliminated from his life with one vicious swipe of an Irish broadsword.
    Michael dropped her face into her hands as if she sobbed. Startled, disturbed, he moved out of the shadows on an impulse to comfort her. Then he stepped back, realizing the foolishness of that desire. He would likely only frighten her more