Gifted Thief (Highland Magic #1) (21 page)

‘Your ears are burning,’ Speck said in wonder.

Bob threw him a scathing look. ‘I already said that.’

We glanced at each other. ‘Ear we go,’ I grinned.

Everyone groaned. Bob settled down on the back of a chair and pulled off his shoes. He started to examine his toes, picking out miniscule bits of fluff.

Lexie turned away. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘You’d probably like to know what I discovered in the library,’ he said, holding up a greenish ball to the light before chucking it over his shoulder with a shrug. Speck jumped back about a metre.

No-one said anything. ‘Oh come on,’ Bob complained. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’

I exchanged a look with Brochan. ‘Go on then,’ I said finally. ‘What did you find out?’

‘Well,’ he huffed, ‘if you don’t want to know…’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I do.’ It was probably some pointless fact about genies’ feet, which was why we were being subjected to this display of toe picking.

‘To all intents and purposes,’ Bob declared, ‘the Adair Clan doesn’t exist.’ He pulled his socks and shoes back on and stood up, looking around as if he were expecting applause.

‘We know that,’ I told him. ‘It’s hardly news.’

‘You misunderstand me. There’s no record of the Adairs. Some books have pages ripped out of them. Others just have a blank space. I am certain that you could scour every piece of paper in that place and you wouldn’t find a single mention of them. Isn’t that curious?’

I paused. ‘They’re being wiped from history.’ I licked my lips. ‘
I’m
being wiped from history.’

Brochan pursed his lips. ‘Very few cultures do that. Most prefer to remember their mistakes so they don’t repeat them.’ He gestured towards me. ‘And the Adair Clan is, in effect, still here. Erasing you doesn’t make sense.’

‘Why would someone do that?’

‘Because in a generation or two, it’ll be like they never existed,’ Speck answered.

‘I’ve seen it happen before,’ Bob said knowledgeably. ‘The Timentuns, for example.’

‘Who?’ Lexie asked.

He snapped his fingers. ‘Exactly!’

They all looked at me. ‘It does make it more likely that there’ll be another attempt on my life once the Foinse is sorted,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Rubbing out the past is a big deal. I wonder what they’re all so scared of.’

‘More bad jokes,’ Bob said cheerfully.

I stuck out my tongue at him, then softened my expression. ‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘You didn’t have to do that. Look around the library, I mean.’

He blushed. ‘Against my better judgment, I like you, Uh Integrity. This is the most fun I’ve had in a thousand years.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ Speck asked.

I ran my hands through my hair. ‘I travel to the Foinse with the others. I might be able to glean some information during the journey. Aifric Moncrieffe is going and there’s no way that he doesn’t know that the Adair Clan is being deliberately forgotten. Perhaps I can find out why.’

‘You’re going to have to make a run for it once the Foinse is opened,’ Brochan said grimly. ‘It might have only been the Bull who was trying to kill you before but that could change when you’ve done your duty.’

I nodded. ‘Yep. Teleportation makes escape pretty simple though.’ I pointed to Speck. ‘Can you go back to Aberdeen and talk to Taylor? He knows a lot of people who’ve been around for a long time. See what the Clan-less know about the Adairs.’

‘He probably already knows, Tegs,’ Speck answered. ‘You might have wanted to abandon everything to do with your family and the Sidhe, but I bet that he looked into what happened.’

He was probably right. And if Taylor had never discussed it with me, it was probably because what he’d unearthed wasn’t good. I had to stop pretending it wasn’t part of me. I’d take the news, whether it was good or bad.

‘Brochan, it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you can find a way to get to the old Adair lands? It’s almost three decades since they were used but…’

‘I’ll do it. There might be traces there of things that can help.’

‘I can use the teleportation thing to get you there,’ I began.

He shook his head. ‘No. I can use the journey to help me. There’ll be some tired travellers along the way who might be more loose-lipped than the people around here.’ He looked at me warningly. ‘Rely on those Gifts too much and who knows what you’ll miss.’

He had a point. It wasn’t just teleportation. I could spend hours trying to work out what one person’s aura meant instead of paying attention to more reliable indicators like body language and tone of voice.

Lexie bounced up and down. ‘What can I do?’

‘Eavesdrop. Everywhere. Sneak around here and find out what’s really going on with all these highborn Sidhe wankers. Not just in terms of the Foinse and the Adairs, but everything.’

She beamed. ‘Gotcha.’

‘And me?’ Bob piped up. ‘You’ve still got two wishes, you know. You ask for the Adair Clan to be restored to their rightful position and…’

‘No. No more wishes,’ I said.

He pouted. ‘I’d be better at eavesdropping than her.’

Lexie looked like she was about to slam her palm down and squash Bob like a bug. ‘I think she’ll do fine,’ I replied drily. ‘You’re coming with me. You can be another pair of eyes. An honorary Clan member.’ My eyes gleamed. ‘For the first time in twenty-six years, the Adair Clan entourage will outnumber the others. There’ll be three of us for two of them.’

‘Three?’ Brochan asked. ‘Who’s the third person going to be?’ He looked at my face and groaned. ‘No. Not her. She’s nuts.’

I grinned at him and winked. Right now, she was the only Sidhe apart from possibly Jamie whom I trusted.

The Sidhe were sticklers for punctuality. I’d slept surprisingly well on the hard bed and the pain in my ribs was far more manageable now I’d had some rest. It was a struggle to get up and drag myself down to meet the rest of my merry band at dawn, even though I was usually a morning person.

They were waiting, several with scowls on their faces. It clearly galled a lot of them that they’d had to come to an Adair for help– and that they’d been forced to delay the trip because of me. For my part, I waved happily at them. Lily and Aifric smiled back. Byron glared at me suspiciously for a moment before relaxing into a small smile. The others simply glowered.

‘Chieftain! You honour me with your request,’ Lily sang.

‘I can’t believe the Macquarries let her come,’ the younger of the two Kincaids muttered.

‘That’s because they’re all crazy,’ I heard the Darroch Chieftain reply. Even though she was agreeing with Kincaid, she still received a nasty look for butting in on the conversation. Interesting. Maybe they all hated each other as much as they hated me.

One by one, they mounted their horses. Even Lily sprang up onto a pretty white mare. ‘No bells,’ she said sadly. ‘I like bells. Ding a ling a ling a ling!’

Byron leaned over to me. ‘She wanted them tied into the mane,’ he informed me. ‘Along with multi-coloured ribbons.’

I shrugged. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ If I could get a nice docile horse with hot-pink fripperies attached to its mane, maybe this riding business wouldn’t be so bad.

Byron frowned. ‘You haven’t forgotten how serious this mission is, have you?’

‘Hey,’ I said lightly, ‘I chose to accept it. It would have been a shame if you chose to self-destruct ten seconds after delivering it, though.’

‘Huh?’

‘
Mission Impossible
?’

Aifric and his horse trotted over. ‘This mission is far from impossible, Ms. Taylor. Don’t be so anxious.’

Good grief. Pop culture references were clearly going to be lost on this lot.

‘Mount up, Integrity,’ Byron said. ‘We don’t want to waste time.’

He pointed at a red-faced man who was struggling to keep hold the reins of a massive black stallion. It bucked and snorted. Even the other horses seemed terrified of getting too near to it.

My mouth dropped open. ‘You have to be kidding me.’

He smirked. ‘Psych,’ he whispered. ‘He’s mine. That one’s yours.’ He pointed at a chubby mare. It had a vacant expression in its eyes and what appeared to be the chewed remnants of a straw hat hanging out of its mouth. ‘Ethan Hawke might not agree but I thought Barbie would be a better fit.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Barbie?’ And Ethan Hawke? Byron wasn’t that removed from the rest of the world after all.

His amusement increased. ‘She likes hot pink too.’

I gazed doubtfully at Barbie. Judging by her expression and her lack of interest in the world around her, I was going to have a hard time getting her to keep up with the others. I wondered if Byron had deliberately picked her to make me look like a fool. Then I dismissed the idea. He was conniving, sure, but generally he was a decent guy.

I walked over and patted  Barbie’s neck nervously. She ignored me. Maybe that was a good thing. I stepped back and eyed her saddle. I could climb up tall buildings without a rope; surely, I could get on top of a horse. I put one foot into the stirrup and pulled myself over. Barbie didn’t so much as twitch.

‘Yee-ha!’ I yelled, lifting a hand in the air as if I were on a bucking bronco.

The Kincaid wanker sniggered, throwing me such a derisive look that I stiffened. I formed my fingers into a gun and mimed shooting him. His amusement was immediately replaced by stark fear. I smiled coldly. Yeah, buster; it was probably not the best move in the world to piss off the mass murderer’s daughter.

As I adjusted my weight, out of the corner of my eye I spotted Byron approaching the black beast. The stallion visibly relaxed, allowing him to stroke his mane. With one lithe movement, Byron sprung up. I eyed his thigh muscles as they tightened round the horse’s girth then coughed slightly when he glanced round, grinning as he caught me staring. Oops. I willed the horse to buck him off but although it had appeared to be a deranged beast, now it stood as docile than Barbie.

Aifric moved to the front of the pack and turned to address us. From my position, I had to crane my neck to look up at him although his aura, a vivid scarlet, remained visible. ‘You should all be proud of yourselves,’ he intoned. ‘What we do will secure the Clans for generations to come. Your children’s children will thank you.’

My shoulders tightened. I wasn’t doing this to ‘secure’ the damn Clans. Aifric seemed to sense my thoughts and continued. ‘By ensuring the safety of the Foinse, we will save countless lives, both Clan and Clan-less.’

That was better. I noticed the two Darroch reps nudge each other at the mention of the Clan-less. I narrowed my eyes at them. Unfortunately they didn’t notice.

‘We will return victorious,’ Aifric boomed. ‘Because for the Sidhe, there is no other way.’ He gazed at us meaningfully then, with a flourish, turned his horse round and took off.

The others followed in his wake. I tried to remember what I was supposed to do to get Barbie to move. I squeezed my legs together but nothing happened; she simply kept on chewing. I gripped the reins. ‘Giddy up!’ She swung her head round as if vaguely curious, blinked once, and returned to chewing.

I gritted my teeth. This couldn’t be that hard. ‘Come on, girl,’ I whispered. ‘You can do this.’ Even Lily was managing her horse perfectly. If I didn’t get Barbie to get a wiggle on, the others would disappear out of sight.

The red-faced man who’d been holding Byron’s horse walked over. I opened my mouth to ask him what on earth I was supposed to do to get her going. He didn’t say a word, just smacked Barbie on her rump. Startled, she burst forward into a canter. I was so unprepared for the sudden movement that I almost fell off backwards. Hanging on for dear life, I bellowed out a thank you. I don’t know whether he replied; I was concentrating too hard on not falling off. Barbie might not look like much compared to the others but, given the right incentive, she really could move.

I followed the others for some distance before we caught up. Aifric still led the way but Byron was at the rear. As soon as Barbie reached him, she started eyeing the stallion’s backside in a manner that had me very worried. She trotted up and gave him a nudge. The stallion was unimpressed, whipping his head round and giving a good imitation of a horsey glare. Before she could try it again, I tugged her reins. She swung her head round at me as if to ask what on earth was wrong with me.

I shrugged. ‘Sorry, Barbs,’ I told her. ‘I don’t think messing with the monster is a good idea.’

Byron, turned his head and frowned.

‘I didn’t mean
you
,’ I explained. ‘You’re not a monster.’ I thought about it. ‘Well, you’re a blackmailing monster. And a manipulative monster. But…’

‘Integrity,’ he sighed. ‘I thought we were past all this. What kept you, anyway? Were you admiring the scenery?’

‘I have a dozy mare,’ I pointed out. ‘You have a stallion.’

Byron slowed down until we were neck and neck and looked at me critically. ‘You need to relax,’ he instructed. ‘Sit back in the saddle. You’re not a jockey and this isn’t the Grand National. You’ve been hanging around with your old mentor for too long.’

‘You mean instead of spending more time with stand-up guys, like the Darroch women who can’t even pretend to care about the lives of the Clan-less?’ Byron opened his mouth to answer but I didn’t give him a chance. ‘Or with the Kincaids who think it’s okay to sneer openly at another Clan? You lot spend all this time telling the world that you’re better than everyone else when you all hate each other, snipe at each other and apparently go around trying to kill each other.’

His jaw tightened. ‘I’ll admit,’ he said stiffly, ‘that there are some Sidhe who need to learn both manners and humility. And Sidhe politics can be … bloody. But we are not bad people, Integrity.’

‘Neither are the Clan-less.’

‘Point taken.’

I sniffed. Well, good. Rather than continue spelling out the flaws of the Sidhe, I focused on something less controversial. ‘The Foinse?’ I said, a question in my tone.

‘What about it?’

‘How do you know it’s failing? The magic is still working, right? I’ve almost died twice as proof of that.’

Byron considered my question. ‘You’d know if you spent more time on Clan lands,’ he said. ‘The magic is easier to sense here so it’s easier to notice changes. You’re aware of the change in atmosphere before a storm?’

I nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘Well, it’s a similar kind of thing with the magic. We can feel a difference. Few people have been affected so far but it’s definitely there.’ His face took on a tight, brooding expression. ‘There are always lulls with the Foinse, moments when it’s harder to get a handle on our Gifts, or when things don’t work as they should.’

I absorbed this. ‘And when we reach it and open it, then what?’

‘The representatives here aren’t just along because of their Clan blood.’ Byron nodded towards Aifric. ‘My father is better at telekinesis than I am. He will able to fine tune anything that isn’t working. The Darroch woman – not Mali the Chieftain but the younger one – she’s an expert in dowsing. If there’s a blockage somewhere, she’ll be able to locate it.’

‘Ah,’ I said knowledgeably, ‘so it’s like plumbing then.’

Byron looked amused. ‘Sort of.’

‘And the Kincaids?’

‘Both of them are Gifted in precognition.’

I started. ‘Telling the future?’

‘Not quite as obviously as that. They get glimpses of a future that might be. Which is another one of the reasons that we knew the Foinse was failing.’

‘So if we can fix it, they’ll get glimpses that tell them everything will be okay?’

‘In theory. Precognition isn’t an easy Gift to manage.’

I could well imagine. I resolved to keep well away from the pair of them. Not just because they were snooty Sidhe but because seeing the future was about the creepiest thing I could imagine. If Brochan’s theory about me learning others Gifts was correct, then I had to avoid them like the plague. Half the fun of life was not knowing what came next.

‘What do you know about my father’s Gifts?’ I asked, dropping my voice slightly so that the others wouldn’t hear. ‘You said there were three.’

He looked away.

‘Byron?’ I prodded.

He sighed. ‘I don’t know much. You have to remember I was only seven when all that happened.’

Not to mention that there was a conspiracy to get the world to forget the Adairs ever existed. ‘I know,’ I said aloud, crossing my fingers and making a quick decision to twist the truth wherever possible. ‘But as we suspected I didn’t receive a Gift from the grove and I’m curious about what his were.’

‘I heard it said that one of them was soul punching.’ He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Whatever that was, it didn’t sound good. ‘What is that?’ I asked quietly.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘It’s the ability to reach inside a person and kill them. Their soul is attacked and, well, they die.’

I absorbed this information. ‘Is that what happened to everyone in the Adair Clan? He … punched their souls?’

Byron nodded. ‘For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re like that.’

‘You don’t think I’m like a mass murderer? Well, that’s comforting.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

I bit my lip. ‘I know.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I heard a story that my father was possessed by a demon. That it wasn’t him at all.’

‘Apart from one incident when I was a kid, there haven’t been demons this side of the Veil in five hundred years. I’m sorry, Integrity. I realise you don’t want to think ill of him.’

‘I never even met him,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to think.’ I knew what I saw in the grove, though.

Without warning, Byron released one of his reins and took my hand. He squeezed it tightly. Rather than making me feel comforted, the action made me flinch. I tried to force myself to relax. Byron meant well, after all. He pressed his thumb into my palm, drawing small concentric circles. My eyes shot up. He watched me intently, making my mouth dry. It was getting damned difficult to think with any semblance of coherence.

‘There’s something I want you to know,’ he said awkwardly.

I forgot to breathe altogether. ‘Yes?’

‘That day. When we first met and you were just a kid.’

I stiffened, desire fleeing as quickly as it had arrived. ‘The day you called me pathetic.’

He winced. ‘Yes.’ His fingers tightened round mine again as if he were worried I would escape. ‘I knew that things were difficult for you living with the Scyrmgeours.’

‘Difficult?’ I tried to pull away but his grip was too strong. ‘I wasn’t even given a name, Byron. I was just a thing. The Bull’s hounds were treated like kings compared to me.’

‘If I’d been nice to you that day in front of Tipsania, what do you think would have happened?’