Last Wish (Highland Magic #4)

‘He was so furious that he set his own castle on fire,’ Bob added with a knowing waggle of his eyebrows. ‘But that’s confidential. Don’t tell anyone.’

Lexie threw herself at me. ‘I’m so thrilled for you!’ she squealed, wrapping her arms round my chest. ‘He’s been working against his own father all this time! That’s brilliant!’

‘I’m not sure that encouraging patricide is a cause for celebration,’ Brochan said.

I glared at him. ‘Byron’s not going to kill Aifric.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am.’ I folded my arms. Then I remembered the coldness in Byron’s expression whenever he mentioned his father and the way he’d said the words ‘collateral damage’. I dropped my arms. ‘I think I am.’

Brochan wasn’t the only one who was concerned. Taylor rubbed his chin and sat down with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s a convoluted plan. A fake wedding?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The best plans are the simplest ones.’

‘Yeah.’

‘This is not a simple plan.’

‘To be fair,’ I argued, ‘we’ve not managed to come up with anything to beat Aifric. At least Byron is trying.’

Brochan’s gills bristled. ‘We’ve been busy.’

I threw up my hands. ‘I know! I wasn’t blaming anyone. If anyone should have been working out some way of dealing with the Steward, it should have been me. All I’m saying is that Byron’s way might work and we should support it.’

‘Might work,’ Speck said. ‘Key word might.’

‘Yeah,’ Taylor drawled in agreement. ‘I’m not sure about those odds.’

Lexie wrinkled her nose. ‘Tegs is right. Byron Moncrieffe has had nothing but this to think about. He’s probably already considered every other avenue. He succeeded in breaking into the Moncrieffe castle, didn’t he?’

‘Lex, it hardly takes a criminal mastermind to sneak into your own damned home.’

She whirled round, squaring up to Speck. ‘Oh yeah? Because last night, I seem to recall that you couldn’t even sneak into your own bedroom after doing some midnight magic gallivanting!’

The rest of us exchanged looks. Perhaps it was time to change the subject. ‘Just because we don’t have a plan yet,’ Taylor said, ‘doesn’t mean that we can’t come up with one. Get Byron down here, Tegs, and we can thrash out some ideas.’

‘I can’t. He has to stay and make sure everything is ready for the wedding. And he’s got his Plan B to sort out.’

‘You don’t even know what Plan B is.’

I sighed and glanced down at my feet. ‘I’m not blind to the fact that it’s not perfect, I’m really not. But he was right when he said that the Sidhe and the Clans aren’t my world. I don’t know them like he does. In the absence of any alternatives, I think we need to go with him.’

Taylor ran a hand through his hair. ‘We have an alternative.’

There was something about the tone of his voice that I didn’t like. ‘What?’

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘We play Aifric at his own game. I’ve done some research and it wouldn’t be too hard to get hold of some kind of poison…’

Bob clapped his hands together in glee. ‘Now we’re talking!’

I counted to ten. ‘I can’t believe you’re bringing that up as an idea.’ Taylor was normally as anti-violence as I was.

‘Take a look around, Tegs. We saw exactly the same vision that you did.’ He pointed over to the faint patch on the cobbles where my mother and father had breathed their last – and I had breathed my first. ‘He ran a sword into your father’s back, not to mention murdering your entire Clan. Maybe it’s time to put your pacifism to one side.’

‘We’ve been through this before.’ My jaw was clenched so tight that it hurt. ‘No. Nothing’s changed since last time.’

‘A lot’s changed. Byron is with us now. That bodes well for the future.’

Brochan shook his massive head from side to side. ‘I told you not to mention this.’

I glared at them. ‘So you’ve been discussing this while I was away? Behind my back?’

‘Stop being so testy. It’s a reasonable conversation to have. You wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it. One of us could manage it for you.’ Taylor finally looked at me directly. ‘We need to keep you safe, Tegs. Having this temporary reprieve has made us all realise just how good life could be here when we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulders.’

‘No. And if any of you try anything like that, we’re done. I don’t care how good your intentions are, I won’t have it. We are better than that.’ I paused. ‘Is that clear?’ Everyone nodded. I tried again. ‘I said, is that clear?’

This time I received a chorus of replies. ‘Yes, Tegs.’

‘You do still have one wish left,’ Bob began.

I pointed at him. ‘Zip it.’

Lexie raised her hand tentatively. ‘Are you angry now?’

I exhaled. ‘No. I understand where you’re coming from. And you don’t have to put up your hand to speak, Lex.’

‘Are you sure you’re not angry?’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘If you want I’ll tell you all a joke to prove just how un-angry I am.’

Taylor stood up and backed away. ‘There’s no need for that.’

Sorley, who’d been sitting silently in the corner and gnawing impressively on a yellowing toenail, glanced up. ‘I’d like a joke.’ Everyone groaned loudly and hushed him. He shrugged his wide shoulders then he seemed to squeak.

Lexie tilted her head, confused. ‘Did your bones just cheep?’

His eyebrows snapped together. ‘I’m not cheap! I swore fealty. I don’t require financial remuneration because my kind is too honourable to stoop to mere monetary rewards.’

‘No, I meant cheep. Like a bird.’

‘No, you blasted pixie! I’m a damned troll.’ There was a momentary pause before there was another squeak.

Lexie stared round at us all. ‘I’m not the only one who heard that, right?’

‘Sorley,’ I asked, ‘are you carrying around a haggis?’

‘What?’ He got to his feet, his face the picture of outrage. ‘Why would I carry one of those vermin around with me? It’s bad enough that they get into everything and chomp on all my equipment. I wouldn’t want to touch one.’ His loose-fitting shirt bulged; poking its way up from the collar was the tiny questing nose of a haggis. Sorley whipped round and fumbled with his shirt.

‘If you want the trolls to sort out this mess then we can,’ he bellowed, trying to disguise what was now a series of high-pitched haggis complaints. ‘We can muster within the hour and march on the Cruaich.’

‘This isn’t your fight.’

He turned round, the haggis no longer in sight. ‘It’s Clan Adair’s fight and we are Clan Adair,’ he said stiffly.

I shook my head and smiled. ‘We’re not fighting. We’re too smart for that.’

The Foinse spun down from a nearby window, nuzzling into Sorley’s belly. There was another, much happier, squeak.

Brochan raised his eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t count on that.’