Last Wish (Highland Magic #4)

‘Candy came through,’ Brochan said. He raised his eyebrows at Speck. ‘And so did your lot.’

My mouth was dry. Hundreds and hundreds of warlocks were encircling the group.

‘The Foinse is free,’ Speck said simply. ‘Now we have more magic than the Sidhe. The Clan-Less aren’t powerless any more.’

‘We stand with Clan Adair!’ they screamed, their combined voices as loud as if they were standing next to us.

Tipsania raised her hand. Whether reluctantly or not, the entire Scrymgeour Clan pulled away, crossing the divide and joining her. There was a pause and then, when she dropped her arm, they all bellowed, ‘We stand with Clan Adair!’

Byron smiled grimly. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been working hard to make things better.’

A smaller figure appeared from the middle of the Sidhe. The army of trolls came to a halt and Tipsania walked forward, her head held high and with the confident deportment of a Chieftain, and met the other figure halfway. I squinted. ‘Is that…?’

‘Kirsty Kincaid.’ Byron grinned. ‘She must have done what she promised.’

‘Which was?’

‘To usurp her own Chieftain and take the reins of her Clan. They’re one of the top four, you know. The others are conditioned to listen to her.’

I watched in shock. Molly Kincaid’s tiny figure joined them and she shouted something to the mass of waiting Sidhe. From this distance, her words were indistinct but I had a good idea of what she was saying. In fact, she was still talking when Jamie Moncrieffe strode up to her.

‘I told you I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs while you were dead,’ Byron chided me. ‘I wasn’t just learning how to pick locks. Obviously not all of this is down to me but I’ve helped smooth the way.’ He sounded rightly proud. ‘They were taken in by my father’s words but now they’re seeing the light.’

Literally and figuratively. I stared while the entire Kincaid Clan moved, effectively switching sides. They took up places next to the MacQuarries. ‘We stand with Clan Adair!’

At Jamie’s behest, at least three-quarters of the Moncrieffes did the same, then the Carnegies followed. Their Chieftain was a canny woman: she knew which way the wind was blowing and she knew what it would take to survive. With the Veil gone, the smart move was to fall back and, whether she liked me or not, she was smart. Others peeled off and followed. Each time they did, the call was the same.

‘We stand with Clan Adair!’

‘We stand with Clan Adair!’

‘We stand with Clan Adair!’

I pressed my lips together, my vision blurry with tears. ‘Three days ago, they wanted me dead.’

‘And now the Steward is dead instead,’ Fergus murmured. ‘People gravitate to where the power is. Some would have followed you anyway. Others will follow you because you’re the one who’s now in control. There will be plenty who are praying that you fail but unless you do, they’ll keep quiet. They’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep themselves safe.’

Crowd mentality indeed. Fickle freaks. Taylor took my hand, squeezing it hard. ‘The Adairs are never going to be forgotten now,’ he said quietly.

Bit by bit, the original Sidhe army was decimated. Plenty still remained but their ranks were in tatters. Even though I knew that I’d have their unmitigated hatred for a generation, all I could do was gape.

‘The Fomori are still approaching,’ Fergus warned.

My heart pounded. I turned to Asbar and gestured helplessly. ‘Call them off. We’ve helped you.’ I smiled at Speck. ‘There was a plan.’ He grinned back and doffed an imaginary cap. Then I pointed at the brilliant blue sky and gave Asbar another meaningful look. ‘You’re free now. All of us are free now.’

He stared at the dappled shadows around us which highlighted the now-golden sunshine. Even the Fomori army below us kept craning their necks upwards as if to check that the sun was still there. This wasn’t the day for fighting. It might be the end of Scotland as we knew it but it was also the beginning of our country. The Fomori king knew it as much as I did.

Bob beamed. ‘I can go tell them we’re all friends now.’ He glanced at Asbar and addressed him in Fomorian. ‘If that suits you? Are we friends?’

Asbar blinked rapidly before turning to me questioningly. ‘There is a lot that needs to change,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘On both our sides. We will need to talk and draw up agreements.’ My voice hardened. ‘We will not accept violence.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘It will not be easy.’

‘Nothing good ever is.’ I glanced at Byron with the tiniest of smiles.

Asbar held out his hand. ‘You have proved yourself,’ he said simply. ‘You have honour. You have…’ he looked at the green expanse stretching out from the castle and faltered for a moment ‘…changed our world. We will change with it.’ His voice hardened ‘We will have to change with it. So, yes, I suppose we are friends. You may go … Bob. I shall send other messengers too. Just in case.’

The little genie fist pumped the air, choosing not to hear the last of Asbar’s words. ‘Bob the genie saves the world! The prophecy was all wrong. It’s me who’s the saviour.’ With that, he zipped away.

I glanced down at the masses of people. Bob was going to be disappointed. The combined glowing swirl of Foinse and the Draoidheachd was already there, drawing enough attention to itself to distract anyone who had considered getting blood on their hands. We were going to have to come up with a better name for it now.

Byron pulled me to him and wrapped his arms round me. ‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ I told him.

He sighed. He wasn’t grieving yet but he would. ‘Yeah. He did it to himself in the end, though. I’m sorry he took all your magic.’

I grinned into his shoulder. He’d only taken what I’d already stolen. Because he had wished for the Gift of Theft from Bob, he hadn’t taken that from me with the rest of the magic. I wasn’t quite as bereft as Byron thought.

‘I’ll get over it,’ I told him. My smile grew. Maybe I’d keep this one secret for a little while longer. Just for fun.

Far below us, the Fomori army stopped their advance. As the remainder of those loyal to Aifric dropped their shoulders and slunk to the side, the front ranks of the Sidhe, trolls, warlocks and Wild Men walked forward cautiously to greet their opponents. There were no smiles but the threat of violence had diminished. Nobody actually wanted to die. We’d been brought up to hate them and they’d been brought up to hate us. It would take a long time before we achieved real peace and I knew things wouldn’t smooth themselves out just because I, Bob, Asbar and a few others said we were okay now. Revolutions might happen overnight but real change took far longer. We’d get there though; we were Scotland, after all.

‘If the prophecy really is coming true,’ I said slowly, mulling it over, ‘then that kind of makes me The Highlander. You know what that means.’

The others groaned behind me. ‘What?’ Byron asked, humouring me. Yeah, he’d get tired of that pretty soon. I’d have to milk it while I could.

I drew back and met his eyes. ‘There can be only pun.’