The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy

by Alisha Klapheke

  Spinning once under his arm, she came up against him. Her chin tilted. Her mouth was so close. “It’s the whisky, isn’t it?”

  “It washes a person’s manners clean away.” A strangled laugh came out of him.

  She grinned like a devil, and they joined everyone in making a circle, surrounding one dancer. The man in the center did an impressive jig, then returned to the edges of the crowd.

  Thane gave Aini a little shove to the middle. She eyed him, grinned again, and began to dance. Taking the hem of her dress, she moved slowly, toe, toe, heel, heel, following the slow driving beat. The musicians, by now on their feet with the rest, built their tempo, challenging her. She moved her feet behind and in front of one another, moving faster and faster, spinning every fourth time, and giving a great leap at every one of the violin’s high notes. Eyes closed, she became a piece of the music.

  Thane couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Her arms were lines of low and high, her fingers moving beautifully, and her feet punching staccato drum beats on the wooden planks of the floor. She began to spin, round and round, like a top.

  The song came to an end and the room erupted into applause. She opened her coffee eyes, a lock of sweat-wet hair over her face and a real smile stretching her lips.

  Aini MacGregor was definitely going to be the death of him.

  Here he was gawking at her when they had a true storm coming down on them any minute. Rebels. Kingsmen who he had to avoid to protect his cover. Lewis in Nathair’s hands.

  The dancing broke into a mess of blethering and couples goofing around. Thane and the others headed to the bar to get water. Thane wiped his face with his sleeve, then peeled his lightweight sweater off. He’d left the bag of chemicals and candy under a cot at the Dionadair barn, so wearing only a T-shirt wouldn’t be a problem. There was nothing that needed hidden.

  As he leaned on a wood post waiting for Aini to order, a couple of guys started mouthing off at the barkeep. They downed another shot of whisky and said something pure awful about the keep’s mother.

  Though the keep went about his job, this show of patience wouldn’t last. The lads should’ve kept their tongues, considering the size of the keep and the look on the man’s face. He didn’t look like one to take it in stride, not with that cricket bat he had stored near the cash register. The only sport that bat had seen was the kind that ended in blood and bruised ribs.

  The pub door opened.

  The kingsmen walked in.

  Thane swore under his breath.

  One man with a shock of black hair was familiar. He’d been to the Bluefoot. Through the smoke and crowd, he squinted right at Thane. Preparing for the possibility that the kingsman—who’d obviously recognized him—would fail to retain his cover, Thane shook his hair down over his eyes.

  “Forget the order,” he said into Aini’s ear. “Grab Myles. I’ll get Neve. We’re leaving.”

  Aini turned and saw the kingsmen too. “Okay. What about Dodie?”

  “He’ll get out. He knows what to do.”

  As the first kingsman dragged the other to the bar, Thane and the others made their way behind the crowd, nearer the door.

  The barkeep and the guys were still arguing.

  Back at the table, Thane waited until the keep had his back turned. Then he picked up his whisky glass and hurled it over one punk’s shoulder. The glass hit the keep in the back of the head and crashed to the floor. A man and two women shouted as the keep whirled around, the bat already in his hands.

  “Whoa!” Myles raised both arms and laughed.

  The keep swung it at the guys. “Get out!”

  They tried to argue it, pointing back in Thane’s general direction. “We didn’t—”

  The keep swung again and this time, the punks had to duck. The bar erupted into a full-fledged fight.

  Thane gathered everyone up and slipped out the door, the black-haired kingsman trying to get to them but blocked by the stramash.

  In the street, they ran to the truck. Dodie drove them quickly out of town.

  Dodie squinted, eyeing the motorway. “We’ll have to get rid of this vehicle.”

  Neve was breathing too fast and Myles looked ready to faint.

  “Aye,” Thane said. “Dump it soon as we’re within Edinburgh proper and we’ll cab it the rest of the way. Neve. Myles. You’re fine now. It’s all right. How’s the head, Myles?”

  “I can’t believe you just started a bar fight.” Aini’s eyes narrowed at Thane.

  Out the window, night blurred by. “It was going to happen anyway.”

  Dodie shifted gears and the truck groaned.

  Aini hugged herself, fingers pinching into her skin. “I have to think of another place to look for the Waymark Wall.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Neve stammered.

  Aini nodded, but Thane could tell her heart wasn’t in it. Thane squeezed his eyes shut and laid his head against the window. After all they’d been through, could she be convinced that he’d see her through this somehow? Could he even make such a promise?

  He lightly knocked his head against the glass. He wanted to make that promise, wanted it to be true. But the whole thing was so tangled and dangerous. Maybe if he could talk some of the other Campbells into backing him up instead of Nathair. Putting his elbows on his knees, knowing full well he was crazy for even thinking it. The minute they were at the townhouse, he had to send a message to Rodric. Further silence would be seen as disobedience. He’d mention the blinding powder that could be teased into gas form—the stuff he’d developed—and the negating tablet. Maybe if he could manage it, he could get Aini and the others to make a batch of the gravity-reducing hard candies and he could alter the mix to make the effects more extreme. He could report that too. That would keep his clan off his back until he figured out what to do. It was a mess that was certain.

  The quiet of the rest of the drive was punctuated only by Myles’s occasional bursts of song.

  “For fire fight for friends, run ragged rings round reason, ’tis too tame to talk, touch, win wildly, wearing wounds wound with worship…”

  Wearing wounds wound with worship. That line pretty much described Nathair Campbell. The chief of Clan Campbell, Earl of Argyll, wore the scar on his neck like a badge of honor. Anytime someone spoke up against him, he pointed to the thing like it was a holy relic and asked them what they had given of themselves for king and country.

  A shudder wrapped around Thane. Outmaneuvering his clan was not going to be easy.

  Chapter 21

  Fully Loaded

  “No.” Aini slammed a hand on the lab table the next day. The cool metal sent a chill over her. “I won’t let you do this.”

  Thane paced the floor. He looked like he was going to be sick, but she wasn’t going to ease off. Dawn’s orange fire glowed through the high, leaded glass window, shining over him like a broken, unmoving lighthouse beam.

  She’d discovered that, while the rest of them had slept, Thane had reworked the formula for Father’s gravity-reducing hard candy, but it wasn’t only to accomplish a punchier grape-lavender flavor. He wanted it strong enough to lift a person clean off the ground and keep them floating freely like a bird for a half hour.

  “That is a weapon,” she said.

  The scent of burnt sweetness fit Aini’s mood rather well.

  “It wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Thane said.

  Aini pointed a finger and stubbornly ignored his looks. It didn’t matter that he was like something she’d dreamt up as he grabbed one of the low, black wood beams that crossed the ceiling. His slightly wrinkled, gray T-shirt shifted. The movement revealed the fine slope of his strong arm and a peek of his hipbone above his low-slung cotton pants. She looked away, staring instead at the colored sugar on the far wall.

  Neve walked in, still braiding her hair. She paused and took in their scowls. “Surely Aini, at this point in our lives—with rebels and corruption and visions—you’re not as worked up about paperw
ork, are you?” She must’ve heard part of their arguing. “So, what is it?”

  Myles, nibbling an orange, came up behind her and frowned at Aini. “I wonder. Is there specific paperwork for a sixth-senser working in a candy lab?”

  “Shut up, Myles,” Thane and Aini said in unison.

  Aini spun her mother’s ring around and around her finger, its edges cutting.

  “Don’t you understand this at all?” She quieted her voice to keep it steady. “Father was taken because he refused to do exactly what Thane wants to do. Weaponize candy. Push its limits. Use it to alter people in ways that could truly affect lives.” Spinning, she faced them and crossed her arms. “I will not go against my father’s idea of right and wrong with regard to crafting sweets. This is HIS business. Not mine. Not yours. HIS. He spoke against the Campbells, risking everything, to fight the idea of stretching the effects of his sweets. I will not betray him now. Especially since I’m the worst possible kind of child he could have.”

  A sob tried to choke her words, but she forced it down and set her jaw.

  “No, you’re not,” Neve said, her own chin trembling.

  Thane’s mouth turned down and he cocked his head at Aini. “Don’t say that, hen.”

  “You are definitely not the worst,” Myles said. “Not great, but not the worst. I’m the worst child someone could have. You should’ve seen my graduation. They’re probably still cleaning the paint out of the dean’s hair.”

  They all argued quietly against the fact, but it remained a fact. For a candymaker—a job you had to specifically apply for—to have a sixth-senser in the family? A mistrusted abomination? It didn’t matter that Father had stopped helping the Dionadair. He was doomed because of Aini and some prophecy. She shook her head. A sick twist of fate.

  Neve stepped around the table and stood beside Aini, her face pale. “Your father was against this. But that was before they ignored his right to a trial, to justice. He was against it before they hurt him. Before they kidnapped him.”

  “So, now you want me to make crazy concoctions so we can fight against them?” Aini said.

  Shoving his glasses into his hair, Thane leaned on the table. He pressed his hands against his face. He really did look ill.

  Neve raised her chin. “I do.”

  Aini’s mouth fell open. She turned to Myles. “And you?”

  He laughed and spit an orange seed into a napkin. “You know I do. If we’re going to go up against those Campbell kingsmen, I want to go in fully loaded.” Pretending he had some kind of enormous gun, he blasted the list of the king’s rules hanging on the wall.

  Fury rising, Aini jerked the stove’s knob and turned the heat off. “No. We’re not making anything. This lab is closed.” She marched to the light switch and threw the room into darkness. “If I do this, Father will never be able to craft sweets again.” She waved a shaking hand at the mixer, the rainbow of ingredients along the wall, the taffy puller, and Father’s desk. “Our whole way of life will be over.”

  Thane stood tall, his face all lines and sharp angles. “It already is, Aini.”

  Her stomach lurched. “No,” she whispered. “If we can spook the Campbells with a picture of the stone,” she said, louder now, “and distract them and help Father escape, they might give up their plans for him. They might let us—”

  Neve and Myles stared, their eyes sad and deadly calm.

  They didn’t believe it could happen. Everyone thought her life, their way of life, was actually over. It was all over.

  Head spinning, Aini ran to her room. She refused to cry or rage in front of anyone anymore. Sitting on the bed, hands clenching the duvet and heart hammering, she suddenly wanted everything of Father’s around her. She wanted to see him in everything. To somehow keep him close. Her heart clenched. She wanted to see him in a vision.

  Rushing from room to room, she gathered his things. Dodie woke from his temporary bed on the couch and asked questions she ignored. She collected Father’s favorite dark blue coffee cup, a keychain he’d bought in the Dominion of New England—where he’d visited her and her mother—and a tumble of chemistry and math volumes. Back in her room, she poured them onto the bed. Over and over again, she brushed fingers along each item of rough crockery, silver-plated metal, worn cloth, and leather.

  None held a vision.

  She started to drop onto the bed to forget this stupid idea—she needed to think of where else the Waymark Wall could be—but then she remembered she’d hidden the brooch under her floorboard. Maybe there was a place she hadn’t touched yet, a sliver of memory left, one little vision.

  The slat came up easily and there was her diary.

  Her stomach dropped. The brooch was gone.

  “Thane!” She didn’t know why her mouth called for him when they’d just argued.

  He banged into the room, his face worried, his glasses hanging from one hand. “What is it?” His tattoo of the chemical formula for salt had been splashed with purple food coloring.

  “The brooch. Someone stole it.”

  Thane swore in Gaelic. Aini echoed the sentiment.

  Myles stuck his head in, eyed her stash, and whistled like a bird. “What’s going on in here?”

  “The brooch is gone,” Thane said. “I’m going to question Dodie.”

  The very man came to the door. “I heard you. And I don’t have the Bethune brooch.”

  “Did the Campbells come here again and take it?” she asked. “But they didn’t touch anything else.”

  Thane swallowed. “Guess it’s all they needed.”

  Myles whistled low again, and Aini suddenly remembered the birds in the knife’s vision, the ones on the island.

  What if the island wasn’t just another separate thought like the sight of the stone was? What if there was an island near the castle ruins, near the Waymark Wall?

  She knew of one island in the area, one that fit the bill. It was covered in birds, which would explain the strange white color in the vision. She’d been a fool. This made sense. This had to be important.

  “For now, forget the brooch. The candy. I have another idea about the Waymark Wall.”

  Chapter 22

  A Doister

  They left Edinburgh in a rush, met with the Dionadair on the motorway, and headed to Tantallon Castle, another jumble of ruins on the North Sea. Aini’s palms tingled as if they somehow knew the Waymark Wall was there, waiting for her. Or maybe the stress had finally broken her and this was simply the beginning of her end.

  Dodie agreed that the Campbells probably took the brooch. Somehow they’d learned she had it. What else they knew was still a mystery and that was no good. If they made it to the stone first, that would be the end of the road.

  Dodie’s lumpy form sat behind the steering wheel, Vera beside him, and Aini was squeezed between Thane and Myles in the back seat. Neve was on Myles’s right, all of it making for a really tight fit. It didn’t help the discomfort of the situation that Vera kept bumping her knife hilt on the roof, and Neve’s nervousness was spilling out of her in the form of random historical tidbits.

  Wind kicked last year’s leaves into the cloudy sky as they sped down the curving, narrow country road. Another truck drove in front of them, puffing foul exhaust through the open windows.

  “Tantallon,” Neve said, blinking too quickly between words, “is a castle of enciente, meaning it has a curtain wall. Forty-nine feet high and twelve feet thick, if you can believe it. Walter Scott wrote extensively about the castle in one of his poems. It’s the one that everyone quotes. Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!”

  Vera turned suddenly. Aini thought for a second she might cut out Neve’s tongue, but she held up her phone, a serious look on her beautiful face. “Owen sent a message. A scout in Edinburgh says some of the Campbells are meeting to discuss something. Said even Nathair will be there. They know, Aini. We need to get to the wall and to the stone before they do or the game is up.”

  Ic
y fingers curled around Aini’s throat.

  His foot bouncing on the floor, Thane rubbed his knees. His tattoos blurred in the darkening truck cabin.

  Vera made a call. “Gavin, take the tail.” She was talking to the truck in front. “Call Tom Hunt. Tell him we’ll be in his territory in twenty minutes.”

  Thane bumped into Aini as the truck moved down a hill. His hand pushed against her thigh. “Sorry,” he said, his gaze shifting across her face.

  She couldn’t tell what he thought now. Fear? Anger? Regret that her mess of a life had snared him? It was impossible to tell. He’d retreated into himself since they realized the Campbells had the brooch. Or maybe because of their argument about the candy.

  Leaning over Myles, Neve smiled. “You’ll find it. You’re fated for this.”

  “I wish I had your faith.”

  Vera sighed. “I wish our Seer wasn’t such a wee feartie.”

  Thane raised his head. “She’s not a coward. It’s only that she cares about the people around her.”

  Vera stared Thane down. “Oh, and I don’t care? Why do you think we’re out to throw the Campbells and the king down? For the money?” Vera laughed loud and batted her thick black lashes. She slammed a fist against her chest. “My parents were shot to death.” Tears shone in her eyes. “And I’m risking my life for my countrymen. I do it every day.”

  “And you put your cause before those you love,” Thane said. “It’s pointless to fight against the Campbells. You’re leading us all to the slaughter.”

  Heart drowning, Aini shuddered. Didn’t he have any hope in her at all?

  Myles shoved a tiny apple into Aini’s hand. “Ignore them and eat, sweetheart.” He produced another like a magician and gave it to Neve. “You too, love.”

  Aini held the apple, turning it in her hands. They had to quit bickering. They needed to be a team if this was going to work. She had to be strong enough to bind them together in this madness. But they kept on arguing and shooting glares at one another.