Bran nodded. “Course.”
The sun rose higher in the sky, and the room’s light shifted from red to orange, dispelling the shadows by the clock as well as some of the bad feelings in Aini's chest and stomach.
“We can do this," she said. "Let’s get started.”
Chapter 6
Hair Dye and Secrets
In the basement of the safe house, Thane followed Aini, Vera, and the rest of the group that would head toward Uncle Callum’s estate. Two other Dionadair trickled in holding scissors and bottles and strips of silver foil. Aini tapped a finger nervously against her peachy, light brown cheek, and all Thane wanted in the world was to scoop her into his arms and take her away from all of this. Preferably to a room where they could be alone for a few minutes and talk. He’d love to listen as she discussed a list of tasks that had to be accomplished, fingers ticking off each item and eyes narrowing as her mind whirred. It’d be heaven to touch the velvet skin just under her chin, then to reassure her that he was behind her every step of the way on this wild journey.
So much was happening so quickly.
Aini smoothed her borrowed shirt with quick hands, then leaned toward Neve, saying something that made Neve take her arm and give it a comforting squeeze. Myles crossed his arms as he looked at Dodie; he’d never forgiven him fully for the fight in Greyfriars kirkyard. Long-necked Samantha and that level-headed man with the cap, Rob, talked quietly, their gazes flitting from Aini to Vera before landing on Thane. Their faces were unreadable under the strange basement lighting. They gave him a respectful nod. He smiled back, hoping it didn’t look too strained.
The recessed lights’ pearly haze made the whole room and everyone in it look like a dream—faces blurred a bit, Thane’s heart beat too quickly, and he felt as if the odd lighting would grow paler and paler until he was overcome and stopped breathing entirely. That last feeling, the sensation of being overwhelmed, reminded him of his Dreams. The prophetic ones. It was wrong to wish it, but he definitely wished he never had those Dreams. They would most likely help the rebels succeed and detach the English king’s hold on his homeland, but who knew for sure? And in the meantime, they were very, very unsettling. Trying to grab hold of their meaning, to be certain it was a Dream and not just a dream, was like reaching out for a minnow in a storm-flooded river.
After a Dream, Thane experienced pain in his head as well as a feeling of being overwhelmed, taken under. The ache, now that he recognized it, told him whether his sleeping visions were prophecy or simply his brain processing stimuli from the day gone by. But what if the headache faded before he really woke up and he missed it? It wasn’t easy. Not even a little. He suddenly craved the surety of a formula written in pencil on a piece of paper and the bubble of carefully measured chemicals in a test tube. Why couldn’t life be more like science?
Vera raked through her large, silk bag, then held up a stack of paper—tiny slips that she handed out. There was a sketch of a person on each one, done in some kind of colored pencil. “Here are the ideas we have for how to change your looks.”
In Thane’s, he had jet black hair that had been shaved on the sides and was longer on top. And his alter ego was wearing eyeliner.
“Why must I always wear eyeliner when we go undercover?” He breathed out through his nose.
Aini peeked at his, her own held against her chest. Her mouth popped open, but she quickly closed it.
“Seems I’m due for a haircut.” He tugged on his floppy, blond locks. “And to become some sort of rock star.”
“But your hair…”
Thane came close, breathing in the scent of Aini’s shampoo and forcing himself not to kiss her right then and there. “Aw, hen,” he said, leaning in, “don’t look like that.” He brushed his lips over the soft curve of her ear. Goosebumps traveled the length of her neck, which of course made him feel very hot and bothered. He couldn’t resist making her just as warm under the collar. “If you need something to hold on to during our private time, I’ll still have these lugs.” He tapped his ears.
Her cheeks darkened. At least she wasn’t biting her cheek nervously any more.
Myles shoved his sketch at them. “I’ve got to take it all off.”
Neve squinted at Myles’s likeness. “You’re bald!”
Sure enough, Myles’s fake persona had an extremely short buzz cut that followed the lines of the skull.
Myles rubbed both hands over his mint green hair. “Well, if anyone can pull it off…”
Neve smacked his bum lightly. “Cheeky.” She frowned at her own drawn image. “I’m going blond and it seems I’ll have blue eyes. How are we going to manage that?”
“We have contact lenses ready for you,” Vera said.
Aini flipped her sketch so everyone could see. It was her face but with heavy eyeliner and cropped, colored hair. “Purple?”
“Sure.” Vera winked.
“What happened to the whole ‘Our Seer’ respect…” Aini mumbled, tucking the ID into her waistband and starting toward the long, trough sink where the two other Dionadair that had followed the group set up bottles of what had to be hair dye.
Aini sighed. “I’m going to look like an eggplant.”
Thane wanted to chuckle with her, but his heart started hammering again and he suddenly wanted out of this room.
Vera snickered as she headed for dye. “You’ll look great. The lot of you. In a few hours, someone will come to take our photos, then our ID man will have everything ready in minutes.”
Sweat dampened Thane’s back and palms. They were doing this. Changing their looks to head into the fray. There was no escape after they did. And he would have to lead them after all was said and done. If they made it through. He couldn’t picture himself as a ruler. Not even a little bit. Especially with a stick of eyeliner in his hand.
“Are you okay?” Aini’s big brown eyes stared up at Thane.
“Not really, but I have to be anyway, don’t I?” He swallowed and tried for a smile.
“You can take a break upstairs. They can’t complete all the cutting and dyeing at once.”
A weight pressed against his lungs. “No. I’m not leaving. The heir can’t be off for a kip while the rest go on to fight for glory.”
Aini’s mouth stretched into a grin. “I’m glad you’re staying.”
Thane forced himself to breathe slowly in and out. He wondered if this was how Aini felt when she was in tight places. What was his problem though? Just the stress of this?
Shoving his glasses into his hair, he walked over to where Myles sat in a chair. Under the snip of a young Dionadair’s scissors, his hair came off in thick, green chunks. Thane allowed a slim girl to swathe him in a barber’s gown and settle him into a chair. Aini stared at him from across the room where Vera shook one of the dye bottles. He realized then he’d walked away from her without saying anything. He hadn’t meant to.
The girl snapped the barber’s gown tight around Thane’s neck. It itched. “So you’ll be Chief of Clan Campbell in a matter of days and leader of all Scotland in as many weeks if we don’t all die in the effort.” She whistled. “That’s a lot to take in, aye?”
The air suddenly left the room and Thane’s eardrums pounded.
“I suppose. But one thing at a time, as our good Seer likes to say.”
First, travel to Uncle Callum’s in Perth without getting caught.
The wooden chair squeaked under Thane and bits of his hair slipped by his face to fall into his lap.
Thane looked at Myles from the corner of his eye. “I had no idea a rebellion would be so…”
“Hairy?” Myles supplied.
“Exactly.”
Aini let Vera lean her head into the sink. Water hissed from the tap. “Thane,” Aini said, “did you finish that batch of Bismian?”
Bismian was a powerful blend of bismuth and various other chemicals. He hadn’t tested it properly yet, but Thane’s hypothesis was if as much as a teaspoon came in contact with a victi
m’s skin, the result would be a headache that would keep them from putting up a fight. The stuff would also erase the day’s events from their memory. Bismian would be a good weapon to have on hand.
“I did. Have two vials of it in my bag and ready to go,” he said.
Thane suddenly missed Bran. He was the only one who truly understood what all this meant to Thane. He knew what Thane had gone through, had listened to all of Thane’s stories about his rough childhood and how Nathair brainwashed him from the moment he came from the womb. Soon as this hair and clothing stuff was finished, he’d go find Bran and make certain he still wanted to go with them to Inveraray.
Neve came out from behind a white screen. A billowy top and pencil skirt made her look more like her fake persona. That skirt would make fighting difficult. Thane wondered if he should suggest a change.
Samantha adjusted the collar of Neve’s shirt. “It fits well. Now take it back off so we can get your hair done.”
Neve headed back behind the screen. “What else do we have in our unusual arsenal?”
Aini winced as Vera splattered purple dye over the top of her head. “We have the Cone5 taffy. It might help me see more spirits.” She frowned. “That sounds so strange,” she said to herself quietly.
Myles shivered dramatically.
“We also have a batch of gravity-reducing hard candies,” Aini added, “the vision-inducing gum, aphrodisiac cherry drops—the regular formula—and we also have the strength chocolate Thane’s been playing with—”
“The what now?” Myles blinked and sat up. His hair person shoved him back into the chair and lifted the razor to finish the job.
Thane cleared his throat as his own barber switched on an electric razor. “The strength chocolate drops should increase blood flow to the muscles.” The razor buzzed over the back of his head and near his temples. It tickled like fiery fingers. “It should allow for a ten to twenty percent increase in—”
Neve squeaked as shards of pottery fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. “I just broke my coffee.”
“Weren’t you eating chocolate earlier?” Aini asked.
“Yes.”
“I have a feeling that little treat wasn’t just a little treat.”
“Oh.” Neve went pale. “I picked them up off the kitchen counter. I…I didn’t think they were altered.”
Thane smiled. “At least we know they work. Be careful with any small animals you may pick up.”
Myles winked at Neve. “And be careful with me later tonight.” He ran a palm over his almost bald pate. He looked like a brawler. It wasn’t a bad look for him.
“I tested the acceleration caramels. Or whatever we’re going to call them,” Thane said. “They definitely work.”
“I heard about your impressive sprint outside from some of the others,” Samantha said. “And about Myles being sick.”
“I ate them about two hours after having the gum. Thane thinks that’s why I puked.”
Thane nodded. “We should remember that, everyone.”
Aini’s nose wrinkled. “I’m sure you’re right. There could be counter effects between the ingredients.”
“Aye. And unexpected outcomes,” Thane said as he was moved to the dyeing sinks.
“I’m not taking any of that stuff, man,” Myles said. “Not unless you make me.”
Neve took a pen from her hair. It cracked as she folded it like a napkin. She grinned and Aini laughed.
“That was so hot,” Myles said as Neve threw the ruined pen in the bin and rubbed her hands together.
By late afternoon, they were different people.
“We look bizarre,” Aini said.
“No. We just look different,” Neve said.
Thane had shorter hair now, a little longer on top than it was on the sides. With a glance in the mirror, he thought maybe he looked older. It was the dark color of his hair. Contacts in place, his gray eyes were now green as Myles’s hair had once been.
The Dionadair had dyed Neve’s hair a honey blond and her eyes were now a dark blue, or so Vera said. Thane couldn’t tell in this light.
Aini touched her own purple hair, shrugged, and turned to pick up her bag. “I hope this works.”
She did not look like an eggplant. Her elegant neck peeked beneath the back of the shorter cut and Thane’s fingers longed to explore the ups and downs of the tendons beneath the skin, to kiss the spot where her neck and shoulder met.
“Wake up, sweetie.” Myles bumped the back of Thane’s knee with a foot and jostled him pretty good. “Time to rock and roll.”
There was no more time for thinking and debating and wondering if he could handle this. When they left this safe house tomorrow and headed for Uncle Callum’s, the rebellion would be beginning in earnest.
He glanced at Aini. She studied her small hands, fisted them, then took a deep breath. Were they ready? No. Did it matter? No. It was time whether they wanted it to be or not. Only the strongest of them would survive. Aini was strong enough. Thane prayed he had the same strength to find himself standing at her side when it was all over.
Chapter 7
A Little Breaking and Entering
“If you ask me again if I’m sure I can do this, I’m going to call you Granny for the rest of the week,” Bran said, pulling a black, woolen cap over his thick hair.
Thane frowned and Bran saw Nathair in the look, not that he’d ever say that to Thane. “I’ll make you some cookies to go along with all my granny-style worrying if it means keeping you from being the next one shot in Greenock Square,” Thane said.
For all that Thane’s mannerisms sometimes reminded Bran of the earl, Thane had a heart of gold. Bran would gladly risk anything and everything for his closest friend.
Myles came around the corner of the safe house. “And you don’t want me along?” He shivered and rubbed his recently shaved head. “Because I will totally ride along if you need me. I’ve learned a thing or two from this guy and that Seer of ours.” Myles poked Thane in the shoulder.
Bran smiled. “No. It’s best if it’s just me. I can move in and out quickly. I know the layout of a standard kingsman office. I’ll be back before midnight. If I’m not, maybe send Dodie and Rob out to see if I’ve been taken. All right?”
Thane handed Bran a small pouch. “Aini said to give you this.”
Bran upended the bag to find a half-diamond pick, a small torsion wrench, a bump key, and rake snake. An impressive little set. “Our Seer knows the business of breaking and entering.”
“Aye. Her father showed her how to crack locks because she has a touch of claustrophobia.”
“A good man, Lewis is.”
“Definitely,” Thane and Myles said in unison.
“Good luck, Bran,” Myles said as Bran tucked the pick set into his jacket. “I’ll set some whisky out for you.”
“You’re moving up on my list of favorite people, colonial,” Bran said.
Myles saluted him and left for the house.
“I’ll share that dram with you when you return, pal.” Thane tucked his hands into his pockets as the wind kicked up.
Somewhere someone was burning a fire. The smoke carried through the night and reminded Bran of playing chess with Thane, by the wood stove in a flat Bran had years back.
With a nod to Thane, Bran faded into the crisp night, hoping he’d indeed be drinking whisky when this was over and not eyeing the end of a kingsman’s bullet.
A blood-red door marked the front entrance to the local kingsmen’s office on Union Street. Rob had dropped Bran down the way a bit. It hadn’t been much a jog to get there, but Bran was already sweating. Maybe because everything was more dangerous now than it had been. At least, it felt that way.
The office was only manned by one kingsman on a weekday night like this one. He’d most likely be at an interior desk on the first floor, watching the television. Not too much went on in this wonderfully quiet little town. Samantha had talked to Bran before he left, telling him the rad
ios he needed to access were on the second floor. She’d worked in this very office before going over to the Dionadair side of things.
An oscillating camera mounted above the office door turned south, away from Bran’s shadowy spot beside a closed down pie shop. Bran rounded the corner of the three-story building, passing a hand over a cold pillar and sliding into the black space between the office and the neighboring post office. An industrial-sized bin sat against the wall. A second-floor window leaked weak emergency light onto the rubbish stuck under its lid. He might not need Aini’s lock-picking tools after all.
Pulling himself onto the manky bin, Bran eyed the corner. Every noise he made sounded like a cannon’s boom. Greenock was a little too quiet for this kind of work. The window glass was thick and old. The wood frame could be opened by a brass lever—there for firefighters—but a horribly rusted lock kept the thing from turning. If he smashed the glass, it would surely alert the kingsman on the first floor. The television wasn't that loud. Bran put an ear to the window, listening. All he could hear was outside noises—the rush of the wind and a faraway lorry several streets over. He pulled out Aini’s set and went to work.
The half-diamond pick worked like a charm. The lock opened with surprising ease and the window slid smoothly out of the way. This was going too well. He stepped one foot through the opening, straddling the frame and ducking his head inside.
“Eh! What’s that you’re doing?” a voice called from the alley.
Bran’s heart scrambled up into his throat. He leaned his head back out and eyed the swaying man shouting at him. The man belched. He was drunk, big, and twice Bran’s age. Bran quickly slipped back onto the bin’s lid, leaving the open window behind him. He hopped onto the street.
“I was about to steal some things. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be back to my business.”
The man’s jaw dropped.
“Oh.” Bran held up a finger. “It would be very helpful if you didn’t shout loud enough to raise the dead again. Thanks, pal.” He pulled a flask from his jacket and tossed it to the man, hoping against all odds the idiot would catch it and not create more noise by letting it crash to the ground.
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