Holding the boys’ bedroom door open, Neve chewed her lip. “And you don’t think we should’ve taken him to a doctor?”
“Nah,” Thane said. “It’s a knockout. That’s all. A rough one. If we can rouse him again, there’s no more to do than let him rest. If we can’t wake him…”
Aini rushed into the kitchen. “I’m getting the salts. Just in case.”
A yellow nightlight glowed over the stove, illuminating the room. She slipped past the round kitchen table and headed up the dark stairs to the lab, praying silently that the salts were in the first aid kit. The last one to use the kit was Myles. But of course, the first aid kit wasn’t where it was supposed to be—by the stove, in the top cabinet.
Aini dashed to Myles’s massive desk and began rummaging. She tossed a stapler and two chewed pencils into the first drawer, where a scattering of charcoals hid. She stacked four small blank canvases at the corner of the desk and peered under a tattered portfolio. No first aid kit. Only a calendar of women in bathing suits. After shuffling through some drawings, she turned her attention to the other side. Lifting the edge of a large sheet of green and pink painted butcher paper, she slid the bottom drawer open and finally found the emergency supplies.
“Myles!” Neve’s voice came from the kitchen.
Aini looked up, the kit in her hands and her heart pounding.
Myles appeared at the open lab door. He leaned a forearm against the frame and heaved a breath. “Don’t wrinkle that butcher paper.”
Aini pinched her nose with two fingers. “You come back from unconsciousness to keep me from wrinkling your latest advert idea? When your desk rivals a rat’s nest for the Most Horrifying Mess award?”
On the paper, the cotton candy colors and emerald hues blended to form representations of the visions their chewing gum induced.
One of Myles’s eyes was nearly swollen shut and the side of his face was puffy. “The advert is enthralling, right?”
A wry laugh crept out of her. “It is pretty fantastic.”
She helped him into a chair as Neve and Thane burst into the room.
“Daft colonial.” Thane shook his head of golden hair.
Neve kneeled at Myles’s feet. “Why did you go flying out of bed like a dog had bitten you?” She turned to Aini. “He sat up right after we laid him down. We were about to call for you.”
Smiling, Aini waved her off.
Myles pointed a finger, then winced and bowed his head. “I knew Aini would be looking for the first aid kit.” He cocked his head at Thane and Neve. “And what would our Miss MacGregor do if she had more than a second at my creatively arranged work station?”
Thane and Neve spoke in unison. “Organize it.”
Aini raised an eyebrow. “Someone should.”
Taking a copper pot from the cabinet, she ran a finger over a ding in the side. Her body felt heavy with what had happened. “Those people could’ve killed us.”
She set the pot on the stove and began heating sugar and cornstarch over medium just to keep her hands busy.
Neve hummed two notes, the sounds she made when thinking about new candy flavor combinations. She walked over, eyed the pot, then slid the large cutting board from the lab table’s lower shelf.
“Golden taffy, aye?” she said to Aini, her voice as artificially bright as Myles’s hair.
Picking up a folded cloth from the counter, Thane cleaned some water from the edge of the sink.
Tears rose, hot and sudden, and Aini dragged a hand over her eyes to smear them away. “I’m sorry I put you all in this position.”
Myles coughed. “We knew what we were getting into.”
“I didn’t,” she admitted.
Neve blinked. “Me either.”
Thane stared, the cleaning cloth thrown over his shoulder and his eyes weary. Aini wondered if he’d lost his glasses in the graveyard.
“Where did you learn how to fight like that?” she asked him, adding the butter and salt.
“Not everyone had a sweet childhood like your own.”
“I just…thank you. For—”
“What did the rebels say to you in that wee room of theirs?” he asked.
Neve gave Aini the container of orange flavoring and the jar of golden dye. “Aye. Tell us. Did you learn anything about Mr. MacGregor’s past?”
Aini measured, then remeasured the flavor and stirred it in. After all they’d risked tonight, they deserved to know everything. But if she told them about being a sixth-senser—specifically, a Seer—they’d immediately have knowledge they were required by law to report. If they were caught hiding her, they’d be taken for questioning and possibly be in an even worse situation than Father probably was right now.
The cutting scent of citrus bit into her thoughts.
Neve donned some hefty oven mitts and removed the pot from the heat. She frowned and added the gold.
Myles laid his head on the back of the chair. “Aini, you need to tell us exactly what’s going on.”
Once she told them, everything would change. It would be a jump off a ledge, the lighting of a match, pushing the first domino. Aini moved her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Neve asked her something, but all Aini could hear was her own heart knocking. She had to tell them. She couldn’t tell them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONFESSION
“DOES IT HAVE ANYTHING to do with that brooch you’re wearing?” Neve poured the taffy onto the cutting board.
Aini swallowed. “I found it in Father’s trunk. In the hidden room behind that wall.” She pointed to it, certain Thane had told them about it, but Neve and Myles’s eyes widened.
“Hidden room?” Neve said. “Does everyone in Edinburgh have a hidden room?”
“Only rebels.” Thane’s hands fisted at his sides. “Sorry. Ignore me.” His fingers went to the chain at his neck, the one that held the vision of him as a child.
Aini suddenly felt crushed under the weight of his judgment against her family.
But he was right.
Father had been involved. Somehow. She didn’t know how deeply, but he’d been tied into the underground world of rebels at some point.
Looking at her clothing and touching her updo, Aini gritted her teeth. She’d tried to fit into Edinburgh society. Talking like the upper class, well-respected Scots and Englishmen. Following every rule that she could. And now Father’s past could erase all her efforts to give him the peaceful, successful life he deserved. The life she’d thought he deserved. No. He still deserves happiness. Surely his mistakes didn’t go so deep.
Her shoulders and back tight, she removed the brooch and passed it around. “The brooch has the Bethune clan motto. Thane tells me some Dionadair rebels are Bethunes.”
“Aye.” Neve handed the piece of jewelry to Myles. “The ones sentenced to death when we were still in grammar school.”
“Yes.” Aini pressed the flat spoon into the mixture, inhaling the comforting scent of sugar and oranges. “When I…when I found the brooch and touched it…”
Myles snorted, looking at the pin. “An otter. Real tough.” He rolled his eyes and gave the brooch to Thane, who looked at the piece like it would explode in his hands.
“Shut your gob, Myles,” Neve chided.
As Aini laid the turner next to the mass of sticky sweetness, Thane slid the brooch down the silver lab table. It scratched across the surface and Aini caught it neatly. The metal was warm from his fingers. She cleared her throat, touching the tiny, rough lines that made up the rebel clan’s motto. Her stomach burned under her ribs.
Myles slowly opened his swollen eye, obviously in pain. Neve was pale as milk as she looked at Aini with the kindest eyes. The taffy was going cold, forgotten. A purple and green bruise colored Thane’s knuckles.
“I’m a Seer.” The words fell from her mouth like they had a life of their own.
Neve’s head jerked up. “What?” she whispered like someone might hear.
“I have a sixth sense.” Swea
t rose along Aini’s back, and she grabbed the turner and folded the taffy, once, twice, three times, her arm muscles tensing. “For two years, I’ve been able to see emotional imprints, memories, on sentimental items when I first touch them.”
Neve’s mouth dropped open. Myles blinked, frozen, and Thane’s face was unreadable.
“I touched your bracelet, Myles,” Aini said. “I saw your mother. Curly hair. Not the nicest person.”
His lips opened and shut and opened again.
“Thane, I…” She licked her lips quickly. Her mouth was dry as sand. “I accidentally touched your necklace and a vision of you played out in my head. You were little. Your parents were there. I couldn’t see them clearly, but…”
“Can you even believe it?” Neve said quietly. Then she clapped her hands once and laughed. “That’s amazing!”
“You’re…you’re not scared? Of me? Of disappearing into prison for knowing me?”
“I’m scared of prison. But not you. Course not you. Aini…it’s brilliant.”
Aini smiled shyly, but when she looked at Thane, her grin faded. His face was a sketch in harsh lines and tired eyes. She rolled her mother’s ring around her finger.
“And I saw a vision when I first touched the brooch too. It was in The Origin. Near where the picture was taken, the picture Thane found in Father’s office. A man gave the brooch to him. Father didn’t want it.”
Thane narrowed his eyes. “How do you know?”
“I can…see some emotions in visions. Father was scared. Unhappy. Worried. Another vision followed. In the second one, a man in strange, old-fashioned clothes said something. It was like he knew he left an emotional imprint and wanted to talk to the Seer who would experience the vision. So weird. It was different from the other visions I’ve seen.” Aini shivered. The man’s eyes had been so bright, so passionate. “He said something about a rock or a trail or something.” Her mind went foggy with fatigue, and she rubbed her eyes. She needed sleep, but obviously that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
Neve’s head went slowly back and forth. “I knew there was something special about you.”
A strangled laugh bubbled out of Aini. “You don’t think I’m an abomination?”
“I know you.” Neve played with the braid hanging over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t use your…ability to take advantage of people.”
It’s what many people thought about sixth-sensers—that they’d use their extra sense to one-up everyone else.
“I hope I don’t get you all into trouble.” Aini blinked back tears.
“Bit late for that,” Thane said, softening his words with a shaky smile. “And the king’s law is wrong.” Venom leaked into his voice. “He should not call your kind what he does. It’s not your choice to have this ability.” Crossing his corded arms, he popped a knuckle and mumbled something under his breath.
“I’ve only known one other Seer,” Myles said. “An old woman who worked for my mother. You’re a truckload better looking than her. Guess you don’t have to be a hag or a lying cheat to be,” he wiggled his fingers, “in touch.”
A sad smile drifted over Aini’s mouth. He was a friend. She hadn’t had many in her life of traveling with her mother and the dancing troupe. She memorized how he looked right at this moment, with his sly grin and green hair and wide eyes, and tucked the image into her heart.
Neve sighed at him. “Myles. Really.” She checked his puffy jaw and eye with her fingers. Aini guessed growing up with younger brothers almost qualified Neve as a nurse.
“My life’s an open book. Read at will, Aini,” Myles continued. “I’ll warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.”
The lab’s overhead lights suddenly felt too bright. Aini slid her mother’s ring from her first knuckle to the next. Neve helped Myles to the stairs.
“This man needs his bed,” Neve said.
Myles put a hand over his heart. “Oh what I could do with that phrase if I wasn’t three shades shy of full function.”
Neve gave him a look he completely deserved. “Aini, I’ll wait up to talk to you. In our room. If you want.”
They disappeared into the dark, and Thane turned the oven’s temperature up. He scooped the cold taffy lump onto a baking sheet.
“We should get some rest.” Aini swallowed. “You don’t have to do that.”
He pulled his glasses out of his pocket. So he hadn’t lost them. He’d prepared to jump into the fray at the cemetery, removing his glasses before fighting.
His eyes were very gray as he looked at her over the black frames. “I know what it’s like to need normality. To make taffy when you should probably be thinking over what you’ve been through.”
“You’ve made taffy when your world was coming apart?” She let out a half sob, half laugh.
“Not taffy, no. But I—I understand.”
The oven door closed with its usual squeak. Aini sat on a stool and hugged herself. She felt empty. Confused. Lost.
After eyeing the taffy through the oven’s window, Thane leaned back on the table beside her. His left hand was tucked under an arm, his right picked at a thread on his belt loop.
“A Seer, aye?”
“Yep.”
“Pretty rare.”
“Uh huh.”
The corner of his mouth pulled toward a dimple. “So the rule-follower is really one of the King’s Most Wanted.” He took her hand—his was hot—squeezed it quickly, and then pulled away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke.”
“It’s okay. It is kind of ironic.”
“Kind of?” He nudged Aini with his shoulder. That grin of his would’ve melted her if she hadn’t been so miserable. But his powerful smile faded fast. “Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I’ll shut my gob.”
And then she was crying and he was holding her against his chest and she didn’t even remember putting her arms around his waist. He felt so strong, his muscles taut and coiled with potential.
“I’ve always held myself back from my ability,” she said. “To protect everyone. So I wouldn’t see into their personal thoughts, their memories. It’s an invasion. I know it is. I never once stayed at a friend’s house. Not that I have any to speak of…I was afraid I’d see something I didn’t want to. You can’t unsee those most important memories. I have to pull back when someone goes to hug me or put an arm around me. Everyone thinks I’m cold, but…I hide what I am so if I’m taken for questioning,” her throat clenched painfully, “no one but me will be hurt. But Father, he was always in danger from me. Just for being my father.”
Her skin felt too sensitive, raw and hurting. Her chest ached with her father’s absence. She wanted more than anything to hear his voice and the people at the club had tried to take her only clue—the brooch—instead of helping to figure all this out and it was too much, too much, too much.
She choked back a rasping sob. “The rebels…they’re just so…I don’t know how Father could’ve helped them. They’re awful. You saw them! I don’t know what to do.”
Thane made a soft hushing sound over her head. “Easy now, hen. One thing at a time. You love lists, so let’s make one.”
Sniffing, she nodded and broke away. They stood side by side, leaning on the lab table and a little on one another. One of her arms was still behind him, her hand on the edge of the cutting board. The scent of sugar and rain filled the air.
“Information Item One,” she said, and he laughed sadly, the vibration humming through the place where their bodies touched. “Those were Dionadair rebels. Two. They want the brooch. Three. Father has some connection to the club or what used to be there or both. We know because of the picture and my vision.”
As she pulled her hand from behind Thane, her forearm dragged over the waistline of his trousers, rucking up his shirt a little. A sliver of his skin touched the inside of her wrist. He sucked a quick breath and looked down, his eyes serious. She swallowed, feeling very warm. How would it feel to run a whole palm against his bare back? Her mouth went dry. Thane
twisted and leaned in, his gaze so heavy on her lips that she could almost feel the pressure and the heat of it. She imagined his breath tickling her chin and—
The oven beeped.
She jumped to get the taffy, hearing his deep inhale behind her. With oven mitts, she removed the candy from its warm hideout and set it on the table. Her heart wouldn’t stop drumming. Her lips wouldn’t stop feeling that imagined kiss. They both touched the taffy to test its temperature and the mix stung her fingers. The pain faded quickly. She wished these inconvenient feelings would disappear just as easily.
“Perfect temp.” She looked to him.
“What?” He glanced at her, and then at the candy. “Oh. Yes. Right.”
Together, they lifted the sticky stuff and draped it over the taffy puller machine. Thane switched the puller on. It began humming, drowning the sound of the oven’s fan and the small cooler’s buzz and clank.
“Thank you.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “For listening. For helping me tonight.”
A length of taffy drooped away from the machine’s silvery arms. They reached for it and their hands collided in the warm candy. They lifted the draping, golden strand, then stood there, facing one another. Aini had ended up with two delicate strands of taffy on her fingertips. She ate one and gave him the other.
He grinned and took it between finger and thumb.
The space between them begged to be filled. Aini’s fingers twitched and longed to reach out and touch the bruise below his eye, his proud chin. She wanted to feel the strength of this genius who could somehow fight too.
She took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry for all the problems I’ve caused.”
Lines appeared between Thane’s eyebrows, partially blocked by his glasses. He bit his lip and shook his head. His mouth opened, shut. Then he said, “Do not say that. Aini, I—”
“I should’ve listened to you about the club. About the danger. If I had, Myles wouldn’t be injured.”
She was breathing quickly. Thane too, his tee shifting as his broad chest moved.
The Edinburgh Seer: Edinburgh Seer Book One Page 9