Gifted Thief (Highland Magic #1)(76)

‘Don’t you dare fall into me,’ he hissed.

I started to nod, just as there was a painful nip on my index finger. I let out a cry. This time everyone turned round.

‘Is everything alright?’ Aifric called out from the front.

‘Fine! Fine! I was just making sure you were all paying attention!’

I received a few scowls. Oops.

Once they were facing ahead again, I pulled Bob out. The little bastard had bitten me. I mimed pulling his head off and he pouted. He pointed to my ear and gave me a pleading puppy-dog expression. Sighing, I lifted him up. He perched between my ear and my skull and I pushed my hair forward to cover him. That was when his incessant chatter began.

‘I’ve been paying close attention, Uh Integrity. These guys are very dull and most of them really don’t like you.’

Tell me something I don’t know, I thought, concentrating on not tripping on the sharp scree as the path grew steeper and more precarious.

‘The only one who thinks you’re alright is that Byron fellow. The one you want to cover in whipped cream and eat for dessert. The Diana woman is starting to soften too. Everyone else hates you. Even the fat pony.’

Unable to answer him without drawing attention to myself, I grimaced.

‘It’s kind of cool that I can come here though. I thought I’d be blocked, but because I’m a supremely magical being I’m clearly allowed to enter.’

Either that or, by using his key, Malcolm had opened up the path for anyone who followed. It was a shame that Lily had stayed behind, if only because she would have proved to Bob that he wasn’t as unique as he liked to think.

‘You should make a wish now,’ Bob whispered. ‘To test the magic. If my magic works here, I’m obviously far more powerful than any Sidhe. And you need to know if my wishes still work for when they all try to kill you and you can’t teleport yourself away.’

Crapadoodle. He had a point – although they’d find it a damn sight harder to do me in without their Gifts. As long as I kept my wits about me, I’d be fine. Anyway, I had a back-up plan; I always had a back up plan.

Several stones skittered down, knocked loose by our feet. I could hear William Kincaid breathing heavily as he braced himself against the sharp mountain walls. I reached out to steady him but he flinched away. His choice.

Although technically we were still outdoors and the sky remained visible, the angle of the slopes on either side of us meant that we were almost completely shrouded in darkness. Only a chink of light allowed us to see where we were treading. The passageway grew narrower until we were forced to sidestep down it.

‘Your ancestors really made it hard to get to this Foinse thing, didn’t they?’ Bob commented. ‘They didn’t trust anyone.’

I considered this. Bob was right; trust appeared to be the one thing that was seriously in short supply where the Sidhe were concerned. The Clans, who’d put the Foinse here and made it so that no one person could reach it without the support of others, hadn’t trusted anyone. And the Moncrieffes didn’t trust anyone enough to tell them they were essentially penniless. And they all seemed to distrust me.

My foot slipped, sending a tiny avalanche rumbling down.

‘Be careful!’ Aifric snapped from the front. The stress was obviously getting to him.

‘Can you do something more interesting, Uh Integrity? I’ve been cooped up for days. Go and trip that dude in front of you. He doesn’t like you anyway and the Kincaids have already done their part. You don’t need him any more.’

I resisted the urge to strangle Bob. Anything to shut him up, though. Spying an expensive watch round William Kincaid’s wrist, a fit of mischief took me. He was so focused on not falling that he’d never notice. It was time I lived up to his lack of trust.

Counting my breaths so I timed it perfectly, I let my foot slip again. This time, however, I cried out sharply and fell against William. My right hand grabbed his wrist, ostensibly to stop me crashing into him and making us all topple like a line of dominoes.

William grunted back and tried to pull away but I looked at him desperately. With more scree sliding around our feet, he also lost his balance and was forced to grab me. By this point, I’d loosened the watch enough for my purposes. Expensive ones like these, with leather buckles, were always the easiest. Keeping my finger in the right spot to avoid the prong from slipping back in, the buckle detached completely and I palmed the watch.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again.

‘Aifric said to be more careful!’ Kincaid snapped.

I hung my head apologetically. As soon as he’d righted himself and was following the others down, I passed the watch back to Bob.

‘Uh Integrity,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘You are a goddess.’

I smiled and took out the letter opener, gesturing to it and hoping he’d do as I asked.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But only so I can examine this beauty in more detail.’

I shook my head and pointed ahead. I needed him to wait until the next key was used. A flash of light here would be impossible to hide.

Sensing rather than seeing him nod, I flicked my hair out to cover both the watch and him. There was a sliver of light ahead. At least we were almost at the next lock.

‘We’ve made it to the cavern,’ I heard Dorienne Darroch say.