Candy sighed loudly and lay down, putting his hands behind his head and gazing at the ceiling. The Sidhe guard continued to stare at me. It was so discomforting that in the end I did the same as Candy, lying back and looking up and wondering desperately if there was any chance I could find my way out of all this.
In the far corner of the room, barely visible through the shadows, a spider lurked. It was larger than your usual Scottish beastie and seemed to be having difficulty spinning its web. Silk spun out behind it, missing its invisible target. While I watched, the spider paused for one long moment as if it were giving up. Then it abruptly scuttled down the wall, travelling at what had to be an immense speed for its size. Maybe it had gone to get its buddies to help.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the throbbing pain in my skull and trying to will it away. When that didn’t work, I searched within myself to see what magic I still had that I could make use of. There was definitely still a trickle of Apportation. Unhelpful. I could transport objects away from me but I couldn’t transport anything to me. And I couldn’t do anything with that eagle-eyed guard staring at me.
I could still call animals towards me. I pushed out, sensing some nearby rats. Ignoring the shudder that ran down my spine, I considered bringing them over. Maybe I’d get lucky and the guard would have a phobia. She’d run away screaming and I’d … what? Shamble slowly out of this cage and swim for it?
My big toe itched and I shook it absently. It didn’t help. Muttering a curse, I glanced down. It was the damn spider, sitting right next to my big toe and staring at me with all of its glittering black eyes. Eurgh. I lifted my foot and shook it harder, sending the spider flying away from me. I supposed I should be grateful it wasn’t like Debbie, the giant arachnid who’d been used in the Games last year. I paused. This cage we were in did look remarkably familiar. I supposed that until the wedding was official and Aifric could claim the Scrymgeour wealth for his own purposes, he had to make savings where he could.
Candy shifted restlessly next to me, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. He should have escaped when he had the chance, I thought sourly. All of us should have. I sighed. Then I felt my damned toe itch again.
The guard laughed. ‘Looks like that creepy-crawly is the only friend you have left, Adair.’ She hawked up a ball of phlegm and spat it noisily onto the floor. ‘I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all.’
I glared at her. So we were back to that again, were we? That Gale Adair, my father, was a genocidal maniac? Why couldn’t people see what was right in front of their faces? ‘I’m not quite sure what you mean,’ I said icily. ‘My parents were heroes who died at the hands of your boss.’
‘Ha!’ she scoffed.
‘You are a Moncrieffe, right? Don’t you think it’s strange that the Steward is locking up another Clan Chieftain? What about the police? Since when was Aifric Moncrieffe allowed to act like judge, jury and executioner?’
Rather than think about what I was saying, she looked at me as if I were toe fungus. ‘You give the Sidhe a bad name.’
I laughed coldly. ‘The Sidhe do that perfectly well without my help.’
‘You’ve endangered everyone in the Highlands by your actions with the trolls. This whole country could be attacked by the Fomori demons and we’d all be vulnerable.’
‘But this country has always been vulnerable to that. It’s only the Sidhe who’ve had the liberty of hiding behind their magic borders. What about everyone else?’
Her lip curled. ‘Because of you, Fomori demons attacked the MacQuarries.’
She was as blind as she was annoying. ‘No, they didn’t. It was Illusion magic. It was a Sidhe who was behind that. And Aifric Moncrieffe was pulling their strings as much as he is yours.’
She didn’t seem to hear me. ‘You’re a thief and a murderer.’
‘I’ll allow the thief part but I’ve not hurt anyone.’ I cast around, trying to think of a way to penetrate her thick skull. If I could get this woman to doubt Aifric and come over to my side, perhaps I’d have a sliver of a chance. So would Taylor.
My toe itched again. Irritated, I reached down to brush the bloody spider away once more. It was staring up at me and this time, one of its long – and remarkably hairy – legs was tapping against my skin as if it were impatient.
‘I’m not listening to you,’ the guard declared. ‘The Steward said you’d try and turn me but I’m loyal.’
‘To a fault,’ I muttered in response. I was no longer interested in her, however.
The spider leapt off me and darted over Candy’s shins back to the corner. My eyes followed it. I lay down to avoid appearing too obvious but made sure I tracked its every move. I really hoped I wasn’t going crazy.
Once again, it tried to spin silk. Fine threads shot out and it leapt from one side of the cage to the other. This wasn’t the perfect web of a normal spider, though; it looked more like a clumpy mess.
‘Do you know the tale of Robert the Bruce?’ I asked Candy.
‘Sidhe bloke round the time of the Fissure, wasn’t he?’
I nodded. ‘Yep. There are quite a few famous stories about him.’
‘Cave,’ Candy grunted.
‘Yeah. He hid out in one after his army was routed by the Fomori. He was convinced that all of Scotland was lost. Then he saw a spider.’
‘If this is your way of telling me that you’re not going to give up, then I got it,’ drawled the guard. ‘But remember that your friend’s life is still hanging in the balance. Not that I suppose someone like you cares. You probably don’t care about anyone.’
Whatever. I let her babble on. ‘The spider,’ I said to Candy, over the top of her voice, ‘was trying to weave a web. The first time it failed. It tried again, and again it failed but it didn’t give up. It kept on going and on the third attempt it finally succeeded. Because of that one little spider, Robert the Bruce decided not to yield. He pulled himself together for one more fight and he succeeded. The Highlands are free in part because of that, not because of magic but because of a spider. He could have had a genie with him but it wouldn’t have made a difference because it was that spider that saved the country.’
