Horace shook his head in dismay. ‘You must know what he will do to you if he finds you here.’
I opened my mouth to answer.
‘And, yes,’ Horace continued, ‘I know who you are. Your shared blood won’t mean a damned thing. He’s already furious with you. Your heritage won’t save you.’
Good: I didn’t want it to save me. I didn’t want Athair’s attention and I didn’t want to be continually reminded that he was my birth father. It had proved easier to escape drug addiction than Athair.
‘Eloise told you who we were?’ Otis said. Horace nodded. ‘You’re the reason why she wouldn’t leave Athair?’ Horace nodded again.
Otis threw a triumphant look in Hester’s direction but she barely noticed. She was staring at Horace with two high points of colour on her cheeks. And she was being unusually quiet.
‘I’m the hostage,’ Horace said sadly. ‘Athair keeps me by his side to force her to do whatever he wants. I’ve told Eloise to leave but she won’t go.’
Hester finally spoke. ‘That’s incredibly heroic of you.’
Otis choked.
Horace looked at them. ‘I know who you are, too. You’re Otis. And you,’ he bowed, ‘are Hester. From what Eloise told me, you’re the heroic one around here. You do just about everything you can to keep your brother safe. You even attack your mistress when the situation calls for it.’
‘Sometimes Daisy needs to be kept in line. I only do it because I care.’
Hugo was grinning as I glared at Hester. Unbelievable. ‘Let’s stick to what’s important, shall we?’ I hissed. ‘Does Athair know where you are?’
Horace bobbed his head. ‘He sent me to the kitchen to get him some food. He’s going to be up there for hours.’
My stomach sank. That was not the news I wanted to hear.
‘What’s he doing?’ Hugo asked.
‘Sticking his big map back together.’ Horace gave me a pointed look. ‘He believes you’ll jump ship tonight and he wants to give it to you as a welcome gift. My master has to feel that he’s in control at all times. He won’t be happy when he finds you’re already here.’
‘He won’t find us here,’ I said.
Horace didn’t say anything but he didn’t need to: his expression spoke volumes.
‘Don’t underestimate Daisy,’ Hester said earnestly. ‘She often falls in shit and comes up smelling of roses. She might surprise you. She’s going to defeat Athair. That’s why Otis and I are staying by her side until the bitter end, no matter how many times she tells us to leave.’
Horace’s answer was stark. ‘Nobody can defeat Athair. In the end he will destroy us all.’
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Horace didn’t stay for long; he didn’t dare give Athair another reason to punish him and none of us wanted to raise his suspicions. The little brownie didn’t believe that we’d escape from the oubliette, let alone defeat Athair, but he wished us luck and I believed he was being sincere.
Eight hours later, as we continued to hide in the damp dungeon with William Hausman’s corpse for company, Hester was still talking about him. ‘I like the way his eyes twinkled,’ she said. ‘And did you see the way his hair made those cute curls on the nape of his neck?’
Otis gave a long-suffering sigh. He’d done remarkably well to keep his mouth shut until then but even his patience was starting to ebb.
I massaged the back of my neck and tried to stretch my limbs, an almost impossible task; there wasn’t enough space in the dungeon for one full-sized person to be comfortable, let alone Hugo, me and a dead body.
Time was ticking away. I had hoped to get to Edinburgh and take up position near the Royal Elvish Institute long before Athair arrived, but we couldn’t get out of here until he leftCulcreuch. I wouldn’t just be stiff and tired when I arrived for the final showdown, I’d also be late.
I knew it would be too dangerous to confront him here on his own territory, though the thought was becoming more and more appealing. If we didn’t manage to get out of the oubliette soon, we mighthaveto face him.
I was shifting position for the umpteenth time, manoeuvring carefully around Hausman, when Hugo’s head reared up. His hearing was far keener than mine. My eyes flew to his and he nodded grimly. As if on cue, my nose started to itch again. I ignored it and stayed very, very still.
‘I will be leaving within the hour,’ Athair said, his voice growing louder as he walked down the stairs towards us. ‘Make sure the car is waiting out front.’
