Page 45 of Honour Bound
I turned to see Lexie jogging towards me, her blue hair swinging in the breeze. ‘That was brilliant! Did you know the Polwarths were going to do that?’
I waited until she caught up. ‘Not a clue,’ I admitted.
‘Maybe they’re one of the decent Clans,’ she said. ‘They can’t all be bad, right?’
I thought of the MacQuarries and smiled. ‘No, I guess not.’
‘Did you…?’ Her voice faltered slightly. She pointed at the dead flowers.
I pushed back my hair. ‘Yeah,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Not the destructive part. I took the growing part though. I didn’t mean to. It just … happened.’
She nodded. ‘We all saw the old woman pause.’
I sighed. ‘I’m going to have to learn control. I can’t just steal from people whenever I see them use their Gift.’
Lexie blinked. ‘Why ever not?’
I considered her question. ‘Their Gift is not athing,’ I said finally. ‘It’s not a cold, hard object. I’m taking away part of them and leaving them weaker because of it. It just feels … wrong.’
I could see she was about to start arguing but then something caught my eye. ‘Look,’ I said suddenly.
‘What?’
I bent down, my fingers lightly brushing the ground. ‘Here. They tried to obliterate all those flowers but there’s one left. One survived. You can try to destroy everything but it’s a lot harder than people realise.’ I grinned. ‘After all, I’m still standing. Maybe the will to survive is greater than the will to destroy.’
Lexie looked at me. ‘Tell that to the dodo,’ she snorted.
*
By the time we made it to the main tent and caught up with Speck, Brochan and Taylor, drinks had been distributed by tartan-clad servants. Taylor was staring morosely at his glass. ‘All that money they put into these Games,’ he muttered. ‘All that time and effort and they couldn’t even get hold of a decent malt for their guests.’
I laughed. He gazed at me balefully. ‘I mean it, Tegs. I’m thrilled you managed to get the three votes you needed, but seriously.’ He held the glass up. ‘It’s been months since I had a decent whisky.’
Brochan rolled his eyes and looked away. ‘You shouldn’t be drinking anything that doesn’t belong to us.’
‘It came out of the same bottle as everyone else’s. I’m not entirely without wit,’ Taylor answered benignly.
‘Sorry, Taylor. I did try to get you something better beyond the Veil,’ I said. ‘I found an old dusty bottle of something called Auchen…’ My brow furrowed, as I tried to remember. ‘Auchen-something. I had to use it to save that Fomori demon.’
Taylor stared at me as if I were mad. ‘You used malt whisky to save the life of a Fomori demon? Malt whisky from the Lowlands? That would have been more than three hundred years old? That no-one has drunk in ten generations? You used that to save a demon who tried to kill you?’
I shrugged. ‘Yep. Sorry.’ Clearly I wasn’t.
‘What was the name of it?’ Brochan asked. There was an odd tone in his voice.
This time I managed to wrap my tongue around the name. ‘Auchentoshan.’
‘You’re sure?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Brochan looked troubled. ‘What?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Brochan, what is it?’
His gills, visible on his neck, tightened. ‘When I was stuck out at sea, I used to try to calm my nerves by drinking.’
‘Well,’ Speck said, ‘you were surrounded by liquid.’
‘Leave the jokes to Tegs,’ Brochan growled.
I brightened. ‘Really?’ At the looks on their faces, I returned to the subject at hand. ‘Sorry, Brochan. Go on.’
