The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy Page 3

  Visits to Edinburgh were the opposite of Aini’s changeable, painfully lackadaisical days in the colonies. With her father’s penchant for order, Aini slipped into his type of life happily. He was like her. A goal, a list, the rules—and they were off, conquering.

  At the market, the hot and determined sun washed the gathering clouds, whitening their edges and deepening the gray-blue of their heavy middles.

  “It amazes me that the days are named after the king now,” Myles said, joining everyone under a produce man’s tarp and picking up the thread of Neve’s conversation about the days of the week.

  Aini added another shiny apple to the bag Neve held.

  “It shouldn’t.” Neve used group funds to pay the man.

  Thane took the proffered bag of red fruit from Aini, his head brushing the tarp.

  “The king can do as he likes.” Aini checked off the first chore on the list and enjoyed the momentary shade.

  Myles brushed imagined dirt off his purposefully ripped, designer T-shirt. “I know. But I thought I was the only soul arrogant enough to do something like that.”

  Aini elbowed him. “Quiet.” He needed to be careful. Kingsmen patrolled the streets, occasionally stopping people and studying their Subject Identification Cards. “Seriously. Hush.”

  Myles frowned and pulled at two clumps of his green-dyed hair, lengthening them to resemble horns. Incorrigible. A lot of boys from the plantations of the southern American colonies wore the same style because of that banjo and drum band, Mint. Aini wondered how many of them talked bad about the king like Myles.

  “God, look at those poor kids over there.” Myles shook his head. “Sucks.”

  Aini squinted into the sunny marketplace. Children wove around their parents. And yes, they were thinner than she remembered them being. In the colonies, everyone was thin, but Edinburgh had always seemed immune. Until now. The king’s new taxes were obviously having a marked effect on those who didn’t have a lucrative business like Father’s.

  The group left the shady produce spot, tall Thane ducking to escape the tarp.

  “Give me two of those apples, Neve,” Aini said. She slipped away and handed the fruit to one of the scrawny children. It wasn’t against the king’s rules or the law. They grinned up at her, eyes bright, and ran back to their parents as her heart pinched. If only she could buy them all apples. Even if she had the means, the kingsmen wouldn’t like it.

  Myles was doing a ridiculous dance, all elbows and raised knees, when she returned. In the craziness of the market, only Neve had noticed her little errand.

  “There’s that fool with those fancy measuring spoons you like, Aini.” Thane pointed across the crowd.

  “He’s selling cider too, looks like,” Neve said, and with a quick smile, she took off.

  The merchant accepted money from a foreign woman who’d apparently bought a set of spoons as another tourist reached over her to grab a cutting board made in the shape of Edinburgh Castle. Why people felt the need to buy such silly things was beyond Aini. At least the tourists brought money in. Too bad Scots were forced to give most of it to the Campbells and the king.

  Sweat drizzled down Aini’s chest as she trailed Thane and Myles. “This isn’t next on our list. I only brought enough money for—”

  At the booth, Thane twisted and shoved a cold bottle of cider into her hands. He smiled, his gaze going to her lips. He blinked and looked away. “Hurry. Go on,” he hissed at the group.

  He’d stolen the cider. Aini blinked, shocked.

  As they passed a row of postcard displays, Myles took another bottle from Thane and drank.

  Neve looked at the one Aini held. “May I have a bit? It’s rough in this sun.”

  Aini couldn’t believe it. Thane had stolen things and right in front of some kingsmen. “But…but we didn’t buy these. We can’t,” Aini lowered her voice, “steal.”

  She could just imagine what would happen if a kingsman questioned her. If she touched anything sentimental to him—a ring, a bracelet, anything—the memories, they’d swamp her, and it’d be obvious she wasn’t normal. It’d all be over for her, for Enliven, for Father.

  Thane put a hand behind her back and gently pushed her forward. “Last week you paid eight pounds for one bottle. There’s the real crime in this. The man’s prices are three times what they should be.”

  She spun and headed back toward the man’s booth. She wasn’t about to break the law for some free cider. Ridiculous. She peeked over her shoulder. Thane smiled a little as Neve and Myles finished their stolen treat. This was yet another of the many reasons she couldn’t get her head around Thane. It almost seemed like he lived to bend the rules.

  With the to-do list complete, they set off for the townhouse, holding their market buys: a bag of apples, a loaf of delicious-smelling fresh bread, a new dress Aini had bought for Neve as a birthday gift (not planned but a good buy nonetheless), a tub of honey, and some dried lavender, which was cheaper than Aini had seen it in a while.

  Patting the honey crock, Myles wiggled his dark eyebrows at Neve. “In the past, some ladies have dubbed me their little tub of honey.”

  Pink patches rose on Neve’s neck.

  Thane pretended to vomit. “You’re pure giving me the boak.”

  A laugh bubbled out of Aini and she took an apple from the bag. “If you’d cook when it’s your turn, Myles, instead of talking that girl down the road into doing it, Neve might consider calling you something nicer. Doubt it’ll involve food stuffs, but you can hope.”

  Neve pulled an edge off the loaf of bread. “She has a point, colonial.”

  Myles raised his hands to heaven dramatically. “Colonial. She got that from you, Thane. Now every time she refers to me, she’ll be thinking of your handsome arse.”

  “Only because you’ve mentioned it,” Thane said.

  Myles leaned back to view the subject of the conversation. He whistled low at Thane’s backside. “It’s only my jealousy talking.” He twisted to look at his own rear and shook his head sadly.

  Laughing, Aini threw an apple core at him, knowing the tourists’ carriage horses would enjoy the treat. Thane palmed Myles’s head and shoved him away playfully.

  A shriek tore at the morning.

  Three kingsmen—not Campbells as they didn’t wear the tartan—herded a family of four toward the back of a black van. The smallest, a boy missing most of his front teeth, yanked at the kingsman’s grip, crying out. Tears ran freely down his parents’ dirty cheeks.

  “Let him go.” Aini was beside the nearest kingsman before she even realized what she was doing. Her body began to tremble. If they questioned her…

  The kingsman’s ruddy face pinched into an ugly frown. “Their Subject Identification Cards are expired.”

  “We don’t have the money to renew them,” the mother said. “Not after the new tax. Maybe if we—”

  The kingsman cut her off. “No maybes. You and yours are going in as punishment for your crime.”

  “But the children…” Neve started forward, pale. She was probably imagining how this could happen to her little brothers.

  Aini took Neve’s arm and raised her chin, willing herself not to cow to these men.

  “The wee ones will be cared for,” the kingsman said. “By the courts. Now move on or you’ll be the next taken in.” He made to push Aini away.

  Heart drumming, watching the kingsman’s ring, Aini jerked back, bumping up against Thane who swore quietly and stared the kingsmen down. If that man’s ring had touched her, she’d have seen something and it would’ve all come down on her and Father. There was nothing she could do here and not risk her own family. The wee ones wouldn’t be properly cared for. They’d be slaves in all but name, cleaning for the courts and never having someone to look after them. But there was nothing she could do without seriously endangering Father’s life. She hated her selfishness, but it was what it was. She couldn’t risk Father just to argue with these kingsmen only to lose the fight.


  “L-let’s go,” she said shakily to the group.

  The boy’s crying leaked through the city’s sounds of cars honking, sea birds cawing out, and the hum of market crowds.

  None of them spoke as a misty rain started and they rounded the corner, nearing home.

  The townhouse, as old as everything else in this area, reached toward the sky and endured the squeeze of the neighboring structures. Greyfriars Cemetery with its tombstone labyrinth and lurking ghosts were only steps away. Aini pulled the three keys to the front door’s massive locks from her purse.

  Neve touched the door. It swung open. “Aini…”

  A prickly sensation climbed over Aini. Palms sweating, she pushed inside. “Father?”

  Myles and Thane eased past her and Neve.

  “Mr. MacGregor?” Myles called out. “Maybe he just forgot to lock it.”

  “Doubt it,” Thane said, his voice very deep and almost…threatening.

  The only sound in the house was the refrigerator’s hum in the kitchen and the buzz of the computer in the glass-walled office. Shadows hung around the room; day never really lit the place. An odd smell—tangy, metallic—grabbed Aini’s nose. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

  The carved walking stick she’d bought Father on one of his birthday trips to Ireland sat in the umbrella bin beside the door. She picked it up and stalked farther inside, Thane beside her, as she made her way toward the office. Neve and Myles branched out into the sitting room.

  “Should I go check the lab?” Neve asked.

  The office door’s knob was sticky. Her heart in her ears, Aini brought a hand to her nose.

  Blood.

  Her lungs solidified.

  Raising the walking stick over her head, she looked right, left, down, searching the office for more, that prickling sensation running wild over her skin.

  “Father!”

  Myles ran in. “What is it?”

  Reaching up on the wall, Thane flipped the switch, lighting the empty office. A spatter of blood on the edge of the tasseled rug. Three drops of red on the wall. A line across the desk.

  The room pulled away, like Aini was suddenly very, very small.

  She tore out of the office and toward his bedroom. Pounding through the hallway, into the kitchen, and stopping at the well-worn threshold of his room, she tried to breathe. No air would come.

  His room had been ransacked.

  The others’ jumbled voices ghosted down the hallway.

  “I’ll go to the local police...” Myles was saying.

  “The Campbells own them and you know it,” Neve said. “That’s who has done this. After all that yelling over the phone and—”

  Something crashed and Thane yelled in Gaelic.

  “Don’t punch the wall. You’ll break your hand!” Tears clouded Neve’s voice.

  Aini pressed hands over her ears, shoulder pressing into Father’s doorframe. In the room, his black coverlet tangled around scientific journals thrown from his bedside table. The doors of the armoire hung open to show clothes pulled from their shelves and socks yanked from their drawers to litter the floor. A crack marred the framed photo of Aini and her mother in traditional yellow and red Balinese dancer costumes, taken a month after the divorce.

  She started toward it, hands shaking, and her toe caught on something. Father’s diary. The cover, what was left of it, was covered in blood.

  Her heart was a runaway train. Her vision went blurry.

  She spun and ran directly into Thane’s hard chest. Her fingers curled into his shirt.

  “They’ve taken him,” she said. “There’s…there’s blood.” Her hand, feeling separate from the rest of her, swung in rickety circles at the broken diary and toward the hallway.

  “I know. Just—” He started to pull away, but she held to his jacket, her lungs tight, burning.

  “What am I supposed to do?” She pressed fisted hands into his chest as the hallway tilted.

  “Shh.” He pulled her into the warmth of his arms. He ran a hand over her back, his fingers hot. But even though his skin and words were warm, his tone was cold. “You’re strong, Aini. Smart. You’ll go on.”

  She jerked away. His nostrils flared and his mouth pinched up.

  “Go on?” The door hit the back of her head as she reared away.

  Her mind wouldn’t work. It couldn’t be. Father couldn’t be gone. The walls crowded her, choking, smothering. She had to get out of the townhouse, away, away, out, out, out. Away from the smell of blood.

  She twisted away from them all and tore out of the townhouse and down Candlemaker Row, her flats slapping the cobblestones, throwing sounds off the stone walls of Ivy’s Food and Photography Emporium, where she and Father had eaten steaming bowls of onion noodles in a room with changing walls of Japanese landscape photos. Sucking air, she passed the red glass windows of the perfumery, where they’d hashed out which scents brought forth which memories, leading to the theory about the vision-inducing gum.

  She imagined his kind eyes squeezed shut in pain. Someone hitting him. Strangers dragging his slumped body out of the townhouse and into a waiting truck.

  Father. Father. Father.

  Outside the iron scrollwork of Greyfriars Cemetery, she dropped to her knees and put her hands to her chest, trying to force air into her lungs. Her throat convulsed, and the musky air of Father’s homeland finally poured into her.

  Then Neve, Myles, and even Thane, were there, helping her up.

  “I’m fine. It’s fine,” she said.

  But they wouldn’t let go, their voices kind and close to her ears. Her hands automatically tucked themselves under her folded arms to avoid touching anything that might hold a memory.

  Chapter 4

  Without

  Hot water morphed into clouds of steam in the bathroom attached to Aini and Neve’s room. Aini opened the shower door and stepped inside. With the glass casing, she was a caterpillar in a cocoon. But instead of emerging with strong wings and a new life, she’d leave this escape only to find a home without a father. A lab without a leader. A life without the one person left alive who’d known and loved her since childhood. Mother had died two years ago. Grandmother Wayan had followed three months ago. All she had was her father.

  And he was gone.

  The blood under her fingernails didn’t come off easily under the bristles of a scrub brush. It hung on, clinging there and in the creases between her fingers. She pictured Father’s laughing eyes, his jig in the lab, and last night with their Robert Burns poetry. Her heart clenched and sputtered, every beat a jagged spike of pain. The images of Father blurred.

  The Campbells were the law. What did you do when law-keepers broke the law? She’d thought abiding by the rules would give Father a peaceful life, a life he deserved. Mother had broken something inside him when she ended their relationship. Aini wanted to fix it with steady days of predictability, just enough excitement to keep things fun, but not dangerous—not too much risk.

  Three months. They’d had only three months of peace.

  Before all this, Aini’s mother had moved her around so much in the colonies. Her dancing troupe toured almost continually, and they’d slept in a different bed every night during those trips, waking to new faces, working to say the right things and entertain the crowd and the ones who’d hired them. It’d been exhausting. They’d never quite fit in anywhere. Not with other colonists. Not with people born and raised in Bali, like her grandmother. And then she’d visit Father and never fit in here either. But at least when she visited him, she slept in the same bed, woke to him every morning.

  A sudden thought of a kingsman’s fist smashing into Father’s bearded chin attacked her mind. The awful sound that would come out of him. Rough. Ugly. Not a sound Father should ever, ever have to make. Tears stormed from her eyes and she fell against the hard shower wall, slumped to the tub floor, and disappeared into pain, hurt, and wild disbelief.

  Chapter 5

  The Bluefoot


  Once Aini settled into her room with Neve, the scant amount of blood was scrubbed from the office and bedroom, and the authorities were called, Thane raged out the front door. What a joke. The authorities. As if they weren’t ordered about by the very ones who’d taken him—Thane’s own clan, the Campbells.

  The mist outside had morphed into a wet, evening fog that cloaked Thane’s face and made his shirt and trousers cling to him. He pulled his glasses off and swiped a hand over his head, sluicing cold water from his hair. He wished he could clean the Campbell from his flesh as easily.

  Because they shouldn’t have taken Lewis.

  He was a good man. Not a rebel. Just a man who didn’t want to get caught up in vicious politics.

  An empty beer bottle nearly tripped Thane. He kicked it, and the glass shattered against the opposite curb. A group of younger guys laughed and pointed.

  Stalking down the slate-colored road, Thane passed the graveyard’s towering stone wall and the unseen spirits who called it home. His thoughts rushed through one side of his mind to the other, his heart tugging at each worry, every consideration. For most of his life, it’d been fine serving his clan and the king. It wasn’t a pretty job, full of morally gray duties that felt wrong, but led to good ends—keeping the country safe from rebels and under the protective thumb of his family.

  But lately? Lately his father, Nathair—head of the clan and Earl of Argyll—made being a Campbell less of a noble duty and more of a horror show. He’d publicly executed those sixth-sensers and rebels without so much as a trial. Claimed they’d attacked the kingsmen during arrest. A lie. The rebels had hung the banned Scottish flag—the blue Saltire Thane couldn’t help but love—over the king’s residence at Holyrood Palace, but that was it. This time, the rebels hadn’t killed anyone or sacrificed themselves in a bombing like they’d done in the past. It’d been a peaceful protest and one Thane might even see himself doing were he someone else. They’d called for a repeal of the king’s rough new tax on factory workers throughout the Empire.