You’ll be queueing for an hour and it’ll be full of snotty types and all anyone does is take photographs of the food, and the plates will be too small and you won’t get enough to eat and it will be filthy expensive.

Well YOU might throw up on the big dipper.

Shan’t! AND Kim-Ange has a date! It must be almost summer.

So we all have dates.

Cormac grabbed another apple from the bag.

Good!

Good!

Lissa decided on another apple and bit into it, trying not to betray how cross she was, and went out to feed Neddie Needles.

Chapter 50

The fog rose on the little town of Kirrinfief that Saturday and they had, by noon, one of those days in the Highlands also known as “you should have been here last week.”

It is a fact—sad but true—but please, don’t ever let it put you off visiting our beautiful country; we would be so happy to see you, I promise. Nonetheless, it remains a fairly hardwired truth that if you want to plan a visit to Scotland, or a wedding, or a barbecue, even simply planning it is an act of hubris that upsets the weather gods of Scotland. Lugh, he of the one eye and the ability to summon storms, will be displeased, and at the very least there will be light drizzle and ominous gray skies, and if you are in a place that has a beautiful view, you will have to put up with people telling you there is a beautiful view, because you will not be able to see it.

But take Scotland by surprise and you might just get a day like this, in early June, when the sun warms every nook and cranny, and the breeze gently pootling over a loch as calm as glass will keep you from getting too hot; when the stillness of the air means the cries of the many birds can be heard more loudly than ever, as well as the lightly tapping hooves of the deer in the forest. The sky is a freshly washed blue, the green of the meadows far greener than anything you would expect to find without a heavy filter on it; fat bees buzz merrily among the meadowsweet and long grass, and the evenings last forever.

IN LONDON, YAZZIE had persuaded Cormac to come out with her to a new restaurant and he had said yes, because he didn’t know what else to do and Kim-Ange was mysteriously unavailable.

Kim-Ange was going for a walk with Piotr, who was both excited and slightly concerned about it.