He turned tail and ran. As I watched him go, my hard demeanour softened to something more genuine and far more troubled because from the moment, the Bull told me his true name, I’d been able to see a strange halo round him. It was a sickly yellow and it followed him as he spun out of the library door. The aura of the grey-haired man who dropped the pile of books was more of a chocolate-brown colour.

I had no way of interpreting what each hue meant but apparently I could add aura reading to teleportation as one of my gifts. It was a damn shame it wouldn’t be of any use without a colour chart.

Chapter Eighteen

The faint buzzing in my ear still hadn’t gone away. It was incredibly annoying. I tried scratching and slapping at it but they had no effect. It was as if I had a bee trapped inside my ear canal. I wondered if one had flown in during my little skydiving adventure but I’d been too high up for bees – and the buzzing had started before then anyway. Odd.

Bob winked into existence. He’d managed to lose the parachute but he still had a smug smirk plastered over his face.

‘You waste of space, genie,’ I hissed. ‘You almost got me killed.’

He raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Come on, Uh Integrity. You knew there would be consequences. You told me about them often enough. Besides, it all turned out well in the end, didn’t it? You discovered your Gift and you got the nasty old Bull to tell you his true name. Now you own two people.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘I don’t “own” anyone.’

‘Monsieur Scrymgeour and I would beg to differ.’

I scratched at my ear again. Damn, that sound was annoying.

‘That’s your friends,’ Bob told me cheerfully. ‘I told them it probably wouldn’t work.’

My brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re trying to summon you with your true name but they’re not Sidhe. They can probably bend you to their will if you’re in the same room as them and you can hear them. But from a distance?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s never going to be a strong enough call.’

‘Well, that’s stupid,’ I said irritably. ‘If they’d summoned me back straightaway then your little game would have been null and void.’

‘As I’ve already said, you have benefited immeasurably from my,’ he sketched air quotes, ‘ “little game”. Don’t be a sore winner.’

‘They’ll be worried. I should get back.’

Bob beamed. ‘You’re right. They are worried.’

I started running out of the library. I had to get back to Lexie, Speck and        Brochan as quickly as possible before they did something rash.

‘What are you doing?’ Bob shouted after me.