‘Nah. But no photographic evidence. I don’t trust technology.’

He didn’t trust a mobile phone but he was happy to thrust his hand out in the direction of a giant flesh-eating spider? Brochan was obviously the only sane one in the family – and that was saying something.

‘Okay,’ I conceded. I still didn’t understand why the Carnegies were so keen to take this hairy monstrosity to the seat of Sidhe power but I certainly wasn’t going to steal her from them. My pager buzzed again. ‘I have to go.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Okay. Tell that dry-footed freak I said hi.’

I backed away, keeping my eyes on Debbie the entire time. She’d already dismissed me but I wasn’t about to turn my back on her – cage or no cage. ‘Will do.’ As soon as I reached the stairs, I turned and ran out of there like hell itself was on my heels.

*

I made it to the mountain rescue centre with seconds to spare. Travis, the gruff leader of our rescue team, shot me a look as I jogged up.

I checked my watch. Any rescuers on call had to show up within thirty minutes of their pagers sounding otherwise the team would leave without them. ‘Sorry,’ I called. I was within the limit – just – but it was clear the others had been waiting for me.

Travis merely nodded. If I’d been anyone else, he’d probably have chewed them out for taking so long to appear but he was too nervous of me to say anything to my face. Much as he appreciated my skills in picking up the injured and foolish from the surrounding mountains, he still found it hard to accept that he was working alongside a Sidhe. I had the impression that he was expecting me to demand everyone’s fealty at any moment. It didn’t matter that I’d explained a million times that I was Clan-less. In fact, when I said I was Clan-less because my father had been the Chieftain of Clan Adair, things got worse. Considering the world believed that my father had committed genocide against his own people and destroyed Clan Adair in one single afternoon over twenty-five years ago, that wasn’t hugely surprising.

I’d also believed those stories until recently. I still wasn’t sure what had happened to my parents but a vision I’d received in the sacred grove at the Cruaich told me that my father wasn’t the murderer everyone thought he was. And I was betting that Aifric Moncrieffe had something to do with it. After all, the Sidhe Steward had tried to kill me by handing me a bottle of water laced with poison. That’d make even a damn sheep suspicious.

‘No problem,’ Travis grunted.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.

He waved his hand as if it didn’t matter. It’d be nice if he stopped tiptoeing round me; I wasn’t anything special and I wished he understood that.

Words wouldn’t help me though so I offered him a shiny smile before turning my back and hopping into the helicopter. The others – a brother and sister team of humans called Tim and Tam, and Isla, a Nicnevan witch attached to the Polwarth Clan, gave me a more enthusiastic greeting.