I thought of Aifric. Even if Byron were completely innocent of his father’s actions, I couldn’t imagine him being pleased if I told him the truth, no matter how good the sex was. Thanks, Byron, I did indeed scream in ecstasy – oh and by the way, your father is trying to kill me. Nope. Not gonna work. And at some point he’d work out I’d stolen part of his Gift.

‘Pff! You Sidhe are ridiculous,’ Bob muttered.

‘Yeah.’ I couldn’t disagree.

I walked off, choosing not to follow everyone else but to look at the field. The dead, blackened heather crunched beneath my feet. No matter what Angus had said, it was still an awesome display of power, suggesting that the Carnegies had absolute control over both life and death. And that life was a fleeting thing, not to be cherished too dearly or it would be snatched away.

‘Integrity!’

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 a thing,’ 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.’