I’d wanted to find myself on Arthur’s Seat, the same hill next to the old city of Edinburgh where Byron had been taken. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there – in fact, I couldn’t tell where I was other than that I was inside. Being blindfolded, trussed up and gagged had something to do with that. The Fomori weren’t taking any chances.

I still had two of my five senses left. I couldn’t hear anything but I could smell urine and vomit. Deciding that this situation simply wouldn’t do, I shuffled on my back like an upturned turtle. It took some time but I made my way around the room, estimating it was about the size of a small bathroom. Or a prison cell. There was a metal bucket in one corner, which was where the godawful stench was coming from. I got as close as I could manage, retching once or twice. Given the danger of vomiting when I had a gag in my mouth, I needed to acclimatise pretty quickly.

I assumed that the Fomori demons didn’t have an Ikea they could pop down to when they needed some cheap, disposable hardware. That meant the bucket had either been forged in a blacksmith’s or it harked back to the pre-Fissure era. Either way, I hoped to find a sharp edge on it. Then all I needed was a little bit of friction.

Holding my breath, I figured that sight would help me more than anything else so I flipped onto my stomach and lowered the side of my head towards the bucket’s rim. It took considerable effort – and numerous attempts ‒ but I eventually pushed the blindfold upwards so that I could see. Only one eye was free and I probably looked like a jaunty pirate, but I felt buoyed by my success.

Sitting up, and scooting as far away from the offending bucket as possible, I took in my surroundings. It was indeed a small room but there were no bars so it wasn’t a jail cell. There was a solid-looking oak door with a spyhole in the centre; thankfully, it was closed. No matter how hard I listened, I couldn’t make out anyone on the other side but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone there.

My head hurt and I felt weak and trembly. There were some grazes on my arms that hadn’t been there before but other than that I seemed to be injury free. That boded very well for the future; as long as the Fomori weren’t in a hurry to maim, torture or kill me, hope remained. I grinned. Hope always remained.

There were a number of ways that I could free myself from the rest of the restraints but the easiest and the quickest would be to use Apportation and simply magic away the ropes and bonds. I could even call any nearby rats and encourage them to gnaw through the bindings. But I wasn’t Cinderella any more than Tipsania was, and I had serious doubts that I could make wild animals do my bidding. Besides, rats? Bleurgh. No, it made sense to conserve what magic I had. Alongside Kirsty Kincaid’s Truth Gift, I now had Healing from Aifric and the ability to grow things from Morna. As I’d stolen those Gifts in their entirety, they were going to stay with me. The other magic I’d stolen from the Sidhe at the Cruaich was little more than a trickle now, even Illusion. I needed to be sparing.