Ramsay, the surly human who’d been on Chandra’s crew when I was ambushed on my way to my Clan Lands, glared at me. ‘Thought you were dead,’ he grunted.

‘Ta dah,’ I answered with a grim smile. ‘I’m not.’

‘Fucking Sidhe.’

‘That sentiment would make more sense if you weren’t a hypocrite about it. If you really hated all Sidhe, you wouldn’t have taken the contract to come here. You wouldn’t have let a Sidhe wrap you in their magic so all this could be blamed on demons from beyond the Veil.’

His mouth flattened. The same MacQuarrie as before raised his hand as if to hit him again. I flashed a frown and his fist dropped.

‘Who hired you?’

A glint of stubbornness lit his expression. ‘Soon as I tell you, you’ll kill me.’

I remained calm. ‘I’m not the murderer here.’

‘Unless reading minds is one of your blasted Sidhe tricks, you’ll never find out the truth.’

I considered this before looking at his companion. His head hung low so I reached over and gently put my fingers under his chin to force him to meet my eyes. He still wouldn’t do it. I pursed my lips; I could work with this.

Digging out my phone from my back pocket, I found Chandra’s number and dialled. She answered almost immediately. ‘Designs by Chandra,’ she trilled. ‘How may we be service of you?’

‘It’s me.’

She dropped the phone voice almost immediately. ‘Hey. What’s doing?’

‘Chandra,’ I said, deliberately using her name so that the two bastards in front of me knew who I was talking to. ‘I’m looking at an old buddy of yours. Ramsay.’

There was a moment of silence. ‘Did he try to hurt you?’

‘Not me.’

She sucked in a breath. ‘But someone else.’

‘Yep.’ I watched Ramsay’s companion stare at the phone. He was obviously trying to work out how someone who had a hot-pink mobile had managed to best him. Sucks to him.

‘He wasn’t working for me, Tegs. I told you, I’m not in that business any more. After what happened with you, I decided it was time to retire for good.’

‘I’m sure I could persuade you to do one or two more jobs for me. They wouldn’t take long.’

The nameless human stopped caring about the colour of my phone and suddenly paled. He swung alarmed eyes towards Ramsay who looked away, his jaw set.

‘Er…’ Chandra paused. ‘Is that really you, Tegs?’

‘Ramsay is here with a friend,’ I told her. ‘Human but looks kind of like a troll. Heavy brow, wiry hair, bad skin.’ I looked him over. ‘Wearing a silver necklace with a tooth on it.’

‘Smack.’

I frowned. ‘Smack who?’

‘That’s his name.’

‘Ah.’ I raised my eyebrows at him. He was frozen, not even blinking. Somehow I didn’t think the innocent puppy-dog look was going to work for him here. ‘You must know where he’s from.’

‘Little town north of Inverness. Some godforsaken hole with nothing more than a post box and a pub to commend it.’