“Here,” comes Fiona’s voice, reassuringly steady.

My eyes are adjusting to the dark now. Fiona is standing beside me, but she has three legs—and then I realize one of them is the barrel of the shotgun, and it’s in contact with Jamie’s head as he lies crumpled, half on his side. I look at Fiona. I can’t see much except her glittering eyes, staring unflinchingly down at Jamie. “Um. Fiona . . .” I struggle to get upright, but one shoulder isn’t working at all. There was a crack and a wave of heat around my collarbone when I connected with the wall. I can’t imagine that was a good sign.

“We don’t shoot him. That’s not how this ends,” she mutters. Then more loudly, “Carrie, can you find something to tie him up with?”

Carrie has activated the torch function on her phone and is playing the light over us all. “Is he . . . is he unconscious?” she asks. She’s found a little more of herself.

“Aye. The Manse gave him a fair old smack.”

“The . . . the Manse?” says Carrie hesitantly, but neither Fiona nor I answer her. Part of me believes it. A much bigger part than before. I’ve shuffled myself into a position where I’m seated on the floor, my back against one of the kitchen units, my bad arm cradled awkwardly in front of me. It aches enormously in an oddly muffled way, as if my body knows the damage is too severe for me to cope with. Carrie’s torchlight slides over my face. “You’re hurt!” she exclaims.

“Collarbone,” I say briefly. I must have hit my head, too; I feel as if my brain is still ricocheting inside. The wind is still howling without, but we seem cocooned inside now. There’s no banging. The Manse has said its piece. “I’ll live. Find something to tie him up.” Her light slides off me as she turns for the drawers.

“Nothing here—oh, but I’ve found some candles!” Carrie says. “I wonder if the power is out everywhere. Matches, matches, where are matches?”

“Fiona, don’t you have a lighter?” I ask.

“Nope. Dinnae smoke,” she replies. “Not for years.”

“But I saw you . . .” It’s an effort to speak. “With a cigarette. Outside the Quaich.”

I sense rather than see her shrug. “I must have been holding it for someone else. I dinnae smoke. Not even when drunk.”

“She doesn’t,” says Carrie, still rummaging through drawers, and I start to laugh, though it hurts so much I could cry at the same time. Jamie. She must have been holding it for Jamie. I can see him now, leaning on the bonnet of his jeep, the glow of a cigarette in his cupped hand. Then he went to help Carrie get her jacket—he must have passed it to Fiona. Fiona doesn’t smoke.

“I bet you’re not on any medication, either.”