‘Praying,’ he says. ‘Why?’
I feign a casual shrug. ‘I thought you’d chosen not to be a priest.’
Atlas snorts. ‘You don’t have to be a man of the cloth to have a relationship with God, Viv.’
‘Good,’ I say, glancing at him from beneath my eyelashes. ‘Because the swallow on your arm suits you much better than a white collar.’
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. My attempt to flirt suddenly seems ridiculous. I feel my cheeks burn. What’s happening to me?
There’s a flash of white as a bird plummets towards us.
‘Bloody skuas!’ Gideon shouts, waving his arms as it attacks him.
‘Skuas?’
The bird dives again as Gideon plunges his hands into a nest in the grass and pulls out an egg.
‘Breakfast,’ he says, passing it to me.
I stare at the brown egg in my palm.
‘Only the cold ones,’ Gideon tells Marquis as he reaches into another nest. ‘If they’re warm, there are likely chicks inside.’
The nests of the great white birds litter the hillside.
‘I’m not eating a raw egg,’ Serena says.
‘Starve, then,’ Gideon replies.
He cracks the egg on a rock and tips the fat, viscous yolk into his mouth. I hand my egg to Atlas and shake my head in disgust. We keep walking, climbing with the sun, until the hillflattens out into a cliff that looms over the sea. I see merlins and orchid flowers and Grayling butterflies, wildlife I only know the names of thanks to Clawtail’s journal.
‘Are those puffins?’ Atlas asks.
The black and white birds zip to and fro between the cliff edge and the sea, their orange beaks stuffed with tiny, silver fish.
‘Clawtail wrote that the Hebridean Wyverns feast on puffins,’ I say. ‘Maybe that means we’re getting close.’
Soon, the landscape changes again. The cliffs begin to slope downwards so that we’re closer to the sea and I see something circling in the frothy white waves.
‘A wyrm,’ I tell Atlas.
‘I once heard that the Loch Ness Monster is actually a wyrm that got fed up dealing with the bad-tempered Scots and retreated to the water forever,’ he says quietly.
‘Aren’t the Scots known for being friendly and honest?’ Serena says. ‘There’s a reason theirs is the country with the most rebels.’
‘I’d say so,’ Marquis says. ‘Just look at Karim.’
I give him a sad smile. Marquis’s Scottish boyfriend is the gentlest boy I know.
‘The Stepstones,’ Gideon says.
The slopes lead into a vast valley, miles of green hills shot through by streams and dotted with the remnants of ancient stone walls and volcanic rock. Canna would be beautiful if it wasn’t a feeding ground.
‘How are we supposed to find wyvern tunnels from up here?’ Marquis says as he puffs on a cigarette. ‘Chumanacould have done a bit of echolocating for us, but I’d say you’ve thrown a bit of a spanner in the works when it comes to asking her for favours, wouldn’t you, cousin?’ He winks at me.
A bit of echolocating.
I feel a burst of energy as I pull the loquisonus machine out of its case.
