I wait. But when he doesn’t elaborate, I press, “What does that mean?”
“Donag’s fury isnae my own.” He picks up a discarded scrap of metal with his tongs and dips it into the fire, considering his words. “She’s my clan, true enough. Her battles are mine. But not her grudges.”
Maybe it’s the sound of his voice, the way his lulling accent rides on a low rasp, but I become mesmerized.
I watch as he works that small piece of metal, twisting and turning it, until it’s a glowing, molten-red blob.
Snap out of it.
“Okay, cool. No grudges. Then we can start working on a plan?”
“A plan?”
“To get me out of here.”
“Ah. That.” His mouth quirks. “Aye, I’ve been doing somethinking. There are places—ancient places—said to run thick with magic. Holy isles, crannogs, standing stones. Places where it’s said folk have been lost to the low road and nae seen again.”
I grin. “Awesome. Let’s find one of those.”
He half smiles, half frowns at my enthusiasm. “’Tisn’t so easy as that. Those places are far. It will take much preparation. We’d require provisions—food, blankets, and suchlike—as well as preparations for the other.”
“The other…meaning?”
I know what he means. I just needhimto say it. Otherwise, it’s too surreal.
“Meaning, in order for you to walk the low road, we’ll need to ken what to say, and when. I’ve been listening with one ear to Donag’s spell-making all my life. I reckon I could conjure a way. But ’twill take time.”
I imagine a seventeenth-century road trip with Callum. Planning, preparing, and then…the moment I step through the portal.
Will it feel different from before? Will it hurt?
Callum goes distant, lost to me as he dips the metal in the oil, pulls it out, frowns, then starts all over again. Heating, twisting, dipping.
“Is this what you do all day?” I ask suddenly. “Did you ever go to school?”
“I work all day,” he says, guarded. “With the horses. Or at the big house. Here and there. As it serves the Campbells’ fancy.”
He surprises me when he adds, voice subdued, “I might’ve been tutored, had things turned out different. My family was once great. We were the ones with the hired ladsto work the horses. But then this clan war happened. That other life is no more.”
I lean in. “What clan war?” Why didn’t I pay more attention in history class?
He sighs, weighing his thoughts. “Campbell—all Campbells—they’ve the trick of dissembling. Of bowing to whichever ruler best suits their ambition. And make no mistake, their ambition has a cold heart and a hungry belly. They crave land, power, wealth. Mostly, they crave folk to serve them.”
He gestures to himself and sweeps a half-bow, his smirk sharp as a blade. “But the MacGregor clan stood in their way. They had the nerve to rise up and fight back.Thatclan war.”
“And? What happened to them?”
“To the MacGregors?” His jaw tightens. “They didnae fare so well. Those who weren’t killed, fled. Those who fled were hunted. Those who were found…” He glances at me. “You seem a bright lass. You can guess.”
Callum returns to his metalwork with an intensity the tiny scrap doesn’t seem to merit.
“Can’t they rise again? Surely the Campbells have other enemies.” I’ve been to modern-day Scotland. Peoplestillhave issues with them. “The MacGregors could find allies. Fight back.”
“A pretty notion were it not now outlawed to be a MacGregor.”
“Oh.”
He says it so flatly—so finally—that I can’t help feeling as low as he looks. If the Campbells are powerful enough to erase an entire clan, what could they do to me?
