His glower snaps back to me. “Have you lost your hearing as well as your sense? ’Tis a witch stone.”
I swallow hard, frozen to the spot.
He peers at me, something sharp creeping into his expression. “Are you a witch, lass?” He says it playfully, but his eyes glitter with suspicion.
A lump of ice settles in my belly. He’s not just wary of the stone. He’s wary of me for having found it.
He’s superstitious—of course. This is the seventeenth century. Somewhere in the world, people are burning witches for sport right about now.
I force a carefree laugh that I’m afraid comes out a little too loudly. “What do you mean a witch stone? There’s no such things as witches.”
“Are there not?”
My pulse skitters, but I keep my voice firm. “It’s just a silly rock I found.”
“Och, no. These rocks find you. Not the other way round.”
I toss off as careless a shrug as I can manage. “That’s impossible.”
“Folk say these stones have many powers.” He snatches it from me. “They say you can use them to spy themagical creatures hidden around you. That if you peep through the hole of a hag stone, you can see through a witch’s guise to her true self.”
He holds it up to his eye and squints at me. A slow, creeping unease slithers over my skin.
“Aye,” he says with mock awe, “there’s a magical creature right a’fore me.”
I don’t know which is worse: his suspicion or the way he’s leering.
Enough. I pinch the rock from his fingers and pluck it back. “There’s no magic about it.” I’m assuring him as much as myself, because I’ve just about had my fill of magic for a lifetime.
“Just science.” I hold it up. “This thing was at the bottom of some riverbed when another rock knocked into it, chipping it. Add a few thousand years of flowing water, andboom, we have a rock with a hole.”
Hamish gives a dramatic look around. “Where’s this river then?”
“I don’t know.” I wave my hands awkwardly. How much do people even know about science in the 1600s? Probably less than they know about burning witches.
I quickly shift course. “Wait, does thisscareyou?” I summon the universal sneer of popular girls everywhere, curling my lip and holding the rock out like it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, and he’s dumb if he doesn’t agree.
“It’s just a stupid rock.” I turn and whip it into the bushes. “And now it’s gone.” I clap the dirt from my hands, forcing good-humored finality.
Hamish doesn’t move.
He stares through the darknessafter it. He swivels his head back to me, giving me a once-over that makes me feel like a bug pinned under glass.
I refuse to flinch. I raise my brows, doing my best to look unimpressed. “Now can we please discuss something more interesting?”
I’m frantically scanning the garden, scrounging for a new subject, when I sense it—a shift in the air. A charge, like the moment before lightning splits the sky.
My stomach pitches.
Callum.
He’s seen us. And, like a storm, he’s coming.
Act casual.
I can feel Hamish watching me, so I make myself look anywhere but at Callum.
“So, Hamish.” My voice is too bright. “What brings you here tonight? Slumming it with us lowly menial laborers?”
