Field Observation 21.1: Subject continues to exhibit hazardous levels of competence. Possible correlation with elevated pulse rate in observer.
Possible solution: thicker shield.
Then her eyes narrowed. Something was wrong.
The ground beneath the throwing circle wasn’t level. The outer ring looked uneven, as though the iron rim had been pried loose.
Her mind calculated: force × trajectory × altered footing = disaster.
“Tavish, stop!” she called. “The pivot’s been tampered with! You’ll over-rotate!”
He glanced up mid-swing. “What?”
“The angle—oh, just don’t rotate!”
But rotation was already in progress.
The hammer swung. His boot slipped. He caught himself, but not before the weight grazed his arm and slammed into the dirt.
A ripple of gasps swept the crowd.
“Tavish!” Wanton bolted forward, shield forgotten, notebook flying. “Confirmed sabotage!”
He grimaced, flexing his arm.
Malcolm materialized like a man who practiced entrances in the mirror. “Sabotage, ye say? Aye—and I ken who’d be behind it.”
He turned dramatically toward the crowd. “The Sassenach!”
Wanton blinked. “Me?”
“She’s meddled since she arrived,” Malcolm boomed. “First the caber toss, now this! What’s next? Poisonin’ our sheep?”
A murmur spread.
Wanton lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know,” she said aloud, “my scientific methods are precise and mostly nonlethal.” Shedropped to her knees beside the ring. “Look! The iron’s been lifted. Someone tampered with the surface!”
The crowd murmured.
Malcolm’s lip curled. “Or ye did it yerself.”
Wanton’s pulse fluttered hard enough to require medical commentary.
“S-sabotaging my own hypothesis would be an egregious misuse of data!”
Tavish knelt beside her, inspecting the ground. His calloused fingers brushed the loose iron. He nodded. “She’s right.”
Malcolm froze. “What?”
“The base has been lifted. Someone wanted the throw to go wrong.”
Agreement rolled through the crowd.
Tavish looked up at her, and Wanton regretted having left the shield half a field away. Her traitorous heart thudded triumphantly in her chest like a drummer announcing courtship.
“Ye’ve saved me again, Flùr na cuthach,” Tavish said softly. “Seems I owe ye twice.”
Her stomach performed a somersault. She slapped a hand over it. The organ was clearly mutinous.
