Free Must Love Kilts by Allie Mackay Page B

no steam to scry—”
    “Is that where you saw me in the realm of the dead?” Magnus gave him an equally hard look.
    “Peering in the steam off your cauldron?”
    “I could’ve seen what I did in the bottom o’ my ale cup.” Orosius didn’t budge from the door. “Where and what I saw changes naught.”
    “It does if the woman you saw wasn’t Liana.” Magnus half turned to glance at the dark clouds racing in from the sea. Thunder sounded in the distance and cold wind thrashed the red-berried rowan tree next to Orosius’s cottage. “I say”—he swung back around to fix the seer with a stare—“your scrying showed me in the thrall of a she-demon summoned by Donata Greer, the sorceress.”
    Orosius thrust his chin. “I dinnae mistake what’s shown to me.”
    “Let me see what you saw and we’ll know.”
    “Begad!” Orosius looked horrified. “Suchlike would flatten me for days. You dinnae ken the power needed to share even a glimmer of what I see.”
    “You showed me how Liana died.” Magnus’s voice hardened.
    “That was long ago and she came to me in a dream, wanting to reach you.” Orosius’s eyes gleamed with defiance. “If she wished to be seen now, she would’ve shown me more than the back of her head.”
    “You didn’t see Liana.” Magnus was sure of it.
    “Humph.” Orosius snorted.
    Magnus frowned. The seer was his last hope.
    And the cantankerous lout’s foul mood grated on his nerves.
    Orosius was an ogre.
    And Magnus was weary of him. He also pushed past him into the low-ceilinged cottage. A small fire burned in the central hearth, where Orosius’s black kettle hung on a chain above the smoldering peats. It was there that Frodi chose to sprawl on the stone-flagged floor.
    Orosius went to stand beside the dog. The red glow from the peat lit his hulking form, making him look even bigger, almost like an oversized troll with his large nose and wild hair. “Bad things happen when folk go poking into things they aren’t meant to be a-seeing.”
    “I’ll take my chances.” Magnus folded his arms. “Say your scrying words.”
    “Mayhap I’m no’ of a mind to see your nekkid arse again.” Orosius balked. “Once was enough.”
    “Dinnae test me, Orosius. One glimpse is all I’m asking. Then I’ll be on my way.”
    “And I’ll have my peat?”
    “Aye, and as much as Ewan and two lads can cut in a day.”
    The seer pulled on his beard, considering. “I’m descended from a long line of sages. ...” He paused to glance at the steam rising above his cauldron.
    “They watch o’er me. I’m no’ sure they’d approve. The lass was bare-bottomed and—”
    “And you saw me having her, what?” Magnus stepped forward, going toe to toe with Orosius.
    “That’s what Calum told me. Will you be denying it?”
    “Nae.” Orosius reddened.
    “Then”—Magnus leaned close—“you’ll no’ be showing me aught that I haven’t already seen.” Orosius spluttered.
    Magnus grinned and held out his hands, palms downward. “Take my hands now. Put your feet o’er mine. That’s how you did it last time.”
    “Botheration!” The seer snapped his bushy black brows together in a fierce scowl. But he placed his hands on top of Magnus’s and dutifully rested his toes over Magnus’s own.
    Then he closed his eyes as he muttered a string of nonsensical words. When he stopped chanting and opened his eyes again to peer into the steam, Magnus knew the seer was looking into another world.
    Magnus saw nothing.
    Until Orosius’s hands began to tremble and a peat brick popped, sending up a shower of sparks to join the cauldron’s whirling steam. In that moment, the heavy black kettle and even the cottage’s peat-stained walls vanished, leaving only clouds of glittering blue-white smoke that swirled around Magnus and the seer.
    Magnus’s nape prickled.
    Then the air shivered, the mist parted, and his breath caught, the world seeming to stand still, as he gazed upon a beautiful