Forging Ties (Ties, Book 3) | ✓

Chapter 26

"What the fuck, Skye!" Hamish shouted as he reached for the egg, but Duran yanked him back.

Duran cooled his arms as much as he could in the space of a second, which honestly wasn't much at all, and then quickly reached into the fire and yanked the egg out himself. He dropped it on the sand away from the fire and flexed his fingers as he cooled them. He'd scorched his fingertips a little, but he wasn't bothered. Hamish could destroy him in a fight, but mages were by their nature better at recovering from injury.

"Fuck," Hamish hissed as he patted his fingertips against the surface of the egg. "How is it this hot? It can't have been in that fire for more than five seconds."

"I'm so sorry," Mirriam said. "I don't know why he would do something like that. He can be impulsive and strange, but he's one of the most gentle people I've ever met."

"Well, he's run off now," Slone said. "Reckon I should go look for him?"

"No," Mirriam said. "I promise I'll talk to him and get this figured out, but he doesn't react well to being pushed and cornered. I'm just so confused. He wouldn't hurt a living creature, and though he does steal, that's mostly only food. He would never try to destroy something someone else cares about. Especially not someone who's been a friend to him."

"Is it possible he knows something about the egg that we don't?" Perry crouched down, pressed gloved fingertips to the egg for a few seconds, and then pulled them away with a frown. "We had a lovely lunch together earlier and he told me that he was one of the old ones but he had forgotten until recently. Perhaps the egg is dangerous and he just remembered. Throwing it into the fire in that case would still be an impulsive act, but not a cruel one."

"He told you that he's one of the old ones?" Mirriam asked. "He said something to me about having forgotten a lot of things and a ghost helping him remember, but it didn't make much sense to me."

Hamish pressed his hand against the egg and then yanked it away. "It's still hot. It shouldn't even be warm at this point. Whatever Skye is, I think you're right, Perry. He knows something about this egg."

"What do we do now?" Duran asked.

"I guess wrap it up in something and take it back to the ship," Hamish said. "If he was trying to destroy it, well, maybe he has a good reason for that, but he's going to have to tell me what it is if he expects me to kill my egg baby. Assuming it's not already cooked in there."

Slone knelt down in the sand and bent his head down close to the egg, listening carefully. "Huh. Well, it's alive. It's moving around a lot in there."

"In a 'freaking out because I'm being boiled alive' kind of way, or...?"

Slone sat back up and shrugged. "Can't say I know much about eggs and what the things in them get up to."

"You can use my coat," Mirriam said as she took it off. "It's okay if it gets scorched. It's old anyway."

"Thanks," Hamish said as he took it from her. He draped it over the egg and then carefully picked it up. "I can feel the heat even through this. I think it's getting hotter."

"Huh," Slone said. "Weird thing for an egg to do."

"Yeah. I'd say—" Hamish started to say and then, all at once, there was a cracking sound and Hamish dropped the bundle he was holding and leapt back. The coat erupted in flame.

"Huh," Mirriam said. "I know I said I didn't care if that thing got ruined, but damn."

"Skye was onto something," Slone commented. "Still dunno what, but something."