"We could ignore it," he suggested, his eyes so bright they almost hurt me to look at.
I wriggled uncomfortably as I reached for my purse. "Normally I would, but I told Clare to call if she needed me."
Paen leaned back to allow me to grab my purse. I extracted the cell phone, checked the incoming caller's number, and mouthed, "It's her," at him before answering. "Hey Clare. What's up?"
"Oh, Sam, something terrible has happened. My dress has been shot!"
"You what?" I shrieked, sitting bolt upright, inadvertently slamming my breasts into Paen's nose. "Oh, man, I'm sorry," I told him, covering the phone for a second. "Are you all right?"
"My dress has been shot!"
"Your dress? Why would someone shoot at your dress?" I asked, confused as hell.
"I'm fine," Paen told me, gently feeling his nose. "I don't think it's broken."
"Well, I think he was aiming at me. I was wearing the dress at the time," Clare said thoughtfully. "It was just mean of him to shoot the part of me covered by the dress. I don't know if it's going to recover."
"Clare has been shot. She's delusional, babbling on about a dress," I said aside as I grabbed my sweater and yanked it over my head, my voice muffled as I asked into the phone, "Clare? Are you seeing things? Strange, unreal things?"
"Well, I consider my dress with bullet holes in it a strange, unreal thing, so if that's what you mean, yes. It's a mess, Sam, a mess, absolutely destroyed. I've tried for half an hour to get the blood out, and it won't come out! I'm so annoyed I could just scream!"
I stared at Paen in confused horror. He had donned his shirt and was quickly buttoning it.
"How bad is she? What hospital is she at?" he asked. "I'll take you there."
Clare continued to rant about her dress. I shook my head, trying to figure out just how badly she was hurt.
"Clare? You didn't get shot in the head, did you?" I asked. "Are you lucid?"
"Of course I'm lucid. Haven't you been listening to me? My dress is ruined!" she wailed.
I rubbed my forehead as Paen helped me to my feet, waiting not-so-patiently for me to answer his questions. I was so bemused by the fact that Clare seemed more concerned for a dress than her own bullet-riddled body that I couldn't seem to think straight. "Yeah, but... Clare, exactly where were you shot?"
"Twice in the chest, once in the stomach."
"Samantha?" Paen said, clearly wanting an update.
I covered the mouthpiece. "She's been shot in the chest and stomach, but she doesn't seem to care much about that."
One of Paen's expressive eyebrows rose slightly. "She is a faery. She is immortal. Bullets can't kill her."
"No, but they can hurt her," I snapped, immediately feeling bad. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get irritated, but Clare seems to be more worried about her dress than anything else."
"Sam? Did you hear me? What am I going to do?" Clare's plaintive voice sobbed in my ear.
"Don't worry, we'll be there as quickly as we can. Where are you?"
"On Dunstan Moor."
"Where?"
"Dunstan Moor. It's in the Lammermuir Hills. They're shooting a movie here, and Finn is part of a historical group that's providing extras for the movie, and we decided it would be fun to join in. Since he didn't think it was a good idea me meeting with the fence on my own, we arranged to meet him here."
"On the set of a movie?" I asked, more than a little incredulous.
"It's not as movie-like as you'd think. Evidently the primarily filming was already done, and they're just doing a few more battle scenes - "
I sighed. Only my cousin would think nothing was wrong with meeting a fence in a location where there were plenty of witnesses to watch. "Dunstan Moor. Got it."