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I n the end, it was the lightning that saved them.

It was there and gone again in an instant, a single streak tearing a jagged hole into the sky above the shoreline below the castle.

If it hadn’t been for the lightning, Cat never would have seen the boat.

It wasn’t unusual for boats to sail the waters of the Little Minch on their way east toward Portree, but it was rare for them to venture into Loch Dunvegan, especially so close to the shoreline, where sharp rocks loomed just under the water’s surface, ready to sink their teeth into the hull.

But this was no ordinary boat. It was a lugger, compact and quick, painted black, its dark sails billowing in the sudden brisk wind that had come with the lightning strike.

The lugger’s crew didn’t light a lamp to warn of their approach. She waited for a tinderbox spark, or a flash from a flintlock pistol, but they continued their stealthy approach, gliding silently through the waters of Loch Dunvegan, all but invisible on a moonless night.

A night like tonight.

It was a smuggler’s boat, and their destination was unmistakable.

They were coming toward the castle.

Straight toward her home.

She turned and ran then, the wind whipping her skirts into a frenzy and tearing her hair from its tidy bun, hairpins scattering in her wake as she flew from the rock’s edge toward the castle, through the door and past the grandfather clock on the landing to the winding stone staircase clinging to the inside walls of the turret.

“Freya!” She burst through the low, beamed door that led to the pitched roof of the castle. “Sorcha!”

Freya was in her usual place, scribbling something in one of her notebooks. Beside her was a chair, and atop it another notebook, the pages covered with her sister’s tight, cramped handwriting flapping in the wind.

Beside the notebook lay a thermometer, and beside that a rain gauge.

“Cat?” Freya’s head jerked up at the crash of the door slamming, her pencil slipping from her fingers. “My goodness, what is it? You look positively wild.”

“There’s a boat.” Cat leaned over, clutching her knees, and tried to catch her breath. “Where’s Sorcha?”

“Round the other side, with her birds.” Freya waved a hand toward the opposite side of the turret. “All this fuss over a boat, Cat? It’s just a fishing boat on the way to Portree.”

“It’s not a fishing boat. Come with me. Quickly, Freya!”

Freya scrambled to her feet with her notebook still clutched in her hand. “But what kind of boat would—”

“Sorcha!” Cat caught her skirts in her fists and tore around to the other side of the roof, nearly losing her balance as she skidded around the narrowest edge of the turret. “Sorcha, we need you at once!”

“For pity’s sake, Cat, will you cease that shrieking? You’re frightening my birds.”

“I beg their pardon, but we’re about to be overrun by smugglers.” The three of them were alone here, and there was no telling how many men were in the boat below. Half a dozen? More?

“Smugglers!” Freya grasped the sleeve of Cat’s cloak. “You’re scaring me, Cat.”

“There’s a boat near the shoreline, just below.” Cat leaned over the edge of the stone wall that surrounded the turret and peered down into the Loch. “A lugger.”

“A lugger !” The color drained from Freya’s cheeks. “But why? The rocks are treacherous, and there are no caves to hide their contraband. It doesn’t make any sense, Cat.”

But it did. Alas, it made perfect sense.

The smugglers hadn’t come here to leave something. They’d come to take something.

Freya and Sorcha crowded around her, peering out into the dark waters below. “I don’t see any boat. I daresay it was only Mr. Alpin in his fishing boat you saw.”

If only that were true! “It wasn’t Mr. Alpin, Sorcha. I’m telling you, there’s a lugger just off the shoreline. I’m certain of it.”

“How can you be? It’s as dark as midnight out there!” Sorcha squinted into the inky blackness surrounding them. “I can’t see a blessed thing.”

“Wait.”

They stood there, shoulders touching as they gazed into the impenetrable darkness, Cat counting off the seconds in her head.

One, two, three—

A spiky bolt of lightning pierced the sky, setting Loch Dunvegan alight for an instant, just long enough to catch the flutter of a dark sail in the rising wind and the prow of the boat drawing silently closer, like a snake slithering through the grass.

Dear God, it was close. Far, far too close.

A low curse left Sorcha’s lips. “That’s a lugger, right enough. But what do they want here?”

The same thing smugglers always wanted. Gold coins. Jewels.

Treasure.

But Sorcha didn’t expect an answer, and Cat didn’t give her one. It didn’t matter what they wanted. The only thing that mattered was keeping them far away from the castle. “The lightning, Freya. You said earlier that there’s a storm coming?”

“Yes.” Freya tipped her head back and searched the sky. “I’ve been tracking it all day.”

It was coming out of nowhere, too. Today had been a glorious summer day, the sky as blue as she’d ever seen it, and the fading glow of the sunset had ushered in a calm evening with the promise of moonlight and stars.

But they hadn’t appeared. The temperature had dropped, and dark clouds had come roaring in from the west, snuffing the light from above, just as Freya had predicted.

Cat never questioned Freya’s predictions, any more than she did Sorcha’s “inklings” as she called them, or her own telltale flutters and twitches. They’d long since accepted it as a part of having their mother’s Murdoch blood flowing through their veins.

They didn’t even talk about it. It just was .

“It’s going to be a bad one, this time.” Freya’s brow creased as her gaze moved across the sky. “The wind is already picking up.”

Good. The worse it was, the better. Their only hope was it would be bad enough to send the lugger careening into the rocks, splintering the hull. “When? How long do we have until it descends on us, Freya?”

“I’d thought not until morning, but it’s coming much faster than I anticipated—”

“How long, Freya?” Cat asked again, biting back her impatience.

“I can’t predict exactly.”

“Your best guess then.” Cat’s tone was sharper than she’d meant it to be, but panic was clawing at her now. They were wasting time.

“An hour, maybe?”

An hour! That was too long. The lugger would reach the shoreline in a matter of minutes, and from there, there was little standing in the way of them breaching the castle.

The rocks were their best hope.

“Quickly, Freya, run and fetch Father’s pistols.”

“You can’t shoot into the dark, Cat,” Sorcha said as Freya fled for the door.

“We don’t have any other choice.” Cat reached for the oil lamp at Sorcha’s feet, turned up the wick, and set it on the top edge of the wall, but the weak flicker was no match for the deep darkness. “Unless you have a better idea?”

Sorcha didn’t reply at once but stood staring out into the darkness. “My birds,” she said at last, turning to Cat.

“The birds? What of them?”

“Perhaps we should send them down to greet our guests.” Sorcha glanced up into the sky, which had grown darker still, the clouds amassing as the wind whirled around them. “The storm is coming on quickly. I daresay my girls could keep our visitors, ah, occupied until it does.”

Sorcha’s “girls” were a pair of sparrowhawks she’d rescued after their mother was killed by a fox. She’d trained them to do all manner of things, from eating from her hand to returning to their box perches on the roof every night.

But attacking on command? “You mean a bird attack?”

“I wouldn’t say attack , exactly, but they can make rather a nuisance of themselves, yes. It could gain us some time.”

Below them, the boat was now so close Cat could make out male voices, an occasional laugh, and the swish of oars moving through the water. They were out of time. “Do it.”

“Come here, darlings,” Sorcha cooed as she donned her thick leather gauntlet. Athena hopped onto her arm, and Sorcha carefully removed her hood. “No need to mind your manners this time, lovey.”

Athena hovered over the ledge for an instant, then in one smooth movement she was off into the night, her beautiful brown striped wings spread wide. Artemis quickly followed her sister, the pair of them swooping low over the water.

A door slammed behind them, and Freya appeared, breathless, another lantern in one hand and their father’s pistols stuffed into the pockets of her apron. “I’ve got them!”

“I think—” Cat began, but she was interrupted by a splash. A panicked shout rang out below them. “We may not need them.”

Freya turned to her, wide-eyed. “My goodness. What was that?”

“It’s Artemis and Athena!” Sorcha braced her elbows on the ledge, barely able to contain her glee. “They’re entertaining our callers!”

They couldn’t see a thing in the dark, but it was clear a battle was taking place from the shouts and curses coming from below.

It didn’t last long.

A streak of lightning illuminated the darkness, followed by a deafening roll of thunder. The skies opened, and a heavy rain came lashing down on them, bringing with it a gusty wind that tore at their skirts and tossed their hair.

“A squall.” Freya held a finger up in the air. “The wind’s turning west.”

“Thank God.” Cat caught her sisters’ hands in hers and squeezed with all her might. “Thank God.”

The lugger never made it to shore. The wind turned, just as Freya predicted, and drove the boat back out toward the Little Minch, the smugglers’ curses echoing in the darkness.

Artemis and Athena returned to their perches, and soon afterward, Freya and Sorcha went to their beds, and the castle was quiet once again.

But Cat didn’t go to her bed.

She stood at one of the arched windows inside the turret and searched the darkness.

It was a miracle they’d made it through the night unscathed.

But there would be a next time. It was as certain as the changing of the tides, as the sun setting every evening and rising again in the morning.

What would become of them, then?