“Stop!” I barked, causing Hyacinth’s entire frame to go taut with tension.
Her black-lace bodice moved in and out like a bellows as her chest expanded and exhaled with her heavy breathing. But she kept her back to me.
“It is time, Cinth. It is more than time. The curse is failing. Ye see it, as do I. This is just the start of the birthing pains, and it’s our doin’, sister. We might have allowed ourselves to forget that over time, but we can no longer deny it. We’ve worked like the devil to keep this day away, but I’m tired. I’m tired and aggrieved at all the lies we’ve told, day in and day out, not just to Zinny, but to the entire bluedy town.”
Hyacinth turned slowly on her heel, looking at me with disbelief sparking in her bright lavender eyes. Her skin practically glowed with the rush of her emotions.
She swallowed hard, and I expected fire and brimstone to fall off her tongue, expected her to act as she always did—headstrong, rash, and bristly. But she was silent, stone silent, only looking at me with wide eyes as her hands curled and uncurled.
“They will hate us,” Violet finally said. “They will all hate us.”
I just continued to rock back and forth, back and forth. Finally, I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the goddesses’ hands. We’d done what we’d done, and now it was time to own up to it. Come what may.
Sage
I SAT WITHIN THE PIT of stone hewn from damp, gray rocks deep in the earth and stared upward through the small hole that let me see the light of the moon.
“Meow,” Malachite said.
I turned to look at my ever-present companion, who no matter how many times I tried to shake, always seemed to find me.
I shook my head. “No, cat. I still don’t know who I am. Do you know?”
His startling green eyes stared intelligently back at me. “Meow.”
“We hurt them, didn’t we?” I asked him slowly.
His tail swished behind him. He was black, black as midnight and rather hard to see in my ever-darkening confines.
The sisters had been so kind to me since I’d come out of that dream world of illusions and fog. So very kind.
So when they’d asked me to please come without a fight and to say nothing, I did. I’d done it without question. I trusted them implicitly, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Meow,” Malachite said again, moving in closer to me and shoving his silky black head beneath my hand, demanding a scratch.
I snorted and dragged my fingers just behind his sharply pointed ears.
He purred, long and deep, moving his head back and forth with joy.
He liked me, but Malachite was a very bad kitty.
I frowned as I stared down at him.
“We hurt them,” I whispered low. I’d tried to warn Meri what was coming. I’d tried, but she wouldn’t listen. None of them would listen. None of them had.
But it wasn’t their fault.
I sighed, my heart aching as I looked back up at the sliver of moon in the sky, wishing I could go back outside. But I was dangerous. And the sisters knew it. They wouldn’t tell me how but they knew it, and I knew it too.
With my free hand, I played with a soft patch of grass, dragging my fingers along the smooth stems, as all around me vines began to spring forth from the earth like tiny green fingers.
Little buds of red bloomed upon them, unfurling slowly in the radiance of the moon, their stamens full of golden powder that began to gently glow.
Chapter 8
Zinnia
I HAD TO SEE ZANE ONE last time before I went to go find Time. I’d promised him, and I could really use a hug right about now. The talk with my aunts had not gone exactly as planned, and I was feeling rather deflated about everything.
But at the exact moment I stepped through the door of the Haunted Boot, I felt time literally shift. All the fine hairs on my arms rose up. Time had paused on me. Nothing moved anymore. No sounds could be heard. It was like being stuck in an oil painting, where all the colors were crisp and sharp and so very real, but it was missing that spark of life.
With a sharp gasp, I twirled on my heel.
Time stood there, staring at me with his wise golden eyes and his dark skin gleaming like polished obsidian. He was young, old, and everything in between. Dressed in a black suit with tails and a white satin tie, he was strikingly handsome.
He cocked his head.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked, stunned to see him and shocked that he’d so easily known I wanted to speak with him.
But rather than answer me, he asked his own question. “Ever wondered why it is that I’m back, Zinnia Rose?” he asked me slowly in that deep drawl of his that never failed to make me feel weak in the knees.
The Boot was crowded tonight, full of families and couples sitting in the cozy parlor, before a roaring hearth full of white fire. The golden vintage wallpaper, the tufted burgundy seats, the rugs, even the gleaming wooden banister and steps that led up to the sleeping domiciles all elicited a sense of warmth and peace of belonging.
Growing up, I’d always loved this place, and I still felt great feelings of fondness for it. Even with time halted, I could smell the ever-present aroma of baking goodies wafting from the ovens. It was a child’s paradise, and even an adult’s too. I knew why Edward loved the place, why it was healing the boy who’d come to our town so broken and hurting and who was now altogether altered and coming back to life again.
I crossed my arms over my chest. In terms of magick, there wasn’t a blasted thing I could do to ward myself against Time. He was outside the realm of this world or any other. He was an entity unto himself, a keeper, a watcher, rarely given over to interference. Time was always just outside the sphere of everything yet mired in the heart of all of it too.
He stood there, and somehow he’d changed out of his tailcoat and into robes of stardust and moonlight. He was a man but not a man at all—powerful, handsome, and as mysterious as ever. He came and went wherever he so chose. But he was a vagabond, never one to set down roots, yet he’d been in Blue Moon Bay longer than I’d known him to be anywhere else in many years.
I swallowed. “Why are you here, watcher? What draws you to this place?”
He grinned, showcasing even pearly white teeth. “Everything. The epicenter of history and time itself gathers and pulls at this very spot.”
I pursed my lips, having an inkling of what he might mean. “Everything’s different now, isn’t it? Even the unveiling is different. It’s all so altered. I can feel the tidings of something pulling at my very bones. I feel the flow of great power. Something is coming, right? Or something is already here.”
He didn’t answer.
I wet my lips from nerves. “I’m not even sure why I’ve come to you.”
He frowned with his forehead, but his smile was still in place. “Oh, but I think you do. You came because I called.”
I went perfectly still, hearing a growing buzz building in my ears. “You what? That... that calling within me—”
“Was me.” He nodded. “Yes. The restlessness, the exhaustion. It’s not been your changes depriving you of sleep. It’s the fullness in your head of memories I’ve kept stored there from the moment of your inception. Memories that now long to break free.”
I blinked, startled, shocked, and unable to form words at all.
He took a step toward me, and the room danced with particles of floating stardust and quicksilver glints of magick. His magick could see into places I could’ve never even fathomed existing.
“He asked it of me, and so I did it. Friends, you see. I don’t have many. But the few I do have, I care for deeply. Nothing is as it seems.”
I cocked my head, trying to decipher the riddle of his words, but he shook his head like an indulgent father would to a child too young to fully grasp the meaning of things.
“Do you wish to save your town, your friends, Zinnia Rose?”
I swallowed, thinking that maybe I should answer, but
the words were wedged tight in my throat. So I nodded slowly, and his grin curved into the sickle shape of a crescent moon.
He held out his hand to me. The room was starting to whip with a night-scented breeze, turning and twisting in on itself, scattering papers and overturning lamps and whatever else wasn’t held down. But still no one inside of the frozen frame moved.
“Take my hand, and you’ll learn what’s happened, what comes, and maybe, if you’re lucky, how to undo it all.”
I stared down at his hand, terrified out of my mind. My knees felt like jelly, and I thought deep in my heart that I might not like what I found. What if learning the truth changed everything? What if the truth wasn’t a blessing, but a curse in disguise? There were things in life that didn’t always have to be known.
He shrugged, and as though he’d read my thoughts, he said, “You can choose to do nothing, but whether you do or don’t, the end is inevitable. The birthing pains have begun, and the truth goes so much deeper than you might imagine.”
I finally found my trembling words. “My... my aunt said that there would be a price to pay.”
He nodded. “There is always a price when discovering truth, witch. This you know.”
I swallowed hard. “If I do this, will it help, or will it hurt?”
Again, he shrugged. “I guess that depends on who you ask. Sometimes knowing the truth can be just as dangerous as not knowing it. But only you can decide that for yourself.”
“Am I really going back in time?”
“Yes.”
“Can I change everything if I misstep?”
“Yes.”
My heart quivered. I curled my sweaty palms into fists and hugged them tight to my belly.
“I... I need to say good—”
“You and Zane are bound as one. Where you go, he will always follow, and vice versa.”
“You’re saying he will come with me?”
“I’m saying,” he said softly, “that he doesn’t have a choice, and neither do you. You need him as surely as he needs you.”
“And Edward?” I asked. “We can’t just leave him. But I’m not sure we should take him either. He mustn’t fall to the curse. He must remain safe. Zane would perish if aught should come to his boy.”
“I will personally ensure the child’s safety.”
I trembled with relief. “Promise me.”
His grin was beautiful and mysterious all at once. “I vow it to you, witch. I will keep your boy safe.”
I don’t know why I believed him, but I did. I nodded. “Zane must be given the chance to agree to this, though. I can’t decide the fate of his child for him.”
“I will, of course, see to that.” He held his hand out to me in a silent gesture that I should take it. His face was calm, but I sensed the urgency in the moment like a taut bowstring ready to snap.
“Take your hand?” I asked softly, even though I already knew that was what he wanted.
“Take my hand, and you will fix your friends. You will save them all. But I should warn you, Zinnia, I do not send you back in time to merely bring them back. There is so much more to learn. So much you couldn’t even begin to fathom just how deep the truth goes.”
My nostrils flared, and I felt the flutter of my pulse in my throat beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. “What does that mean? If this isn’t about saving my friends, then what am I even doing here?”
He shrugged. “Oh, you’ll save them all right. But that will merely be the by product, not the reason.”
I swallowed hard, a little bit scared and a whole lot curious. “And if I choose not to go? If I don’t do this? If I don’t want to learn whatever it is you want to teach me, will they die?”
His smile was grim. “I never took you for a wimp, Zinnia Rose. You are of Thorn blood.”
Feeling ashamed though I wasn’t sure why, I twisted my lips. I was scared, scared because this wasn’t what I’d planned to do. Scared of what I might learn. Scared that all of what he said sounded far more ominous than I’d have liked.
“If you don’t come,” he finally said, “then the hands of fate will do what they must.”
I shivered, not liking the sound of that at all.
Closing my eyes, I rubbed my thumb along the comforting warmth of the iron ring on my pointer finger. I didn’t know what Time planned to show me. And frankly, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, but if the end result meant I could save my friends then there really was no choice. And without another second to spare, I took Time’s hand.
A raging funnel of madness and chaos suddenly descended over me, and I screamed as I fell into a spiraling, never-ending tunnel of darkness.
The chaos and madness of the funnel I’d been shoved into suddenly and quite unexpectedly vanished. I blinked, trying to gather my bearings. It was sunny outside, blessedly bright, with nary a cloud in the azure sky.
I stared up in quiet awe, half sprawled out on the dirt path, tingling all over as I felt the rays of sunlight permeate my flesh and warm me up.
I’d not felt the sun on my skin in decades, not on my human skin anyway. I’d been a newt during the days for so long that I’d nearly forgotten the warmth of the sun’s rays playing over my flesh. I trembled as I breathed in the afternoon air laced with the scents of wild flowers and that delicious tanginess of the outside that always smelled just a little bit metallic.
I wished I could sit out there forever. I sighed with delight.
“Where are we?” Zane’s deep, confused voice made me yelp, startling me from my contemplations, and I twirled on my dust-covered hip.
He was most certainly Zane, but he did not dress like my Zane. Gone were the nerdy professor threads, and in their place was something deliciously medieval. He wore skintight pants that left very little to the imagination and a flowing hunter-green shirt that ruffled around his thick wrists.
A black cape was tied around his neck, and he shoved the hood off. It was with some relief that I noted his face was exactly the same. His hair was longer, however, thick and wavy and falling to his shoulders. He reminded me a little of Aragon from The Lord of the Rings.
I bit my lip, my heart fluttering like a mad hummingbird’s wings.
He was frowning, staring at me hard. “What are you wearing, newt?”
“Huh?” I looked down and was shocked to see myself dressed as peculiarly as he was. In fact, the clothes reminded me oddly of a couple of outfits I’d seen my aunt Violet wearing now and then.
I wore a tan corset that was richly embroidered with woodland images of stags and pines. The wooden buttons on the front appeared to be whittled by hand. The hunter-green skirt I wore flared heavily around my ankles. Well-worn black leather boots, scuffed at the toes, covered my feet, and similar to Zane, I too had my own hooded cape, except mine was a vivid scarlet red.
“What the devil is this?” I asked, gathering up a section of the skirt and rubbing it between my fingers. It was coarse and heavy like wool, and it would make me sweat like a stuck pig in no time.
I frowned.
Zane got up and dusted himself off before walking over to me and holding out his hand. “Time came to me,” he said as I slipped my hand in his. “He asked me if I’d join you on a mission to help keep watch over you, keep you safe during your transformations.”
I stood beside him, my hand still clasped in his, delighted by the scraping calluses of his palm rubbing against mine. We had done our fair share of necking since that first night, but we’d rarely been alone like this, together and so very, very alone.
I swallowed hard as I felt myself drowning in his cobalt blues.
He grinned.
“You said yes,” I whispered, feeling hot all over but not because of the weather.
He nodded and brushed a finger down my cheek, making me tremble and sway into his strong chest.
“Mm-hmm. I said yes.” His voice was a low, heated sound.
I wet my lips, leaning up on tiptoe, forgetting every reason why w
e were there or what I was supposed to be doing.
He rubbed his hands brusquely down my biceps before dusting off his hands and squinting at the horizon. “But why are we here? And more importantly, when are we?”
The speed with which he’d switched gears was jarring and made me dumb for half a second. “What now?” I asked with a small shake of my head.
He grinned but continued to stare down the dusty pathway littered with wheel and animal tracks.
“Where are we and when, Zinny? Time offered to watch Edward while I joined you, but I’d like to return to him sooner rather than later, which means we must focus.”
He turned to me.
I flinched, feeling like a ninnyhammer for the way I’d been ogling him a second ago. “Oh, um.” I coughed into my fist, feeling silly. “Um, well, to be honest with you, Zane, I haven’t the foggiest.”
His brows rose high on his forehead. “Come again?”
I shook my head. “We’re here to help reverse what’s been done to the four in my aunts’ cottage. And to do that, we had to go into the past. But I don’t know where into the past Time has sent us.”
He cocked his head. “So you don’t know when we are. Do you at least know where?”
I thinned my lips. This hadn’t been my most thought-out plan ever. I would give him that. “Well...”
“Oh, newt.” He sighed heavily. “And what exactly are we supposed to do here?”
Not wanting to tell him yet again that I didn’t have the first bloody clue, I instead told him what I did know.
“We are in the past, Zane. Which means we cannot at any cost change anything. Everything must happen as it ought in order to ensure that the present, our present, remains exactly as it’s been.”
His nostrils flared, and the pupils of his eyes dilated briefly with fear.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Edward will be just fine. I promise you this. This past, wherever we are, is part of Blue Moon’s history, and since you’ve only been in our town for a little shy of a month, there is very little that could affect you here. You and Edward are safe. I vow it.”