The sense of martial strife, which grew stronger as he approached the center area, was aided not a little by the fact that the sky darkened from its clear topaz blue first to a dusky purple and then to reddish gray. Little snakes of lightning streaked across the red and gray sky, causing reciprocal tingles along his skin. He paused, waiting, and as one of the flashes spread out above him, he raised his hand and called it down. The lightning obeyed, encasing him in long, delicate tendrils of static that jumped and snapped with a familiar tingle. He embraced it for a moment, then released it into the earth.
What was this place? He narrowed his eyes on a mound just this side of the stream that had been blackened and scorched until it was nothing more than bare earth. Two figures stood there, one of whom was clearly a man in armor. The other was almost as tall, but held himself with less grace. It wasn’t until he caught sight of the hand moving as the latter talked that he realized the figure was a woman.
As he moved closer, he recognized the black hair of the woman as it fluttered behind her, lifted by a breeze. She, too, was in armor, but seemed much less comfortable with it, holding herself very still.
Relief swamped him that the thugs and Death hadn’t found her before he did, and he sent a mental thank-you to the bird for pulling him off the path and setting his feet in this direction. That emotion was quickly replaced by anger, determination, and no little amount of admiration for how gracefully Gwen gestured while being encased in armor.
As he strode up behind her, he overheard her say to the man she was facing, “How about I go get us a little light refreshment?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said with grim finality, stopping immediately behind her. “Not again. Not on my watch. And yes, I mean that literally, although this little stunt of yours is likely to cost me my job.”
Gwen whirled around and stared at him with wide, startled eyes. He could have sworn that they were as innocent as a newborn babe’s, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to be fooled again. He placed a proprietary (and prohibitive) hand on her arm.
“Gregory? Goddess above, what are you doing here? And what do you mean, I’m going to cost you your job?”
“I’m here to arrest you, Magdalena Owens,” he said firmly, fighting back the need to take her in his arms and kiss the startled look right off her face.
“You can’t arrest me!” she protested.
“On the contrary, I can. I may be a probationary member, but I am fully able to arrest denizens of the Otherworld.”
“I’m not Magdalena Owens!”
He turned a deaf ear to her claim. He wouldn’t be fooled again. “I arrest you in the name of the Watch for the abduction of a human woman, and for the sale of magic to non-immortal individuals.”
“Look, you annoying man, I just told you: I’m not Magdalena Owens!”
“Pardon me,” said the man in knight’s armor. He had a slight Welsh accent and raised the visor of his helmet as he spoke. “You are interfering with our battle. This warrior and I are engaged for the next . . .” He consulted his wrist, swore, then cast a look at the red and gray sky. “Another hour. Kindly step off the battlefield so that we might commence our battle.”
“And I just told you that I’m not a warrior,” Gwen told the man.
“Who is this?” Gregory asked Gwen, nodding at the knight.
“His name is Douglas.”
“It is not!” the man declared.
“Well, that’s what I call him,” she amended, giving Gregory a conspiratorial smile that he felt down to his toes.
“She named me after a rabbit. A toy rabbit!” Douglas said, clearly outraged by this fact.
“It was one of my favorite toys. My mother says I used to suck on his soft, velvety ears while I was teething.”
The man made a disgusted noise of protest.
“If you don’t like the name, surely you don’t have to use it.” Gregory couldn’t help but be distracted by the odd situation. “I wouldn’t care to be named after a rabbit, either, although I wouldn’t mind if you sucked on my ears.”
Silence fell following that statement. Gregory felt all shades of awkward, an emotion he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. If ever.
Both Gwen and Douglas were looking at him with doubt.
“Dammit,” he told Gwen, “I am a very erudite man! I am known for my smooth personality, my very polite manners, and my blond good looks. My cousin’s wife insists that I’m really a cover model! Erudite and smooth potential cover models do not say things that make people look at them the way you two are looking at me.”
“Sir Cover Model,” the knight said, gesturing with his sword. “You just told the warrior that you’d like her to suck on your ears. I take it you two are a couple?”
“No,” Gwen said quickly. Too quickly for his taste.
“We have a complicated relationship,” Gregory told Douglas.
“No, we don’t. We don’t have any relationship short of a casual acquaintance. We just met a few days ago.” She gave him a look that spoke in no uncertain terms. “And I have no intention of sucking on his ears.”
The knight pursed his lips. Gregory looked over her shoulder into the distance and fought to keep from smiling.
“Shall I say it?” Douglas asked. “I will. Ahem.” He looked at Gwen and said in a tone that implied he was finishing her sentence, “Or anything else?”
Gwen’s expression darkened. She walloped Gregory on the arm. “Stupid men and their penises!”
“I said nothing,” Gregory pointed out, rubbing his arm. “I mentioned no penis. He did!”
“No, but you were thinking about it. And probably snickering to yourself. It’s just a very telling point when you can’t even mention sucking someone’s ears without grown men turning into ten-year-old boys giggling about their penises.”
“My apologies, Gwen,” he said, his abused hand on his chest as he made her a bow.
“Stop being erudite and smooth at me,” she snapped. “I don’t like it at all. Why did you say I was ruining your job?”
“Alas, the discussion the two of you are having—fascinating as it is—will have to wait for another time. We must battle now, or you will forfeit the fight.”
“What fight?” Gregory asked at the same time that Gwen said, “What happens if I do that?”
“Forfeiting a fight means that you have failed to do your lord’s duty and are released from his service.”
“Well, hell, I’m totally on board with that,” Gwen said, handing Gregory her sword to hold while she pulled off the metal gauntlets. “I only did this to keep from being put back in prison.”
The word “prison” brought Gregory’s mind back to his reason for being there. “Magdalena Owens—”
“Will you stop calling me that? I’m not my mother!” Gwen shouted, smacking him in the chest with one of the gauntlets.
He stared at her. Could it be true? Or was she lying to him again? “Your mother?”
Her gaze skittered to the side. “Yes. That’s my mom. I’m Gwen Owens.”
“You said that your name was Gwenhwyfar Byron.” She sounded like she was telling the truth. Did he dare believe her?
“It is. It’s Gwen Byron Owens.”
“You lied to me.” He gave her his sternest look. It was necessary in order to keep from grabbing her and kissing her as she deserved. The very fact that she was ashamed of herself lent truth to her statement. She wasn’t the Owens they were looking for! She wasn’t a criminal!
“Kind of. Not really.” At last her gaze met his. “All right, I did, but it was more a lie of omission than anything else.”
“Again, I must point out that this conversation is not appropriate at this time,” Douglas said, gesturing toward the tents behind them. “The battle must commence now, or you will forfeit the fight.”
“I forfeit,” Gwen said, spreading her hands in a gesture of apology. “Sorry about gabbing away at you for so long, but I really am not trained for this sort o
f thing.”
“A pity,” Douglas said, then turned and put his fingers to his mouth, blowing a loud, piercing whistle. “But perhaps we can change that. You are under arrest. Both of you. Please come with me of your respective free wills, because otherwise I will have to bind your arms and legs, and I understand that being trussed up in that fashion is not at all comfortable.”
“Arrest?” Gregory said, moving to stand protectively in front of Gwen. He held the sword that she had handed to him, and although he was unused to wielding such a weapon, he felt that given the need, he could find it in him to do so. “I am a member of the Watch—”
“Which has no authority here,” Douglas interrupted. “You are clearly in cahoots with this lady, and since she has forfeited the fight and shamed herself before her lord—”
“Hey!” Gwen protested.
“—thereby making her my prisoner, you also are in my charge.”
A thin man in a long black and gold tunic and black leggings arrived in response to Douglas’s whistle. “Ah, Tallyrand. I believe the king would like to meet these two. Can you arrange transport for Lady Gwen and Sir Cover Model?”
“My name is Gregory Faa, not Cover Model,” Gregory snapped. “And if you think I’m going to let you take me prisoner, let alone Gwen-who-isn’t-her-mother, then you’re madder than Gwen’s mother.”
“Oh, you did not just say that,” Gwen said, jerking him around so he faced her. That she was furious was clearly evident in both the dangerous glint in her eyes and the stubborn set to her jaw.
“You have a very nice nose,” he told her. “I even like it when you’re incensed and your nostrils flare, as they are doing now.”
“My mothers are not mad! You take that back.”
“Mothers?”
“Yes. I have two. My mom and her partner, who is my second mom. And I don’t tolerate anyone saying anything bad about either of them.”
“Your mother, or mothers, have kidnapped a mortal woman.”
“Yes, well—”
“They have also attempted to sell magic to another mortal via the lawyer who we met on the cliff outside of Snails-on-the-Half-Shell.”
Her nostrils flared again. It was utterly adorable. “The name of that town was Malwod-Upon-Ooze. I don’t know why you have such a hard time remembering it!”
“You cannot deny that to do such acts, especially given the history of Magdalena Owens, indicates a lack of mental stability.”
She hit him. Right on the chest, the same place she’d smacked him with the gauntlet. “Look, I never said what they’ve done is right. Lord knows I’ve had to spend much of my adult life cleaning up after them and keeping them on the straight and narrow—but they are not insane! They’re simply . . . forgetful.”
He looked at her.
She looked away, a flush darkening her cheeks.
“Even you don’t believe that,” he pointed out.
“I know.” She sighed and met his gaze again. He was pleased to see that her expression had lost its hard, angry edge. “One of the problems with being raised Wiccan is that it’s very hard to lie to anyone, but especially to yourself.”
“You had no problem lying to me.”
“Oh, I had a problem with it. I just figured it was more important to protect my mothers than to shield myself from karmic repercussions. If you had arrested me, I wouldn’t have been able to extricate them from the situation. Which, I’ll have you know, I was doing just fine.”
“My definition of doing fine doesn’t include dying in the act.”
She stared at him with stark amazement. “How do you know I died?”
He hesitated, glancing to the side, a bit startled to find that except for the thin young man in the tunic, they were now alone. Evidently Douglas had gone off to his camp, leaving a guard set to watch them. He smiled to himself. He would have no trouble taking care of the young man when it came time for Gwen and him to leave. But first he had to dance around the delicate subject of the events on the cliff a few days past. “I was there.”
“I know you were there. I saw you. You stopped that lawyer from throwing me over the edge. But how did you know he’d done it before?”
“I was there when you were killed the first time.”
“You were?” She clutched his wrist, her eyes searching his. “So it was the lawyer who did it? Did you see who resurrected me? How come you weren’t there when I came back to life?”
“Yes, in a way, and I was. Just not where you expected me.”
She stared at him in incomprehension.
“I’m a Traveller, Gwen. Do you know what that is?”
“No. At least . . . no. The word seems like it is familiar, but I guess not. Wait . . . yes, I know it. There’s a family who visits the town my moms live in. They’re Travellers. Mom says they used to have a horse and one of those wooden trailers all painted up, but now they just bring camping equipment and hang out on the edges of the town.”
“I suspect they are Romany, not actual Travellers. The Rom frequently use the same word to describe themselves, but I assure you that despite superficial appearances, we are very different from them.”
She eyed his hair. “I suppose you don’t see many blond-haired, blue-eyed Gypsies. So what is the Otherworld version of Travellers?”
“Most of the people in the Otherworld think of us as time thieves.”
Her lips pursed for a moment before relaxing. He had the worst urge to taste those lips. “How do you steal time?”
“Travellers see time as a physical possession. You have so much time. I can take it if I so desire. But we always pay for it.”
“That’s not really stealing, then, if you pay for it.”
He shrugged. “It’s a matter of perception.”
“What does this have to do with me dying? If you stole my time, then I’d have less of it, not more in terms of being reborn.”
He glanced again at the young man next to them, but he appeared occupied with drawing something in the dirt at their feet. “I didn’t take your time. I took someone else’s, and . . .”
“And?”
He didn’t want to tell her, but he’d turned over a new leaf when he joined the Watch, and that meant taking responsibility for his actions. It would be so much easier to lie to Gwen, or rather, to hide the truth from her, but he knew instinctively that she would much prefer the harsh truth than comfortable lies.
And suddenly, her wants had become quite important to him.
“When a Traveller takes time, the people in the immediate vicinity are affected by the loss just as if their time was taken as well. You have to be very close for that to happen. The woman whose time I took was standing right next to you. So when I took her time, it set her back about half an hour . . . and you, as well.”
“You resurrected me by resetting time?” Gwen asked, incredulity in her voice.
“I did.”
“I don’t know whether to kiss you or smite you on the head with that sword,” she said, her face a delightful mixture of emotions.
“I would suggest the kiss. Smiting is never as satisfactory as you imagine it will be.”
“I don’t know,” she said with a dangerous edge to her voice. “I think there might be times when—”
Her words fell to the earth at the same moment that a yawning abyss opened at their feet and they plummeted into it.
SIX
“That was totally uncalled for!”
The voice that rumbled above and through me was pissed. Very pissed.
“You could have hurt Gwen!”
“Yeah,” another voice said, and it took a few seconds before I realized that it came from my mouth. I put a hand up to my face to verify that fact, realized my eyes were closed, and opened them.
I was sitting on the floor, propped up against something hard and warm, wrapped in a delicious scent that reminded me of a campfire in the mountains. I turned to look, and my nose brushed Gregory’s chin. “Hello,” I told his chin.
“Are you all right? Do you hurt anywhere? You hit the floor hard.”
“I don’t feel hurt.” Slowly my gaze moved upward until it reached his eyes. They were filled with concern now, the little laugh-line crinkles around the outsides making my stomach feel all warm and happy. “What happened?”
“Evidently that twit in the tunic was a mage. He threw open a portal at our feet.”
I stopped looking at his nice eyes and nicer laugh lines to look around us, allowing him to help me to my feet. We were in a long rectangular room paneled in dark wood and bedecked with various antique weapons arranged in decorative fans and crosses. The floor was black-and-white-diamond marble tile. At one end of the room stood a tremendous fireplace, the kind that they used to have in medieval castles in order to roast whole oxen. The other end had two double doors, while overhead, dusty banners wafted gently in a ghostly breeze. A couple of long benches sat along one wall between suits of armor, while the other wall held a large curved desk with a sign that stated in three languages that tours would be conducted only in the company of an official guide.
No one else was in the room except a white cat that sat on the desk. As I watched, it jumped down and strolled over to us, tail held high.
“Where are we?” I asked, squinting at the sign in hopes it would tell us. It didn’t.
“I have no idea. I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt before I went exploring. Shoo, cat.”
I looked at him, guilt welling up inside me. “I’m sorry,” I said before I could chicken out.
His eyebrows rose. “For?”
“Not telling you who my mother was. I just—you were with the Watch, and my moms have had so much trouble lately, and the last thing ended up with me being arrested, and then the Watch people released me, but they had this annoying scribe follow me around until I drove her mad and she quit, and the Watch couldn’t find anyone else who would do the job, and then my moms didn’t really believe me when I said that if they screwed up again, they’d get sent to the Akasha, and I died trying to get that lawyer off their backs after I told him that they weren’t going to give him the magic after all, and my moms didn’t believe that, either, and I had to see a therapist who thought I was loopy.”