Kiss Across Blades

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “Just as we think this is our fault.” Neven glanced around the square.

  “You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you?” London guessed.

  “No,” Neven said slowly. “Not exactly. I just…want to talk it through again. I want to reconsider, after this.” His gaze met hers.

  London nodded. “I think I do, too.”

  Neven took in a breath and let it out. “Let’s go home,” he said, his tone firm.

  They moved back across the square to the north side, where an alley passed through to the houses beyond. The alley wasn’t wide enough for a car and barely wide enough to three people to walk abreast. Yet it was classed as a road and had a nameplate bolted to the side of the store on the corner.

  London glanced at the nameplate as they passed, with a sliver of shock. It was a typically British black and white road sign. Instead of “Boulevard du Rougeret”, it declared in English that this was “Rouge Street”.

  Why had they not noticed this before?

  Neven glanced over his shoulder. When they were sufficiently deep inside the road so the chances of anyone seeing them were reduced, London held up her arms. Neven stepped into them.

  She flexed her knees, thought longingly of home and jumped.

  London was never more glad to see the corner of the sitting room and the old carriage clock sitting on the narrow shelf above the cast iron fireplace. They had cleared the corner and used it as their official arrival chamber, borrowing from Veris’ practice of keeping such landing areas clear. Veris had, in turn, stolen the idea from Nyara and their practice, far in the future.

  There was a scrape of a chair and footsteps from the kitchen as they took off their coats. Remi moved into the sitting room. He had Jason on his hip.

  London flew across the room, plucked Jason from his arm and held the little boy against her in a fierce hug, shuddering. Neven didn’t move any more slowly than she. He pulled Remi against him and just held him.

  “Uh-oh…” Remi said, his voice muffled against Neven’s neck.

  Neven let Remi go and cleared his throat, as if he was embarrassed about his demonstration.

  London had no intention of letting Jason go. While he tugged at her hair and smiled at her, showing his little, new teeth, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  She was never more conscious of Jason’s weight on her hip. His warm body. The softness of his flesh. His eyes, which were a faded blue, and his shining black hair, just like Neven’s.

  London looked at Neven and Remi. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said, her voice wobbling. “I don’t care what it fucks up. I want to go back and get Remi’s kids. Now. Today.”

  Remi drew in a sharp breath and looked at Neven.

  Neven lifted a brow at her. Then, with a nod, he said, “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Four

  When London felt warm enough and strong enough, they jumped to Canada, to the arrival chamber in the secret basement of Veris and Brody’s and Taylor’s luxury mountainside log house.

  The arrival chamber was rigged with an alert. When they climbed to the top of the stairs, Brody already stood with the back wall of the closet open for them. “Should we be worried?”

  “Probably,” Neven said shortly.

  Brody lifted a brow.

  “Should Sydney be here, too?” London asked, her hand on Remi’s arm.

  “Probably,” Remi said.

  Brody’s brow lifted higher. “I’ll get Veris and Taylor,” he said and moved off ahead of them.

  London handed Jason to Remi and pulled out her cellphone and texted Sydney.

  Could the three of you come to Veris’ place right now? There’s been a development.

  She reached the big archway into the front room when her phone vibrated.

  On our way.

  Five minutes later, Sydney, Alex and Rafe, carrying Liberty, stepped into the hallway from the hidden stairway. Rafe raised his brow. “You look grim, London. What’s up?”

  Sydney’s eyes narrowed. “They’re going back to revolutionary France,” she said softly.

  London let out a shaky breath. “We are.”

  Veris stood in his preferred power stance—feet apart, arms crossed so the massive forearms and biceps were flexed and as large as they could be. London wasn’t sure if he chose the stance deliberately. It was an effective intimidation posture. She had to steel herself against sinking back into the cushions and apologizing for anything.

  Neither Neven nor Remi seemed cowed though.

  Neven spoke for five minutes, explaining what they planned to do. He included the facts about the alternative timeline they’d just visited, the burned-out house and strangely different markers of that world. “No EU, the President of the United States is someone we’ve never come across in other worlds, Brittany is part of the United Kingdom…and none of us in this room was still alive, except Sydney. And that world’s version of Kristijan is rotting away in a Serbian prison. It was sobering.”

  No one rushed to respond when he fell silent. The big fire crackled merrily. Liberty squatted and nudged at coals with the poker, using both arms to lift the iron tool and grunting with effort.

  Jason sat with his thumb in his mouth, blinking sleepily with his head against Neven’s chest. He was due for a nap.

  Veris shifted on his feet. “Your minds are made up.” It wasn’t a question.

  “We thought you should know before we jumped back,” London explained.

  “We appreciate the heads up,” Veris said, sounding utterly sincere. He unfolded his arms and let them hang. “What can we do to help?”

  London stared at him.

  “You will help us?” Neven asked, his voice even and neutral. He was hiding his surprise.

  Veris made an impatient sound. “Voltaire said ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”

  Remi snorted. “Voltaire never said that. Tallentire made it up. She didn’t even know him.”

  Veris inclined his head. “I bow to the expert. It was your time, your world. Regardless of who said it, the point is that even though I violently disagree with what you are going to do, you are our friends, the closest any of us come to true family. I will do whatever I can to make sure you survive your decision.”

  London shivered.

  Neven, though, scratched at his jaw thoughtfully. “It will have to be a compound jump, of course. Remi can’t go back to the body he was in, as he died that night. We can time it to arrive inside the house shortly after it was put to flames. The Remi of that time—”

  “Denis,” Remi said. “Those closest to me used my first name, when I was human.”

  “Denis,” Neven corrected himself. “Denis of that time was already outside, dying of pitchfork wounds, before…what was his name, Remi?”

  “Christoph,” Remi supplied. “He was a neighboring farmer. At least I thought him to be, until that night.”

  “He was a farmer,” Veris said. “We all have human lives which lie over the top of our true natures. He turned you that night?”

  Remi nodded. “I woke to a different world.”

  London lifted her hand. “I know you hate talking about that night, Remi. Only, I need more detail than you’ve ever given any of us, so I can navigate back there and find the bookmark. If there is one. Which there should be. Everyone is here right now. If you tell the story now, you’ll never have to repeat it.”

  Remi twisted his mouth, the way only he seemed to be able to. It was very French. “Knowing we’re going back and doing something about it has taken the sting out of it. What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” London said simply.

  “If we know how events played out, we can also help you find the best moment to arrive.” Veris moved over to the big chair in the corner, which London had never seen anyone else use. Everyone else settled themselves. Even Jason slumped back in Neven’s arm, his eyes closing.

  Remi cleared his th
roat. “I suppose the roots of that night really start in 1793.”

  “The Reign of Terror,” Taylor murmured. She shook her head. “Sorry to interrupt, Remi.”

  “History professor,” Brody said, jerking his thumb at Taylor.

  Taylor smiled ruefully. “It suddenly doesn’t feel like history, knowing you were there, Remi. Please go on.”

  “Yes, it was the Reign of Terror,” Remi said. “Although that time did not acquire the name until later. All we knew was that for the better part of a year, anyone suspected of Royalist sympathies was executed by guillotine—thousands of aristocrats, and anyone thought to associate with them. Often without a trial.” He paused. “My father was one of them.”

  London already knew this fact. It didn’t stop her reacting to it all over again.

  “He had no trial,” Remi continued. “Robespierre added my father to his list of Royalist enemies, because he was. My father was appalled at what they had done to Louis and never recovered from the shock. He was outspoken in his disdain for the new republicans. He thought—as did many of the upper class—that this little upset would soon be over. When they executed first Louis and then the Queen, many of my father’s peers escaped France. They could see what was happening. My father still believed the country would come to its senses. He continued to administer the district as his father and his father before him had done. At the time I was married…” He hesitated. He glanced at London and away.

  “I’ve been married before, too,” London reminded him, keeping her tone mild.

  Remi nodded. “We were living in the old house on the other side of the estate from the main house where my father lived. He was arrested and taken to the village and imprisoned. We heard of it late that night, and that his execution was set for the following day at noon. There was nothing I could do about it. The magistrate for the district advised me to stay out of the matter and consider myself lucky I was not on the same list as my father.”

  “In a different world, you were,” Neven said.

  London made herself breathe, reaching for calm.

  Remi paused, his gaze on the rich oriental rug between the sofas and the fireplace. “We had the carriage pulled up in the town square, watched the execution from the back of the crowd. I left the carriage, though, and moved through the crowd to the front. I couldn’t stop myself. It was frightening, but also educational, to see the depth of hatred the common people had for my father. In the days that followed I tried to learn why they hated him so much.” He lifted his gaze. “I was very sheltered, you see. As the son of the Duc, my education was classical and incomplete. I learned more in the following months than I ever did from my tutors.

  “The next year, in the summer, Robespierre was executed. Men loyal to him and his cause were also beheaded or scattered. Life went on. We moved into the main house on the estate. I had learned enough by then to know we must live humbly and share what we could with those who needed it. We did, for the next five years.

  “It was never as bad again as it was in that period when Robespierre murdered so many of the aristocracy,” Remi said. “Still, those few of the upper class who remained were careful to never earn the disfavor of the common folk. We heard rumors of lynchings and stonings, and impromptu guillotinings, when the folk of the villages and towns grew tired of what they perceived to be excesses of the lords of the lands. I corresponded with a few nobles left in the country and more in England. Of those still in France, some lost their heads because of an imagined slight. Others were, in fact, guilty of crimes against the Republic or for being unremitting Royalists. It was a delicate time.”

  London picked up Remi’s hand. His fingers tightened on hers. “In November of 1798, the former Comte de Sauveterre, Roderick by name, came to visit. To taste the first of that year’s bottled wines from the estate. He confessed to me he was in secret communication with the King of England and French aristocrats who had escaped there. There was talk of a new rebellion, this time one designed to put the French heir upon the throne. Louis’ son was being held in the Bastille. They planned to release him and have him crowned, sometime in the next year. There was a growing groundswell of sympathy.”

  “The Directory heard of it, I suppose,” Taylor murmured.

  Remi nodded. “Roderick was questioned by the Directory’s representatives in the village—the old magistrate, and one of Robespierre’s companions, Brusard, who had escaped the blade in 1794. I thought Roderick was a friend, yet he protested his innocence and said it was I who was in league with the Royalists. Brusard told everyone in the village and rounded up a mob. I knew none of this until the mob marched upon the estate, with torches and pitchforks and old, rusty blades.”

  “What date was that?” Veris asked, his voice soft.

  “November 13, 1798, in the old calendar. It was sunset when they arrived. They pulled me out into the yard and held me there, while they set fire to the house.” Remi paused. “I did not know stone could burn like that. The flames were…everywhere.” His voice was strained. “I was made to watch as punishment.” He closed his eyes. “Even over the sound of the fire, I could hear them screaming…”

  “Jesus wept,” Sydney breathed, her own voice hoarse.

  “After the screaming stopped, when the house was nothing but flames, they turned to me. Each villager got his chance at ramming his pitchfork into me. I remember five of the blows. After that, it grew hazy.

  “Then I woke to find myself deep in the forest, with Christoph sitting beside a fire. It was three days later. The estate was nothing but a shell of charcoal. They’d even burned the vines in the field, he told me. It proved they were more interested in vengeance than in justice, for the vines brought in income for the entire village. They had been roused by the magistrate and by Brusard. Brusard assured them that if the rebellion I was orchestrating came to pass, they would all die of famine and disease, for the bad old days of the King would return.

  “Their fear drove them. They acted to prevent that dreadful possibility.” Remi shrugged. “I also found out that night that I could never return to Sauveterre, that I should leave France altogether and find another life. And so I did.”

  Neven let out a heavy breath. “November 13, 1798, around sunset.”

  “There is such a tiny window of opportunity there,” Sydney observed. “I’m not saying London can’t manage it, but it will be hairy as hell. You can’t arrive too early. Which means you’ll be jumping into a house that is already burning well.”

  “It was the floorboards and the furniture which burned so easily,” Remi said. “I know that now. Only, when I watched it, it seemed as though the stone walls themselves were on fire. The flames poured out of the windows and up the walls.” He shuddered.

  London rubbed his shoulder with her spare hand. Her own heart was hurrying too fast, too.

  “Too early and you’ll be seen,” Sydney added. “Too late and you’ll be…well, too late,” she amended, glancing toward Liberty, who still prodded the fire.

  London bit her lip.

  “If you did manage it, London, there will be a bookmark there, leading you to the right time and place,” Sydney added.

  “And if there is no bookmark?” London asked.

  “There will be.” Neven kept his tone calm and soft so he didn’t wake Jason, who was soundly asleep against him. “By jumping at all, you cause the bookmark to be created. It will be there when you need it.”

  London swallowed. The lack of cause-and-effect upon the timescape had always made her nervous. Now it was even more critical that she let herself depend upon the illogic of pure time to guide her to where she needed to go.

  “There is one question I have, which no one seems to have thought to ask,” Alexander said.

  Everyone turned to him.

  Alex spread his hands. “You speak only of your children, Remi. The three of them. Aimée, is it?”

  “Aimée, Edgard and Micheline. Micheline was still an infant.”

  Alexander nodded. �
��You speak of retrieving them and all of us can understand why you have wanted to do this since you learned of time traveling. Only, you have never once spoken of saving your wife.”

  “No, I have not,” Remi said, his tone flat.

  “I do not even know her name,” Alexander said, sounding apologetic.

  “That is because I have not given it,” Remi replied.

  Veris tilted his head. His curiosity had been roused, but he said nothing.

  “You fail to speak of her because of Neven and London, perhaps?” Alex asked.

  Remi’s gaze was as steady as Alex’s. “No.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “Very well, then.” He got to his feet. “Veris, if I may encroach upon your surgery. I would like to check on supplies for treating burns, and for traumatized infants and small children.”

  London shuddered.

  They were really going to do this.

  Neven put Jason down in Alannah’s bed.

  “I will watch him while you are gone,” Taylor told London. “Although you will only be gone a few minutes at this end of the timeline, as this is a compound jump and you can pick your return time. Even if Jason wakes, he’ll barely notice your absence.”

  Taylor’s reassurance was the only positive note in the next twenty minutes. London’s terror built, despite trying to reason herself out of the fearful mindset. The pragmatic preparations Veris and Alexander were making in the well-equipped little surgery did not help.

  Sydney pulled London to one side while everyone else moved around the log house, consulting and preparing. They sat on the window seat looking out at the glimmer of trees on the other side of the front yard, where the old stump of a tree served as a chopping block. A mountain soared from the very edge of the property line. At its peak, the eastern sky was growing pale. Dawn was coming. It was just past five in the morning here, while it was mid-afternoon in France.

  The snow was nearly a foot deep and shrouded everything but the trees in ghostly white. It was a very different view from the one London had studied only a week ago, before they had jumped en masse to rescue Rafe from Cyrus.