Storybound

by Emily Mckay

“I don’t care what Wallace says. Nineteen years in this world and I’ve never seen Everdawn.”

  The way Wallace described it, magic simply didn’t work for the twenty or so minutes of dawn and dusk. Enchantments end, spells break, potions wear off. It was the magical equivalent of rebooting your computer. For forty minutes every day, the Tuatha had no more power than a human.

  Theoretically, if you could stretch the moment of dawn, magic simply couldn’t be done there.

  “I understand why the idea of Everdawn scares you—”

  Kane drops his chair back onto all four legs. “It doesn’t scare me. Because it doesn’t exist.”

  Ro comes over and pulls out a chair beside me, putting her hand on my arm. “You have to understand, Everdawn is the monster in the closet. It’s the boogeyman Tuatha use to scare their children. ‘If you don’t behave, I’ll trap you in Everdawn.’”

  I hold up my hands in a display of innocence. “All I know is, it’s in the book.”

  “I get that it sounds cool. A moment in time when no one can do magic, drawn out for all eternity. But it doesn’t exist. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never met anyone who’s seen it. I’ve never even read an account of it happening. Think about it. Magic, strong enough to freeze time. No one is that powerful.”

  “Maybe Wallace is wrong, but—”

  “You wouldn’t have to freeze time,” Morgan says softly.

  All of us swivel to look at him.

  Morgan gives us a c’est la vie sort of shrug. “You wouldn’t freeze time. You would hold it in a loop, running the same few minutes over and over.”

  Kane sits back in his chair. “That would take a crazy amount of power.”

  Slowly, Morgan nods.

  “Could you do that?” Ro asks, her voice a surprised hush.

  Apparently, this is magic so vast, it’s almost unimaginable.

  “Not now,” Morgan says firmly, shaking his head like he’s shrugging off a bad dream. “When I was younger…” He lets the words trail off.

  Kane and Ro seem to take this explanation at face value, but I ask, “Why not now? I thought Tuatha got more powerful as they age.”

  “Most do. Not timekeepers,” Morgan says. “Time magic is different. When you alter the timeline, you have to hold that intention forever. If you let it go, reality could shift back to the original timeline. Handling time isn’t magic you do once. It’s magic you never stop doing. Over the course of the timekeeper’s life, he or she might handle dozens, maybe hundreds, of moments. You can’t let a single one of them drop. You can’t ever let go of them.”

  Morgan pauses to let that sink in.

  So even now, as he was having this conversation, in the back of his mind, Morgan was holding on to all the time magic he had ever done.

  “So it’s like juggling?” I say. “Every time you add a new ball, it gets harder to keep them all in the air.”

  Morgan gives a tight nod. Ro reaches out to run a soothing hand across Morgan’s shoulder, and his muscles seem to relax infinitesimally.

  “Okay, so Everdawn would be hard to maintain,” I say. “But it’s not impossible.”

  “The real question,” Kane says slowly. “Is why the Council of Sleekers would bother with Everdawn.”

  I frown. “What do you mean? Obviously, you don’t want people doing magic when they’re in prison.”

  “No.” Kane shakes his head. “The detention center is just a holding cell to detain Dark Worlders. You don’t need Everdawn to imprison them. The only reason to have Everdawn on that island is to imprison Tuathan citizens of the seven High Courts.”

  “Well, we know he’s keeping the Curator and the princess there, right?”

  “Yeah, but we’ve been assuming that the hellhounds came after you, Cupcake—” He gives me a pointed look. “And that they took the princess and the Curator just because they were near you. But if you’re right about the Everdawn, if he’s gone to the trouble of creating a magical void on that island of his, then taking the princess and the Curator wasn’t an accident. He could imprison any member of the Tuathan High Court there. He could take out the courts one by one and by the time anyone notices, it would be too late to stop him.”

  Deleted from the Advance Reading Copy of

  Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:

  The Traveler Undone

  Morgan waits until we’re alone before he confronts me.

  “When are you going to tell her?”

  I play dumb. “Tell her what?”

  “That you could send her home.”

  I shrug. “Maybe I could. Maybe I couldn’t.”

  “You know every thin spot in the veil between worlds from Nawlins to Vegas. Don’t tell me you couldn’t find one of them that she could pass through.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Morgan pushes back his chair and stands. “No point. Just making sure you know what you’re doing.”

  Just like that, Morgan drops it and leaves the room. He’s an asshole like that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Kane leans back, tipping his chair up on two legs. “If you know what Smyth is doing, now’s the time to tell us.”

  “In the books, he tries to destroy the monarchy. That’s why he doesn’t want the princess to get married.”

  “Does he succeed?”

  This is it. The perfect moment to tell him how the book ends. With him, dead, on the floor of the great Cathedral in Saint Lew. I can warn him.

  But when I open my mouth, the words choke me.

  My binding promise to the Curator becomes a physical thing, slithering around my neck and tightening, trapping the words in my throat.

  I close my mouth, swallow the truth I want to say, and instead settle for a half-truth.

  “You rescue the princess. Smyth is defeated.”

  “Then we’ll deal with him later. We’ve got enough to worry about among the island prison, the soul-sucking fog, the Everdawn, and probably hellhounds.” He drops his chair forward to study the map again. “Have I left anything out?”

  Ro crosses her arms over her chest. “We still don’t know that the Kellas cat won’t rip out our throats the first chance she gets.”

  The cat, still sitting behind Crab, says, “I will not. That would be a poor way to repay my death-debt.”

  “First,” Kane interrupts. “We need to test the bond. Make sure I can open a loop to the cat’s location.”

  “You just conscripted her into service against her will,” Ro says. “How do you know that once you release her, she won’t return to her master, get new orders, and then attack us all over again when she returns?”

  I wouldn’t say I am an expert at reading the facial expressions of sentient animals, but if I was, I would interpret the cat’s facial expression as amused disdain.

  “I owe a death-debt to this man. I will return.”

  “Or,” Morgan drawls. “One of us can go with you.”

  The cat bows her head slightly in his direction. “If it pleases you.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say. “It’s my plan. If anyone should do it, it’s me.”

  Several beats pass, but no one else argues with me or offers to take my place. I guess only a Dark Worlder is stupid enough to choose to be alone with a Kellas cat.

  Ten minutes later, I’m walking back to the garage, Kane by my side.

  Morgan has offered to let me use one of his many cars to drive the cat to a location unknown to Kane. He tells me I can pick any car I want.

  Oh, great. I’ll be driving.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I ask. “Why can’t Morgan send his driver? The one who picked us up.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that would work.” Kane scrubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Cricket doesn’t like cats.”

  “Cricket?”

 
“The driver.”

  “Oh. Cricket’s a totally normal name.”

  “No weirder than Cupcake,” he says dryly.

  “I didn’t pick out Cupcake. You did. I would be perfectly content if you all called me Edie.”

  “In your world, people may just go around calling each other by their own names. But here—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Binding names are important. But, you know, Edie isn’t my name. It’s a nickname. My given name is—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t go telling me your given name. Don’t tell anyone that. Don’t the books talk about how important binding names are?”

  “They do. I just—” I sigh. I just trust him to know my binding name. Which is probably a sign that the line between the Kane in the books and the Kane who is with me now may be a little too thin.

  Time to change the subject. “So Cricket doesn’t like cats.”

  Kane gives me a hard look, one that I feel all the way down my toes. It’s like he can see straight through me. But, ultimately, he lets me change the subject. “They freak him out. And that was before he had to sit through the fight out on Morgan’s lawn.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Is it a problem?” Kane asks as he opens the door to the garage.

  “No,” I say brightly. “Not at all.”

  “You do know how to drive, right?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” See what I did there? How I didn’t really answer?

  Because, sure, I know how to drive. Theoretically.

  I walk down the three steps to the multibay garage. The cat crate is still in the center of the first spot. Kane flicks on an overhead light before walking down the stairs next to me. The light sputters on to illuminate four cars. Closest to us is the limo Cricket picked us up in. I walk past that for obvious reasons. I don’t know it for sure, but I suspect driving a stretch limo is tricky.

  “Which one should I take?”

  “You decide.”

  Which leaves three other cars to choose from. The first is a gleaming silver vintage sports car. And by “vintage” I mean expensive. There’s something vaguely familiar about it. The middle car is a slick black crossover SUV. On the end is a bland-looking sedan.

  I stop by the oldest car. “This one looks pretty innocuous.”

  “Oh, yeah. That one’s Morgan’s favorite.”

  Okay then. Moving right along.

  But before I make it past, Kane adds, “It was in a movie.”

  “A movie?”

  “Yeah. One of those spy movies Morgan likes.”

  I side-eye the car. Not Jason Bourne. It’s too old for that. Definitely not Kingsman.

  “James Bond?” I ask.

  “Yeah, those movies.”

  “Huh.” I rub my eyes. No wonder it looks familiar. My mom loves those movies. “Just to be clear, this is the actual car that Sean Connery drove? In the James Bond movies?”

  “Yeah. You want to drive it?”

  “No, I don’t want to…” My mom would straight up kill me if I took James Bond’s car out for a joyride. I shake my head and move down to the car in the last spot. “I’m just going to drive this nice, boring—” But I break off, tilt my head, and stare at the emblem on the front of the car. “Is this a Bentley?”

  Kane scratches the back of his head. “Hell if I know. Cars aren’t really my thing.”

  I eye my choices in despair. “So the magical, timekeeping assassin business pays pretty well, huh?”

  Kane looks from me to the cars, his lips starting to curve into a smile. “Yeah. I guess it does.”

  “I don’t suppose he has, like, a late model Kia hidden anywhere? Maybe a minivan?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Maybe a golf cart?”

  Finally, I walk back to the car in the center spot…where the Porsche is parked. This sucks.

  “Keys should be in the car,” Kane says.

  “Keys should be in the car,” I mutter under my breath. Because I’m mature like that.

  I open the door and sure enough, there are the keys, sitting on the dash. There’s only one problem.

  “This is a standard.” That’s me—master of the obvious.

  “Yeah. You can drive a standard, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Of course. Obviously.”

  I force a grin in hopes of hiding my internal scream of panic.

  My mom taught me how to drive a standard when I turned sixteen. Sort of. It was not a happy time in our relationship. I may or may not have made threats of Greek-tragedy-style murder. After three horrible months, we sold the car before moving to Boston.

  So theoretically, I can drive a standard.

  I look longingly at the other cars in the garage. “Just out of curiosity, are any of the other cars automatic?”

  “I don’t think so. Morgan likes the feeling of power that comes with controlling a big hunk of iron.” Kane shrugs. “Why?”

  “No reason.” I reach into the car and grab the keys off the dash.

  “Hey, Cupcake.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful, okay?”

  “I’m going to be driving a Porsche. Yeah. I’m going to be careful.”

  I straighten as Kane walks closer.

  “No, I meant—” He stops just beside the open door, so I’m trapped between him and the car. “Be careful out there. With the cat.”

  “Oh.” I clench the keys in one hand and clasp the arch of the door with the other. “Yeah. Well—”

  “I know you think she’s trustworthy, but—”

  “Don’t you know everything she knows?” I ask. “Everything she’s thinking?”

  “It doesn’t work that way.” He scratches his fingernails along the scruff on his jaw, where he’s got the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow. “I get surface thoughts. I can’t dig into her memories. I can’t read her intentions.”

  I just shrug. “We need her, so we have to find out if this works.”

  “It doesn’t have to be you,” Kane says softly.

  “Hey,” I say, forcing humor into my voice. “I thought you said you didn’t care if I lived or died?”

  He looks up at me and his lips twitch. Taking a step closer to the car door, he puts his hand on the frame, right next to mine. “I said if we weren’t working together, I probably wouldn’t care.”

  That’s a pretty fine distinction to make, but I decide to let him have it. “You’re right, it doesn’t have to be me. But it’s my idea. So it should be me.”

  “Yeah.” His pinky moves, just a little, rubbing along the outside of my hand and my thumb. The touch—so faint and gentle—sends a shock wave of sensation up my arm and all the way into my gut. “But of all of us, you’re the most vulnerable. Even Ro is more powerful than you.”

  For a second, it’s all I can do to stare at the spot where he’s brushing his finger across my skin. It’s the first time he’s ever touched me seemingly just because he wants to. Not because I’m weak or he’s tending to my wounds, but just for the sake of touching me. It’s totally messing with my head. And pulse. And breathing.

  Basically, all the regulatory systems that keep me alive. No biggie, though.

  I clear my throat and force out something like a laugh. “I wouldn’t let Ro hear you say that. Somehow, I don’t think she’d like it.” I try to sound cool. Breezy, even. But I don’t move my hand away from his. “Besides, if the Curator is right and I really am an Untethered Sleeker, then I’m more powerful than any of us know.”

  I say it with bravado I don’t feel.

  “Powers you don’t know how to use yet.”

  Sure, that’s technically true. I decide not to mention the incident back in the warehouse below his loft. After all, I’m not entirely sure that was me using my powers. That was just m
e really, really wanting something and then it happened. Which—okay, sure—may be what Sleeker powers are all about, right? Sleekers will things into being. Events into happening.

  Can Sleekers will people into feeling things?

  Well, shit, that’s a disconcerting thought.

  I pull my hand away from the door of the car. Away from Kane’s hand.

  I thrust both my hands behind me, wrapping my fingers around the keys, and squeeze.

  “For all we know, my powers will magically appear if I’m stressed.”

  “I’m not joking here.” A scowl settles on his face as he stares down at the spot where his hand now rests alone on the doorframe.

  Somehow, the scowl doesn’t make him any less attractive. It just makes him more intense.

  “Yeah, it’s the sense of humor thing that you need to work on.” My quip doesn’t help with the scowl. I inadvertently squeeze the keys too hard and the car bleeps in protest. I jump a little, but the scowl fades from Kane’s face, and his lips twitch. Good. He’s amused by me again.

  I can be the plucky comic relief. I can’t be the girl he cares about. That role in the book is already taken.

  The princess is unbelievably, undeniably gorgeous. Even before she glamoured herself into perfection, she’d been gorgeous. She’s powerful and brave. She is Kane’s perfect match.

  In his mind, he may have told the Kellas cat that the princess is a brat, but he won’t feel that way forever. He’s going to fall in love with her. Being with her will make him happy. It will bring him the peace he needs to become King.

  I may be part of this story in a way I never even imagined, but still, my role can be only that of a sidekick. Even if it breaks my heart.

  But I’m good at grinning through the pain.

  So I summon my most convincing gutsy smile.

  “You said it yourself—I held my own in the fight with the Kellas cat,” I remind him. “Besides, she won’t hurt any of us until she’s had a chance to repay her death-debt to you.”

  “So as long as I’m alive and healthy, everyone else is fine. Has it occurred to you that if something happens to me, she can turn on all of you?”

  “Well, then—” I clear my throat. “We’ll just have to keep you alive.”