by Emily Mckay
I draw in deep lungsful of air, but still feel a little light-headed because the air is so thin.
Ro is also sitting on the ground. Kane is a few feet away, head ducked, I suspect trying hard not to look as pathetic as Ro and I do. Finally, he straightens. He turns his back to us but reaches into his pocket and takes something out. A moment later he puts it back. The medallion again? It must be.
Kendal is at Kane’s feet, wending in and out of his legs. She alone seems unfazed by the thin air.
The topography of the island itself is unlike anything you’d see in my world. Here, near the cliff’s edge, there’s a gently sloping field of grass that seems to rim the entire island. Twenty or thirty feet from the cliff, the sloping field gives way to a steep hillside. It’s as if the center of the island itself was uplifted even farther, making it seem like a wedding cake. Tiers upon tiers of treacherous height. Yay!
Straight ahead, a footpath zigzags up the hill to a cluster of buildings perched on top. Like a mismatched bridal couple on the top of the cake, the building has two turrets, one tall and lean, the other squat and fat. One of those turrets is the prison. That’s where the princess and the Curator will be.
Excerpt from
Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:
The Traveler Undone
Everything has a downside. Everything.
Call me cynical. Call me jaded. Whatever.
Sure, by most people’s standards, I have unimaginable power. But even that power has a price.
In this case, it’s overconfidence.
I’m used to working hard for what I want. I’m also used to having the power to back up my threats. The second I step onto the island and into the Everdawn, my power is gone. That’s when shit goes sideways.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Just as I predicted, on the island it’s dawn. Other than the seagulls swirling in the air currents overhead, we are the only signs of life.
Thank God there aren’t any hellhounds. None of us seem strong enough to fight them off.
I push myself to my feet, but only because Ro does it first. I refuse to be the weak link here.
Kane is standing a few feet away, his hands cupped in front of him. He’s glaring at the empty space between his hands, trying to pull a loop and failing. All his life, he’s had power at his fingertips. Now it’s gone.
“I did warn you.”
“I know.” He drops his hands to his side, clenching and unclenching his fists. “But I had to try.”
I point to the building on the crest of the hill. “That’s the detention center.”
Ro, too, is clenching and unclenching her hands, shaking them a little, like someone trying to get blood flowing into a body part that’s fallen asleep.
“Okay, I say we split up,” Kane says. “Cupcake, you, Kendal, and Ro go up to the fortress. See if you can find a way in. I’ll try to circle the island down here, get the lay of the land.”
“We don’t need to split up,” I say. “I know they’re being held in the prison. It matches the description from the book perfectly.”
“We’ll cover more ground separately. When you come across the princess and the Curator, Kendal can let me know,” Kane says, not meeting my gaze. “Somewhere on this island, Smyth must have a timekeeper who is holding this place in Everdawn. If we can find that person and break the cycle, everything will be easier.”
Before I can argue further, Kane turns and stalks away.
“You could have led with that,” I call out, but he doesn’t even glance back.
I turn to Kendal. “What the hell?”
Ro, frowning, watches him leave. “I hope—” Then she shakes her head. When she sees me watching her, she smiles, like she’s trying to be brave. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She marches off toward the path with a perky saunter, like a camp counselor who’s realized she’s in a horror movie, but doesn’t want the kids to know.
I hurry to catch up. “Hey, no worries, okay?” Sure, Kane may have just ditched us, but that doesn’t mean we’re slasher-film fodder. “We’ll find the princess and the Curator. Kendal can let Kane know. And we’ll be out of here before you know it.”
I know I’m saying it to make her feel better. And I know it’s not working. Damn, I never knew how shitty it felt to tell a transparent lie. “Come on, guys. Let’s go save a princess.”
The three of us head up the path. The trail switchbacks up the hill. It’s narrow enough that we walk single file, which is fine by me. I may be great at awkward babbling, but forced optimism is not my jam. By the time we make it to the first turn in the switchback, I am already out of breath.
Then Kendal stops abruptly and I nearly bump into her. Just ahead, the path splits. To the right, it continues up to the detention center on the hill. To the left, it leads around the eastern side of the island.
“Where do you think that goes?” I ask.
Ro looks from me to Kendal and back again. She’s doing the nervous hand-clenching thing again. “I’ll go look.”
Unease creeps into my stomach. “I think we should stay together.”
“No, I’ll be fine. And Kendal will be here to protect you.”
“But—”
Ro pulls me into a quick, tight hug, then she pulls back, a false, too-bright smile on her face. “Be safe.”
She turns to leave before I can push any further, hurrying up the path without looking back.
“Look for Crab,” I call.
She waves a hand to show me she heard.
As I watch her go, unease skitters across my skin.
I don’t like anything about this. Gull Veston Island is supposed to be a high security prison. And yes, we have encountered magical barriers, but we haven’t come across any actual guards, other than the hellhounds. We have no idea where Crab was taken. Scattered around the island like this, we’re vulnerable.
For all Kane’s talk about loving Dark Worlder movies, it’s like none of them have ever seen a horror movie!
Shaking my head, I head up the path as it wraps around the hill to the west.
“Did that seem odd to you?” I ask Kendal.
She arches a feline eyebrow. “In what way?”
“Well, for starters, the way Ro—who never wanted to come here—is suddenly comfortable just going off on her own.”
“Rowena Geroux is not my dowt-mate.”
“What about Kane’s weird behavior? He is your dowt-mate. So what’s up with him?”
Kendal gives her tail an impatient swish. “Indeed, Kane is my dowt-mate.” Her tone drips with censure. “And I will not discuss his motivations or actions with someone who is not.”
“Okay then.” So that’s what it felt like to be verbally bitch-slapped by a cat.
Her expression softens. “I am sorry, child. I forget sometimes that you are not of this world. Do not take my loyalty to my dowt-mate to mean I do not value the compassion you have shown me.”
I squint at her. “Did you just read my mind?”
Her tail softens. “I did not. However, after living among the Tuatha, I find your Dark World facial expressions quite…” She tips her head to the side as if considering her words. “transparent.”
Great. So much for my poker face.
“Does everyone find my expressions transparent?”
“I am not the dowt-mate of everyone.”
I open my mouth, then stop myself from asking, and snap it closed. Honestly, I don’t want to know.
Kendal answers the question I don’t even ask. “However, I can confirm that both Mr. Crab and Kane find your emotions easy to read.”
“Well, I’m glad I entertain them.”
“I have offended you?”
“No.” Not offended. Just irritated. And not with her. With me. Because I’ve been wearing my heart on my sle
eve this whole time.
We are now high enough up that I can see the entire southwestern side of the island laid out before me. From here, I can see Kane on the path far below. I watch him for a moment before calling out to Kendal, who has passed me.
“Kendal, hold up a second.”
Far below us, Kane walks slowly, his head down as he stares at something in his hands. The medallion? But why would he need to look at it so often?
After a few steps, he pauses to look around and then glances back at what he’s holding. He turns slowly in a circle, shaking his head.
Okay then, not a medallion—at least not the one Wallace described. Maybe a compass?
I pull out my phone and open the compass app again. The digital hand wiggles for a second before righting itself. My compass works. West is where west should be. But Kane is behaving as if his compass is broken.
I mutter, “What is he doing?”
Beside me, Kendal says, “I cannot comment on—”
“I know, I know. You can’t tell me what a dowt-mate is doing.” And I blow out a breath of frustration. “I’m beginning to regret I ever suggested you become his dowt-mate.”
“Indeed? On the other hand, I have found the experience to be not entirely unpleasant.”
“So,” I say, turning on my heel and starting off toward the east. “I guess Kellas cats are considered to be the optimists of the Kingdoms of Mithres.”
“I have not found that to be true.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh, sarcasm. Kellas cats do not employ sarcasm in our language.”
“That’s a shame. It’s useful.”
Kendal does not respond, and she and I are quiet until we reach the eastern edge of the plateau.
From here, we have a view of the path Ro took, which jets sharply off due east. It leads to a bridge, maybe thirty feet across, that spans a narrow chasm between this island and another much smaller, crescent-shaped island.
If I had to guess, I would say the Crescent Island was once part of this one, before the earth shifters cleaved a gap between the two.
The Crescent Island is just big enough for a large Victorian mansion, complete with a white picket fence and a lush, expansive yard.
Down below us, Ro has nearly reached the bridge. The house on Crescent Island is hard to look at, because the rising sun is just beside it. Then, there is a shift in the air, almost like the chill that creeps over my skin.
And then, the strangest thing happens. One second, the sun is sitting low in the sky, the bottom curve just touching the horizon. The next instant, the sun dips below the horizon with only the tiniest sliver of light peeking out to cast the world in the thick gray of dawn.
So that’s it. Whoever was keeping time on the island has reset dawn. But even weirder was what happened on the small crescent-shaped island. The light there never changed. The mansion still gleams in the sunlight. The Crescent Island is beyond the reach of Everdawn. Which means, if we could get there, we could do magic.
I file that away in my mind as a potentially useful bit of info and then turn back to Kendal.
“Come on. We’ve got to go rescue the princess and the Curator and get out of here.”
At the crest of the hill, I crouch down near one of the last scraggly shrubs, hoping to get the lay of the land.
Kendal doesn’t take the hint and trots past me.
“Psst,” I whisper.
She pauses, looking back at me. “Do you need assistance?”
“No.” I gesture for her to come back. “We should hide here to watch for guards.”
Kendal sniffs disdainfully. “The prison is currently unguarded.”
“But—”
“May I remind you that my sense of hearing and my sense of smell are both significantly more powerful than yours. Now that dawn has been reset, my vision is stronger as well.”
“But—”
“Do you not trust me, child?”
“I—” I straighten and step away from the tree. “I suppose I do.”
Kendal seems to think this explanation is enough. She does not wait for me but continues up to the top of the hill.
I grumble, “You could have said that before I crouched behind a tree.”
“I am unaccustomed to verbal communication.”
“Well, sure. If you want to have answers for everything.”
The hilltop is a broad plateau. The fortress is perched on the southernmost edge, so that Kendal and I have to cross a lawn of patchy grass before we even reach the doors.
The doors are the massive wooden kind, popular in medieval castles and magic fortresses. Kendal stops and looks up at me.
“What? You think we need to knock?”
She gives me one of those looks. “No. But I believe being bipedal makes you better equipped to use doorknobs.”
“Oh! Right.” I clear my throat, blow out a breath, and say a little prayer. Then I add on another little prayer to the Thread, in case that’s what works here. Finally, I grab the doorknob.
The creak of the doors echoes throughout the empty stone foyer. The second I pass through them, I’m filled with doubts. In the book, it’s Kane who rescues the princess. He should be here.
“Wait,” I whisper to Kendal.
Kendal pauses, one paw raised, and looks over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“They’re here,” I tell her.
Something like a frown crosses her face. “How can you be certain?”
“Because this is how it happens in the book. Right down to the creaking door. Contact Kane. Tell him to get his ass up here.”
But Kendal shakes her head. “I will do no such thing. We have not found the princess or the Curator.”
She turns her butt to me. “Kendal, stop!”
But she keeps going.
Finally, I do the only thing I can think of. I throw myself onto her back, pinning her beneath me. She hisses, squirming, but I’ve got at least eighty pounds on her. And her poison-tipped claws are pinned under her. That helps, too.
“Listen to me. We can’t rescue the princess!”
She growls at me before saying, “But that is why we’re here.”
“No, what I mean is, we—you and I—can’t rescue the princess. It has to be Kane.”
Excerpt from
Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:
The Traveler Undone
There’s only one thing I hate more than losing.
Getting stabbed in the back first.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Kendal’s growling stops and I feel some of the muscles in her back relax. After a moment she asks, “What do you mean, it has to be him?”
“Do you know who Kane really is?”
“Of course. He is my dowt-mate.” Then she hesitates and asks, “Do you?”
“Yes! The High King named him as his heir. The power of the throne is his to claim.”
“Yes,” Kendal says, her voice still taut with suspicion.
I edge off her and squat beside her.
She glares at me through squinty eyes, but she doesn’t scratch my eyes out. So there’s that.
“And yet,” she drawls slowly, “he has not yet claimed that power. He is not King.”
“But he should be.”
“What should be is irrelevant. He is not King. For reasons of his own, he does not want that power.”
Reasons of his own? Because he’s a changeling? Or is there something else?
“You have seen his thoughts and read his mind. You tell me. Would he be a good king?”
After a long pause, she says, “He will.”
“Then he should be King.”
“Perhaps. But the next leader of the Kingdoms of Mithres will not be chosen by a dowtless Kellas cat and a child of the Dark
World.”
“I know that.” I talk fast now because I know how crazy I sound. “But if he rescues the princess, they’ll fall in love. He may not want the power for himself, but he will claim it to be with her. If they get married, they can rule, side by side, and bring peace to the kingdoms.”
She eyes me skeptically. “And you believe this will all happen if he is the one to rescue the princess?”
“I don’t just believe it. I know it.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’m running out of time.” And because I never found the strength to tell Kane himself. “I should have told him.” I stand, because I can’t look her in the eyes anymore. If he can see what she sees, I don’t want him aware of whatever emotions are visible on my face. “Besides, I was hoping it would just happen. That he would be the one to rescue her. That they would just fall in love and I wouldn’t have to play a part in it.”
“Fine.” Kendal says. “I have told him. He is on his way.”
“Thank you.”
But before I can say more, a voice calls out from somewhere above us.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
Kendal and I exchange a look. “The princess.”
“He will be here soon,” Kendal says.
“Who’s there?” the princess calls out, sounding exasperated. “I can hear you whispering.” Kendal just looks at me. I shrug. “I can tell you aren’t guards. You have to come get us out! Now! The Curator is wounded. She needs a healer!”
“We should provide assistance,” Kendal whispers.
I still hesitate, but I feel Kendal’s pragmatism wearing me down.
“Is this love of theirs so fragile, it will not survive a less dramatic rescue?”
“No, I just…” When she put it that way, my gut-deep certainty seemed ridiculous. “Okay, okay,” I mutter. Before she can say more, I head off toward the stairs.
The second floor hallway is long and narrow, with jail cells on either side. I instantly know something is wrong.
There’s a quality to the air—something more intangible than scent. It feels heavy and fetid and reeks of illness and decay. Every cell I pass is empty until I reach the end of the hall.