Arthur rose from the table. “Someone should help her.”
Caesius stopped Arthur with a glance. “Steven?”
“This mess is my fault.” Steven motioned for Arthur to sit back down. “Let me take care of it.”
He stepped through the door to the kitchen and found Ruth fuming by the broom closet. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say.
“I thought you left.” Ruth’s glare struck him, her anger all but palpable.
Steven raised his hands before him in surrender. “We did, but the four of us needed a place to get out of the cold and talk.”
“So you came here. Fantastic.” The bitterness in her words seemed foreign. “Any port in a storm, I guess.”
“It’s not like that, Ruth. It never was. You know that.”
“What I know, Steven Bauer, is that you seem intent on finding a new way every day to rip my heart out and step on it. I didn’t sleep a wink last night after you told us you were leaving. I finally dozed off around five-thirty this morning, completely overslept, and missed helping Papa open the deli. And then, when I finally get downstairs, look who’s still here.” Her eyes grew narrow and cool. “Dammit, is this all some kind of game to you?”
A flash of heat hit Steven’s cheeks. You have no idea.
“Look, Ruth. I know this is hard for you, but I don’t know how many times you want me to say I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to say you’re sorry, Steven. I just want you to go.” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Please.”
Niklaus popped his head into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about the mess, you two. Andrew said he’d help me clean it up.” He sidestepped Ruth and grabbed a broom and dustpan from the closet and headed back into the dining area. “You two take your time.”
Ruth cleared her throat. “Thank you, Niklaus.”
“No problem.” As Niklaus returned to the front, Ruth fixed Steven with an exhausted glare that seemed out of place on such a beautiful face.
“Listen and listen well. I’m going back upstairs to start this day over.” She pressed a finger into Steven’s chest. “When I come back down, I’d really appreciate it if you were gone.”
A hundred retorts sprang to Steven’s lips, but, in the end, all that came out was a simple “Okay.”
Without another word, Ruth headed back into the deli proper with Steven close behind. Every attempt to restart the conversation stopped with a raised hand. Ruth’s fingers had just brushed the doorknob leading upstairs when an unexpected voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Excuse me, miss.” From a spot on the floor by the counter, Arthur rose, a soiled envelope in his hands. “I believe you dropped this.” He held it out to her. “It looks important.”
Ruth checked the front pocket of her apron and met Arthur’s gaze.
“It’s a letter from my brother.” She strode over, gave Arthur’s chest full of ribbons a quick once-over, and took the envelope from him. “He’ll be home soon as well.” She turned back for the stairs to continue her grand exit, but Arthur caught her shoulder.
“He was stationed near Paris, wasn’t he?” The young man’s voice dropped a few decibels. “I recognize the post.”
“Yes.” Ruth turned back to again face Arthur. “His name’s Thomas. Thomas Matheson. He’s infantry. Been over there a year and a half.”
“Thomas Matheson?” Arthur’s face lit up with recognition. “Do you mean Tommy?”
Ruth’s eyes grew wide, a wide smile blossoming on her face. “You know Tommy?”
“Wouldn’t recognize him if he walked up to me on the street, but yeah. I know Tommy.”
“How’s that?” Ruth studied Arthur with a quizzical eye. “Either you know him or you don’t.”
Ruth’s shoulders unhunched, the anger and hurt and frustration all melting into her usual earnest posture as the curiosity returned to her gaze. Forgotten for the moment, Steven couldn’t decide if he felt slighted or relieved.
“I’ve been stationed in northern France for the last six months working with the quartermaster for our unit.” Arthur beamed at the attention from the lovely young woman. “Tommy was the supply NCO for a company south of us. We must’ve talked at least twice a day since August, but always over coms.” A flash of recognition crossed Arthur’s features. “Wait. Tommy’s sister. You must be…Ruthie. You’re a dancer, right?”
“Ruth.” Her already pink cheeks grew red hot. “Just Ruth. And yes, I practice when I can, though life is pretty busy these days.” She bit her lip. “You have quite the memory.”
“On important things. Mostly, though, Tommy just likes to talk about his family.” Arthur peered around the main dining area, the tables slowly filling with customers. “So, this is the famous deli on the Upper West Side. I told Tommy I’d drop by someday. Never dreamed it’d be so soon.”
“Would you like to see some of his letters? I’ve kept all of them.” Ruth’s eyes dropped to the floor. “We could see if he mentioned you in any of them.”
“That would be great, unless…” Arthur glanced at Steven.
“We’ll be fine.” Steven smiled. “You two have at it. We’ll finish up out here, and I’ll make sure Sergeant Caesius doesn’t leave without you, all right?”
Arthur gave Steven an eager nod. Ruth gazed at him as well, her face a potent mix of anger, longing, confusion, and perhaps even a hint of apology.
“Thanks,” Ruth said after a pregnant pause. “I won’t keep him too long. Promise.” She turned to Arthur. “Funny. I don’t think I caught your name.”
“You never asked.” His face broke into a smile, his cheeks flashing a bright pink. “It’s Arthur. Arthur Pedone.”
“Then wait here, Arthur Pedone.” Ruth rushed upstairs to her family’s apartment and returned thirty seconds later with a box full of letters. “Let’s sit over here. Grab your coffee.”
The pair took over a table in the far corner of the deli and soon were laughing like old friends. Steven rejoined Caesius and Niklaus at their table, a wide smile plastered across his face.
Niklaus laughed. “Why the big grin, Steven? You kind of just got dumped.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Steven’s gaze trailed over to the table where Ruth and Arthur gazed at each other in exactly the same way they would six decades hence. “But the way I see it, those two just proved both your points.”
“How so?” Niklaus asked.
Caesius leaned across the table. “Unless I miss my guess, Steven is finally accepting that some things are simply meant to be.”
13
Touch & Go
With Ruth and Arthur busy at the far corner of the deli swapping stories about her brother and getting better acquainted, Steven, Niklaus, and the man calling himself Caesius were finally free to get down to business.
“Young love.” Caesius grinned, his eyes flashing as he caught Steven’s gaze. “There is more to their story, I assume.”
“Perceptive as always.” Steven sighed. “They haven’t seen the last of me—that’s for sure—though it’s going to be a while.”
Strangely stung by the sudden reversal in Ruth’s attentions, Steven took a deep breath and accepted that a train that had been moving in the wrong direction now rocketed down the correct track. Ruth belonged with Arthur. He’d seen it. And he belonged with Audrey.
None of that stilled the subtle pang of envy at his core.
The human heart. Still the biggest mystery of all.
Caesius’ face grew solemn. “So, to the matter at hand.”
“Yeah.” Niklaus rapped his knuckles on the table. “How the hell do we get back to where and when we belong?”
“The non-cryptic version.” Steven raised an eyebrow. “If you please.”
“I promise to be as forthcoming as I can.” Caesius let out an amused chuckle. “Now, once again from the beginning, if you will.”
Steven reviewed step by step the events that led up to his and Niklaus’ banishment to the 1940s. T
he earthquake leading to the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The discovery of the severed cables bathed in black fire. The dark doorways in space that took each of their friends, including Grey himself. The loss of the pouch to the Black Pawn’s arrow. Their final stand as the Black King sent them spiraling into the past.
The past that had become their present.
As Steven finished, Caesius narrowed his eyes in concentration. “It would seem Zed used the flux of energies left in the wake of the bridge’s destruction to open doors that led not only to other places, but to other times as well.” He pulled in a deep breath through his nose and shook his head slowly from side to side. “My old friend is nothing if not inventive.”
“So, that’s how we got here.” Steven traced a drop of condensation on the table, forming a circle on the checkered tablecloth. “What we need to know is how to get back.”
Caesius nodded. “A conundrum, indeed.”
“And there’s something we haven’t discussed.” Steven crossed his arms. “The last time we spoke before Zed sent you to God knows where or when, you said the Game was almost upon us. We’ve been here in the 1940s over three months. Without us to bring ‘balance to the Force,’ who’s to say Florida isn’t under water or that California hasn’t fallen into the Pacific?”
“Or worse, what if Zed has already won and everything we’re doing is pointless?” Niklaus set down his coffee. “Steven doesn’t like to think that way, but the fact remains that we know nothing about what’s happening there. Nothing.”
“And you have come to me for answers.” Caesius looked on them with a measure of sympathy and no small amount of pride. “Your loyalty and faith in me is truly humbling. Regardless, though I wish I could reassure you regarding the events to come, I’m afraid the intricacies of traveling through time are beyond even my centuries of experience.” Steven’s heart raced at the statement, but before he could say another word, Caesius’ frown broke into a smile. “That being said, one flaw exists in Zed’s plan that he has perhaps overlooked.”
Steven perked up. “And that would be?”
“As we constructed the rules governing our shared endeavor, no aspect held more importance than ensuring the Game would reliably be played at the correct time and place throughout history to prevent the disasters caused by another unchecked correction. In the event that either Zed or I or even both were to die between iterations, we instituted fail-safes to ensure the Game’s inevitability.”
Niklaus let out a solitary laugh. “So, we can add your Game to death and taxes?”
“Indeed.” Caesius’ eyes slid out of focus. “In fact, each of you have already experienced this phenomenon, albeit to different degrees.” He studied Steven for a moment. “Consider. A lone Pawn with no experience and minimal preparation faces the gathered Black pantheon, defeats them on every front, and manages to collect all the Pieces to his side without a single fatality. You are clearly both brave and resourceful, Steven, but I suspect the magicks of the Game may also have been at play.”
Steven’s cheeks grew hot. “Good to know, I suppose.”
“And you, Mr. Zamek. Last second rescues and split-second decisions aside, you survived a fall that would have killed any man alive.”
“But I pulled the rook from the pouch.” Niklaus’ shoulders bunched in frustration. “You’re saying that wasn’t me acting of my own free will?”
Caesius tilted his head to one side. “What I am saying is that your decisions on some level were likely guided by a higher power.”
“So, our actions, our choices, our very wills.” Steven’s hands balled into fists. “They mean nothing?”
“The contrary, in fact. Each of you was chosen by the Game based specifically upon the kind of person you are and the decisions such a person would likely make. Still, up until the first moment of actual play, the Game has a vested interest in keeping all of you very much alive.” Caesius swirled his coffee and sucked down the last dregs from his cup. “From a universal perspective, all that matters in the end is that the Game is played. Everything else is mere pomp and ceremony.”
“Including our lives?” Niklaus eyes narrowed.
“That’s cold, Grey.” Steven looked away, unable to meet his someday mentor’s grey gaze. “Even for you.”
Caesius leaned back in his chair, seeming unaffected. “Nevertheless, it remains the truth.”
“Pomp and ceremony.” Steven didn’t even try to keep the frustration from his voice. “Zed said the same thing once.”
Caesius laughed. “Even our opponent speaks the truth from time to time, though he usually twists it to serve his own agenda.”
“So, the Game wants to be played.” Niklaus leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. “We’ve got that part. What does that have to do with us being stuck in 1946?”
“The two of you, along with the others, no longer walk this planet as mere individuals, but as a part of something greater than yourselves. Until such time as you surrender your icons at the conclusion of the coming iteration, a tether exists between each of you as well as the Game itself that cannot be severed by any measure of distance or, I hope, years. Were the six of you not displaced from your native time, the Arbiters would simply pull you from your various locations across the globe to the Board at the appointed time of play regardless of your circumstances. Though temporal shifting of the various Pieces was never a consideration, the fail-safe magicks of the Game should be more than enough to draw you back to where and when you belong.”
“You hope?” Steven asked. “Should be more than enough?”
Caesius held up his hands in surrender. “I considered a myriad of eventualities in the building of this Game, Steven, but banishment of the various Pieces from their own time falls beyond even my wildest dreams.”
“All of us are linked together.” A memory of his lone psychic conversation with Audrey as she fought to escape the Black Knight flitted through Steven’s mind. “And all of us are linked to the Game.” He massaged his temple as a twinge of familiar pain erupted above his eye. “And now, we just wait until the Game begins some sixty years in the future and hope it yanks us all back to the present in time for the Black to descend on us like a pack of wolves?”
“I never said that you should sit and wait idly, Steven. Only that your efforts to return to your own time should be rewarded…if I did my job correctly all those many years ago.”
“So, I get to go gather everyone together again, and this time without the aid of the pouch.”
“I never said that either.” Caesius rummaged in the duffel at his feet and produced the white pouch Steven would first hold in his hands six decades hence. “The Svartr Kyll sent you here. It will take the Hvitr Kyll to send you back.” He held the crumpled bag out to Steven, the silver cord at its neck wound tight. A barely audible hum emanated from its worn leather surface.
“Whoa.” Steven raised his hands. “I can’t take that. That’ll mess up everything.”
“Take it.” Caesius pressed the pouch into Steven’s hand. “It is the only way.”
“But if you give me the pouch now, how will you have it in the future to give to me in the first place?”
Caesius smiled. “When that day comes, Steven, rest assured the Hvitr Kyll will have long since returned to my possession. As I explained before, those events have already occurred, and things that have been written cannot be unwritten.”
“Funny.” Niklaus cracked his knuckles. “You sound pretty confident for someone who just told us he wasn’t that well versed in the ins and outs of time travel.”
“Yeah.” Steven shook his head. “A bit daunting knowing we’re betting our lives and the fate of the world on your best guess.”
“A guess indeed, but an educated guess.” A playful smirk played across Caesius’ lips. “If there is one thing I have learned in my centuries on this planet, it is the fine art of extrapolation.”
Steven held the pouch before him. “So, we have a car, but the car has n
o gas. As you explained it, the pouch and all the icons only fully function during a time of correction, and the next one of those isn’t for another sixty years.”
Caesius dropped his chin in a grim nod. “I was pondering that very question. Without the energies of a correction to empower the pouch, what you hold in your hand is scarcely more than a bag of aged leather. Only at a crossing might you find enough ambient energy to serve your purposes, and it would have to be a significant crossing at that.” He eyed Steven. “I assume I taught you about such things.”
Steven let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, you covered that on day one.”
“Excellent.” Caesius thought for a moment. “I suppose we could arrange travel for the both of you to the British Isles and take advantage of the nexus at Stonehenge. If any place has the requisite power to satisfy your needs, it would be there. Unfortunately, I am less familiar with similar locations on this continent.”
“Stonehenge, huh?”
A sharp pinch at Steven’s chest brought to his mind an image of a castle.
A coral castle.
“Strangely enough…” He stroked Amaryllis’ metal wings. “We may have a lead on just such a place.”
Ruth and Arthur rose from the table in the corner, Ruth gathering together the various letters from her brother and Arthur studying her every move. Seeing them together, Steven couldn’t help but smile. The electricity between the two, the furtive glances, the flushed cheeks. His eyes slid closed as he imagined the doting elderly couple that still danced around the kitchen in their eighties, the pang in his chest evaporating with final recognition that their trip to the 1940s had accomplished at least one thing of importance.
“We should be heading back, Rex.” Arthur’s downcast eyes flicked in Ruth’s direction. “We’ve already missed the entire morning. Probably shouldn’t push our luck.”
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