"My thanks," said Aurie, cradling it greedily between her hands.
She brought it to her lips to nibble the remaining apple flesh from the core, only to find what only moments before had been nearly ripe, become an ancient dried core with three black seeds being squeezed out.
She silently cursed the sudden aging of the apple core before she could eat the good parts. But that had only been one reason she'd wanted the apple. The other had been for the seeds, which prepared properly contained cyanide, which she could use for a number of spells. Aurie plucked the three seeds from the mummified core and tossed the remainder into the bottom of the cage.
The seeds were an opportunity, but she wasn't sure if she was going to have enough time. Other items in Semyon's dream were rapidly aging, like a blackberry bush in the garden which had gone through the seasons in about ten seconds while she watched. This meant the energy from the Temporal Engine wasn't dissipating, and Aurie was the only person who could turn it back down, but she was stuck inside Semyon's dream.
Covertly, Aurie lifted the apple seeds to her mouth and slipped them—one, two, three—past her lips, swallowing them whole like baby aspirin. She wasn't sure how long it was going to take for her stomach acid to activate the amygdaline and turn it into cyanide, but she gave it a couple of minutes, before sticking her finger down her throat.
At the first gag, a soldier banged on the cage with his musket. "Hey, stop that. What are you doing?"
Aurie ignored him and shoved the finger deeper.
"I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you," said the soldier, pulling back the hammer on the musket.
Aurie kept shoving until her stomach rolled like a wave, and the horrible gut-churning release came. She vomited onto the floor of the cage, the splatter forcing the soldiers to jump back.
To silence their fears, Aurie feigned slumping over on her side as if she'd passed out. The lieutenant joined them as they poked her with their fingers like a wild animal, testing her to see if she was alive. After a few minutes of discussion about whether or not they should let the colonel know what happened, they decided that they didn't want to face his wrath for waking him at this time of night.
Once they were away from the cage, Aurie felt around the bottom of the cage for the bile-covered seeds, secreting them in her palm for later use. Only then did she allow herself a bit of sleep. If they were going to escape, it needed to be tomorrow before they reached Philadelphia.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The British had sixty infantry, twelve mounted officers, four supply wagons, and two cages containing Pi's sister and her ex-girlfriend. The odds would have been in Pi's favor, except for one crucial factor that she'd only uncovered while she was scouting them as they crossed a bridge on the winding Schuylkill River—and that was the presence of Semyon Gray in what appeared to be an officer's uniform.
Professor Longakers had warned her as to the nature of the dreamstate, and that alerting Semyon to the intruders in his mind would only bring calamity. What was a small company of soldiers would quickly grow out of control as his subconscious brought in reinforcements.
But if she didn't act soon, the wagons would reach Philadelphia, and there were additional British barracks in the city, which would only make their escape more difficult.
The peasant dress she was currently wearing hung loosely on her frame since the clothes she wore into the dream had been fitted for Aurie. Pi hated that she couldn't alter reality like a normal dreamstate, but Semyon's unconsciousness was not typical, and did not follow the regular rules.
She cupped her hand against the sun, considering her options, and saw a whole line of trees on the opposite side of the road turn their leaves: first autumnal coloring as if paint had been poured over them, then crisping brown, before falling onto the earth and blowing away as dust.
It was the third major instance of rapid aging she'd seen since she entered the dreamstate, which meant she was running out of time.
The British company rumbled along the dirt road that ran parallel to the river, kicking up dust that was carried away over the fields by the warm wind. At this point, there was no use delaying any further, but yet she did. Why was that?
Pi felt like there was something she was missing. Before she'd entered, Professor Longakers had explained what had happened to Aurie on previous visits. He didn't explain the reason that each one had been to this general place and time, which left Pi wondering. Why this moment? Why here? Was this Semyon's subconscious returning to an important time randomly, or was this him directing the dreams to tell them something that would help them in the present time?
The pieces whirled in her head, never staying in one place for long. It was an itch at the back of her brain that she couldn't scratch.
"There has to be a reason," she whispered as the wind ruffled her dress. "But for now, I just need to get them free."
Pi lingered on the word them, thinking about Jade and if she deserved pity. After all, she'd shot Aurie and tried to kill her friends and destroy the Halls.
"Get Aurie, maybe Jade, and get the hell out of here while not getting murdered in Semyon's dream. Check."
Her plan was to hit them hard, and get away fast. Aurie knew the spell to escape the dream. She hoped her sister could cast it on the fly, because they weren't going to get a chance to hunker down.
The one-on-many battles with the Cabal during the year had trained her for this moment. Pi didn't have to think about what enchantments to layer, and how to infuse her body with speed and strength. Those spells came to her fingers and tongue like notes to a skilled pianist.
She lacked some reagents, and focuses that would otherwise make her spells more potent, but she'd learned to be resourceful in the Undercity.
Before long she was sprinting up the river on the south side, skirt tied to her waist so her legs would have room to pump. She felt like a racehorse, her bare feet kicking up soil behind her in a rooster spray, beads of sweat collecting on her upper lip until she wiped them away with the back of her hand.
She caught up to and passed the British company, keeping far enough south that they would not spy her, then turned a narrow section of the Schuylkill to ice, to scamper across before the pieces dissolved back into the slow-moving water.
Pi dropped to her knees in the middle of the road in the path of the company and started digging with her bare hands, quickly scooping out chunks of hard packed dirt like a badger creating its home. When she was finished, Pi had created a person-sized hole in the road.
After climbing into the hole, she pulled dirt back in, covering her body, then cast a slow-acting hardening spell on the soil before pulling the rest over her face. For air, she'd stolen a whisking mat from the inside of a barn and fashioned it into a tube, which stuck out from the dirt mound.
As the dirt hardened around her, Pi reviewed the ways that her plan was entirely ludicrous: the soldiers might step on the breathing tube, jamming it into her mouth, the wagon could veer out of the tracks and crush her, a horse might break through the soil and impale her gut, Semyon might detect her presence, or there might be too many of them when she emerged.
This gave her a bit of panic, until she calmed her breathing by imagining the world's best hug that Aurie would give her when they finally got out of this mess. The soil was cool and soothing at least, like a suffocating spa treatment.
The rumble of marching hobnailed boots, stomping ironshod horse hooves, and rolling wagon wheels shook her cocoon in the road. As the first of the soldiers walked over her, barely moving the covering above her, she relaxed. The spell was doing its work.
The hard part was figuring out what part of the company had passed over her, so she could emerge beneath a wagon. There were about thirty troops before the mounted officers, then Semyon's wagon, then the two cages in wagons, followed by supply wagons, and then another thirty soldiers.
The last of the soldiers passed over, and Pi tensed up, expecting horse hooves, when everything went quiet. The British compa
ny, for some inexplicable reason, had stopped. If they were speaking, Pi was too deep into the road to hear them.
The longer it was quiet, the more she panicked. Why would they have stopped there, in that exact spot, unless they had detected her?
She imagined Semyon lining up dozens of soldiers with muskets prepared and pointed at the spot of upturned soil in the middle of the road. There were so many clues she'd left to her existence. They surely had figured it out and were preparing to ambush her when she emerged.
Pi readied herself to burst from the earth, spells slinging in all directions. She would only get one chance. She had prepared herself to withstand musket shot, but the combined firing of dozens of soldiers would be too much to stop.
She tensed her muscles, ready to break out, when the marching resumed. Her foot had poked through. Pi waited, expecting them to stop again. A horse stepped on her midsection, which knocked the air from her lungs, but otherwise did no damage.
When she figured the cavalry had passed, Pi broke the covering over her face to find the fitted dark wood of a carriage sliding over top. Pi sprung from the soil like an ancient, nimble mummy, covered in sweat and dirt, and placed herself directly ahead of the horses leading the wagons, keeping out of sight of the driver, who was napping on his seat, letting the horses plod along behind the carriage.
Pi swung up onto the bench, placed her hands around the driver's nodding head, and made the Five Elements spell for electricity, shocking him at his temples and knocking him out to slump to the side.
She could have outright killed him since he was only a figment of Semyon's dream, but taking someone's life—even imaginary—without good reason was a step too far.
The soldier in the wagon with his musket pointed into Aurie's cage didn't see what happened to the driver, so she quietly performed the same trick. The soldier leaned to the side like a drunk after a hard night.
The cage containing her sister had provided cover for her deeds, so no one had been alerted to the rescue. Pi hopped into the back.
"Aurie."
Her sister jumped, spinning around in the small cage, first wide-eyed with terror at her dirt-smeared form, then recognition dawned. "You're here!"
"Of course I'm here. You were in trouble," said Pi.
They squeezed each other's hands.
"Can you get out—" Pi started to ask, when a shout of alarm went up from the driver in the wagon behind.
A moment later, a musket blast careened off the cage bars.
"Ow, I'm shot!"
Pi sent a spray of superheated water at the wagon behind, trying not to hit Jade's cage. The soldier and driver screamed, the latter falling off as he stumbled around the bench. She grabbed the reins and veered the wagon into the field.
Aurie burst from the cage, sending a billowing blast of truth magic to knock over a group of soldiers running after them.
"Keep 'em off us!" Pi yelled to her sister.
"What about Jade?"
Pi glanced back to the British company, which had been stirred up like a hornet's nest. Soldiers in red coats, more than she remembered from before, were lining up to fire. The officers had charged after them on their horses, swinging sabers above their heads. Going back to rescue Jade would be suicide, not to mention stupid, considering what she'd done.
"Merlin's tits," said Pi as she yanked on the reins, dragging the horses to make a wide circle. As she plowed back towards the British, musket balls zipping past her head, Pi stood on the bench with the reins held in her teeth, and with no time for nuanced magics, she fired force bolts at the British soldiers.
Musket balls slammed into her chest, and though the enchantments protected her from serious harm, they still felt like getting hit with paintball guns from point-blank range. As they rushed towards the other caged wagon, Jade emerged, blasting soldiers from her position.
With Aurie and Jade providing covering fire, Pi drove the wagon past the other, slowing long enough for Jade to leap into the back, then Pi turned down the road, heading away from the company.
As their wagon thundered down the road, bouncing and bumping, nearly out of control, Aurie yelled to her from the back.
"Jade's been shot!"
"Come up here, take my spot."
As they were making the transfer, a nearby patch of ground exploded, sending stinging soil against their unprotected faces.
Behind them, cannons had been lined up, and were firing. They hadn't been there moments before.
"What the hell!"
Aurie settled onto the seat and whipped the reins. "It's Semyon's subconscious. It knows we're here."
"I know, but, fuck, cannons. Really?"
"Jade first. Then cannons."
A lot passed in their glance. Aurie knew that her and Jade's relationship was complicated. The shooting in Semyon's room hadn't helped.
Before dealing with Jade, Pi created a barrier that would stop the smaller projectiles. Without runes or anchoring materials, the shield would likely disintegrate at the first major hit, but she didn't want to worry about musket fire while she examined and fixed the wound.
More officers on horseback had materialized and were chasing the wagon, but Pi ignored them and focused on Jade. The dark-haired woman was lying in the bottom of the wagon, propped against the cage, blood oozing through her hands pressed against her stomach.
"That's not good," said Pi, kneeling in front of Jade, whose eyes were white, her normally dark skin almost pale.
"You might need to work on your bedside manner," said Jade, her lower lip quivering.
"You might need to work on not killing my sister and my friends," said Pi as she pulled back Jade's hands, examining the pulsing wound.
Jade closed her eyes. "If you let me die, I'll understand."
"I'm not letting you die," said Pi. "Lucky for you, I know a few things about healing, though this is pretty bad. If you really lived in this time you'd be a goner."
Tears bloomed into Jade's eyes. "I'm...I'm…I don't deserve this."
"Shut up and let me work," said Pi, trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding. The middle of a battle was a terrible time to work, and the constant bumping wasn't helping Jade, so Pi did the only thing she knew how to do that would work in this situation, and that was to cast a stasis spell on the wound. The blood stopped flowing out of the wound. Then Pi used the coat from the fallen soldier in their wagon, tore some bandages, and wrapped them around Jade's middle, putting antiseptic enchantments on it to keep her from getting infected.
"Pi!" yelled Aurie from the front.
"What?"
"Pythia! Come quick. This is not good."
Summoned by the invocation of her full name, Pi scurried to the front, leaving Jade to recover. She thought there might be more soldiers or cannons, but they'd left those behind. Instead, there were four figures standing on the ridge ahead. They were still about half a mile away, but the wagon was closing the distance.
"Is that who I think?"
"The other four patrons," said Aurie coolly. "And I don't think they're here to be the welcoming committee."
"How can that be them?" asked Pi.
"It's not them, but Semyon's memories, though they are connected in some way, because I learned things about the others that Semyon wouldn't have known otherwise."
Combined with her earlier suspicions about the nature of this place, Pi had an idea.
"Let's get out of here," said Pi. "You know the exit spell."
Aurie shook her head. "I need time. The spell is quick, but it takes an hour to take effect."
"An hour? Professor Longakers didn't say that. Is there a way to speed it up?"
Aurie pushed her hand into her greasy, dirty hair. She looked like she was trying out for the part of a colonial witch with her crazed expression.
"Maybe. But Longakers hadn't figured it out. He said a bit of lexology might work."
"Then do that," said Pi, taking the reins. "Speed it up."
"I could just as easil
y make it take a day, or longer," said Aurie.
"An hour? A day? What's the difference? We won't survive twenty minutes."
Her sister climbed in back and started the spell.
Pi stared ahead at the four figures standing on the ridge, facing them. She sensed the gathering faez like the pressure dropping before a storm. They weren't a greeting committee. They were a death squad.
She yanked the reins, turning the wagon north on a dirt road that passed between two farms.
"Hurry up, Aurie," she whispered to herself, not wanting to disturb her sister. "Hurry up."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Shivers of faez sped through Aurie as the last word of the return spell left her lips. Being locked up in a cage without a way to use magic had left her stiff and agitated, but a little release of faez had gone a long way, even under the current circumstances.
"When the spell triggers," Aurie said to Pi and Jade, "a ghostly rope will appear, hanging down like a bell ringer. Grab it and you'll get yanked back into reality."
Pi had chunks of dirt stuck in her hair, and her white peasant dress was stained brown and red. She looked like the survivor of a budget horror movie. She whipped the reins as she glanced back over her shoulder. "How long?"
Aurie lifted one shoulder, squinting. "I wish I knew. Just be ready. It could be in a minute, it could be in three hours."
She gave the surrounding fields a once-over. There was no one in sight, though she assumed they weren't far. The horses pulling their wagon weren't going to keep the pace in the heat. But while they had a break, Aurie planned to get some answers.
"Who are you, Jade Umbra?" asked Aurie, crouched down before the nut-brown girl with the flowery sleeve of tattoos.
Jade looked worn down from captivity. Her eyes had dark rings around them. Her lips had lost their sure lines.
"I'm sorry I shot you," said Jade.
"That's not what I asked. I asked who you really are. Why do you hate the Halls so much?"
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