Timespell

by Diana Paz

  I can’t get through this crowd. Ethan’s voice was laced with panic. Summon me.

  The gleaming knife waved in time to her captor’s speech. Her eyes slid closed. I can’t. Hot tears slid down the sides of her face, reaching her ears. They gagged my mouth.

  Call me, damn it. It wasn’t your words that brought me to you, it was your will. Your power. Command me over to you.

  She felt the chill of a dagger against her exposed neck, and she focused every ounce of power she had on Ethan. Find me, and her heart hammered with furious heat as she shoved every ounce of emotion behind her words, willing him to obey her. Find me, Wanderer.

  An icy gust of wind blew through the courtyard. She set her gaze on the man with the knife, who lowered the weapon and looked around. A glimmer shone through the increasing mist—the silvery light that meant the magic had worked.

  Julia’s chest heaved as she tried to suck in a lungful of air through the gag in her mouth. Ethan, appear. Hurry-hurry-hurry! The chill in her fingers grew colder. She pulled hard, forcing him through the distance that separated them as he swirled like a ghost come to life.

  A collective gasp echoed across the crowd. Ethan’s nostril’s flared as his hand shot out and slammed the knife-guy in the face. The guy fell to the ground. Ethan took the knife and sliced off her gag.

  “I figure we have another five seconds before this mob comes to their senses and tears us apart,” he said, cutting through the ropes at her wrists. “Why don’t you cast a concealing spell over us so we can get the hell out of here?”

  She nodded, lifting her hands. Magic trickled out, barely enough to light a candle, she was so drained. “Conceal,” she said, putting as much force as she could behind the word.

  People turned away, no longer noticing where she and Ethan stood.

  “That spell was so weak I don’t think it’ll last more than a minute,” she said. “But Angie—”

  “She’s safe,” he said, urging her away from the pressing bodies.

  Cries rose up as they wove through the mob now rushing the stage. Her stomach quivered at the memory of all those spitting faces and groping hands. She didn’t know how much time they had before the concealing spell wore off. What if she lost Ethan again? She grabbed his arm as they arrived in a darkened corner of the garden. Angie appeared out from the shadow of a tall hedgerow and headed straight for Julia. In one motion she lifted Julia’s arm and shoved the bracelet on her wrist. “Stop time. Now.”

  Magic flooded into her from the jewel, nearly overwhelming her with its abruptness. Angie’s eyes bored into hers and she nodded, harnessing the steady stream of power and holding the present in her mind. The world became still, every sound closing in on itself.

  She slumped down to the grassy floor. “I need a minute.”

  Angie knelt beside her, her hand gentle on her shoulders.

  Would this task ever end? Her hands shook and she clenched them, clutching her stomach. She was going be sick.

  A presence built in the back of her mind, relaxing her frayed nerves. She blinked up at Ethan, who stood a few feet away. Her heart picked up speed as he studied her. Dark lashes fell across his cheekbones as he turned away. Calming emotions flowed through her mind, soothing sensations of warmth and sun. She breathed deep, inhaling the briny scent of the sea mixed with traces of coconut.

  Her mind became calm. Exhaustion peeled away as he drew in the worst of her stress, taking it upon himself. His presence left her mind as quickly as it had arrived. She shut her eyes. Thank you.

  Silence echoed back at her. With a sigh she opened her eyes. “I’m okay, Angie,” she said, getting up.

  Angie stood as well. “The creatures will be attacking now that they don’t have to disguise themselves.”

  Julia nodded, noticing the way Angie’s gaze flickered down to her wrist.

  “Oh. The jewel,” Julia said. She covered the bracelet with her hand, feeling its strong pulse as if the metal and precious gems had become a part of her. Her throat became dry. Power pulsed from the jewels, urging her to keep them. She slid the bracelet off her wrist, her heart aching with the motion.

  Angie put on the bracelet, her eyes shutting briefly. “I think the portal must be here at Tuileries Palace,” she said. “This was where you were compelled to Journey us to the first time we came. Plus, why else would the echidna have tried to escape here?”

  “Yeah,” Julia said, glancing up at the dark windows of the imposing palace. She let out a shaky breath. “But we can’t seal the portal without Kaitlyn.”

  “Hopefully, I’ll be able to Voyage back in time with the jewel and find her,” Angie said. “It’ll be difficult. Without the threads of time I won’t have anything to latch on to.”

  “Are you sure you’ll know which day to go back to?”

  “No,” she said softly. Angie began tapping her fingers against her gown. Her brows came together as she said, “We’ll just have to try. As many times as it takes.”

  Julia nodded, her eyes falling again to the jewels at her friend’s wrist. Her heart twisted painfully. So much power. It made the magic in her mark feel like barely anything at all. Her eyes stung with the uncomfortable feeling in her chest.

  Ethan’s head turned sharply. “What’s wrong?”

  Crap. Him and that stupid connection of his. “Nothing,” she said, glancing away and pushing the jewels from her mind. Ahead, the gaping windows of the palace stared back at her, dark and empty. Those with light looked unnaturally bright in contrast. One window flickered with a bluish glow.

  Her heart fell to the pit of her stomach. A flickering light? “I take it back,” she murmured, stepping forward. “Something is definitely wrong.”

  Angie frowned, following her gaze.

  “If time is frozen, that shouldn’t be happening, right?”

  “It’s the creatures,” Angie said. “This is what’s going to happen if we leave time frozen too long.”

  Two figures emerged from one section of the palace and hurried into another, their dark heads as black as the night sky behind them. Even in the darkness, she could see who they were.

  Kaitlyn and Indira ... together. She bit down on her lower lip, stifling a groan. Didn’t they have enough problems without Kaitlyn screwing them over completely?

  “At least we’re not separated anymore,” Angie said.

  Yeah, Julia thought, because Kaitlyn joining forces with evil is so much better.

  Chapter 29

  Angie

  The portal was in the palace. Angie could feel it. But without Kaitlyn, there would be no way to seal it.

  “They went this way,” Ethan called, rushing ahead into a darkened corridor.

  “Wait.” She gripped the bracelet at her wrist, allowing the pulse of power to throb in her veins for one more moment before slipping it off. She handed it to Julia. “We have to unfreeze time first. The echidna can’t be allowed to roam free.”

  Julia nodded. Her eyes slid closed as she put on the jewel. A subtle glow emanated from her skin. Her eyes opened, and all at once the muffled boom of cannons and the blood-curdling shrieks of an enraged mob echoed down the hall.

  Angie nodded to her. “Let’s find Kaitlyn.”

  They rushed down the corridor, checking room after room for any sign of Indira or Kaitlyn. Servants screamed, racing frantically through the hallway. There was truly nowhere for them to go— not with thousands of people outside. There was no way to help them all. The mob was preparing to storm the palace.

  “Angie?”

  She glanced over at Julia, who stared at a door. A guard stood at either side of it.

  Ethan hung back, watching her.

  Julia’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “Something’s in there.”

  Angie’s breath caught as ice formed in her chest.

  Ethan stepped forward, his eyes closed. A moment later he shook his head. “Kaitlyn and Indira aren’t in there. No creatures, either.”

  “We have to go in,” Julia said. �
��Something inside is pulling me.”

  “The jewel,” Angie whispered. That’s how it had felt when she was drawn to the goblet. “But what about Kaitlyn and Indira?”

  “I’ll find them,” Ethan said. “You two find the jewel.”

  Angie nodded. “I’ll conceal us,” she said, casting the spell over them that would make them as good as invisible for a precious few seconds. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Inside, the roar of cannons and crack of gunfire seemed magnified by the room’s hushed atmosphere. Like the rest of Tuileries, it was a mixture of opulence and deterioration. Every piece of furniture glittered with gilt trim, but the cushions appeared worn and faded. The walls were covered in patterned silk, peeling at the seams. Every inch of the ceiling revealed images of cherubs and doves peeking out from behind clouds. In an instant, Angie’s mind gathered the numbers. Eight cherubs, fourteen doves— what did it matter? Her gown crumpled against the force of her clenching and unclenching fists and she scanned the crowded room, feeling the concealment spell draining from her body. There were so many servants quietly entering and leaving from the adjoining rooms, hopefully no one would notice them.

  “What do we do now?” Julia asked. “Go up to everyone here like trick-or-treaters, asking for a jewel?”

  Angie let out a measured breath. “I don’t know,” she said softly. Her eyes were drawn to the elegant group of people near the back of the room. She recognized King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette immediately. They were not the young, vibrant couple she remembered from the garden, but a tired-looking pair. Marie Antoinette’s hair seemed duller, her face drawn and haunted as she clutched two children. Angie quickly counted from the year the royal children had been born. The boy would be seven, and the girl around fourteen.

  “Hey,” Julia whispered. “What’s up with the creepy lady staring at us?”

  Angie felt her brow grow tight as she followed Julia’s gaze.

  The woman was dressed much like Marie Antoinette. Her soft face and mournful gaze looked familiar, but Angie couldn’t think of where she had seen her. She also couldn’t understand why the woman approached them.

  The woman shook her head as she came nearer, her eyes tense. “C’est imposible.”

  Angie swallowed drily, her hands digging into the fabric of her gown.

  “Impossible,” the woman repeated. Her gaze darted to Julia and back to Angie, her small, white hands rising to her chest. “Who are you?”

  Angie stifled a gasp, finally recognizing the woman. Twenty years older, the Princesse de Lamballe still had a bit of the girl in her soft features. She was as delicate as she had been when she brought them dry clothes after they had been fished out of the Seine.

  “Hey,” Julia whispered. “This lady ... I think she has the jewel.”

  The princess shook her head slightly. “Forgive me. You seem familiar to me.”

  Wood crashed as the doors flew open. People poured in, breaking the calm that had mantled the room.

  “Ask her about the jewel,” Julia said, covering her mark with her hand. Her eyes slid closed. “Don’t you feel that? She has it, I know she does.”

  Angie remembered the way the jewel called to her in the Paris Opera House. “Your highness,” Angie began, but with the commotion of people it was difficult to make her voice heard.

  The Princesse de Lamballe gave them one more intense look before hurrying to join the royal family.

  “Dang it.”

  “It’s all right,” Angie said. “Let me think a minute.” There had to be a way to get this jewel. She watched the princess, the royal family, and the their ladies in waiting and attendants as if the answer would present itself.

  Two men went directly to the king, and Angie didn’t have to be close enough to hear them. She was familiar with the demise of the French monarchy, and this was it. The moment when the King of France would be told there was no hope of safety inside Tuileries. Angie’s breathing became slow as the moment in history played out before her eyes. The king’s crestfallen face. His eyebrows peaking as he looked to his wife. The queen’s subtle nod. And then the king turned back to the men and let them know that he and his family would seek refuge with the Legislative Assembly. He was prepared to abandon the palace to the people of France.

  He and his family would be imprisoned at the Temple Prison, and the thought made Angie shudder. The little boy gripping Marie Antoinette’s skirts would be taken to a prison room located directly above his mother’s, ensuring that she could hear his anguish as he was beaten and left alone in the dark he feared, begging for his mother. The young prince of France, used as a tool of torture on Marie Antoinette. After her death, the pitiful child would spend another two years dying from the slow, heinous brutality of neglect.

  “Ethan still hasn’t found Kaitlyn,” Julia said. “He’s searching upstairs.”

  Angie nodded, still watching the boy’s small, frightened face. She saw him flinch each time cannons boomed. Marie Antoinette stroked his hair and offered him a smile. He relaxed visibly, and Angie’s throat closed up at the sight. The knowledge of his fate made everything else seem far away.

  Julia gripped her arm. “We can’t just wait here for that lady to hand us the jewel.” Cannons boomed in rapid succession, causing the entire room to shudder and several women to cry out. “We should freeze time and take it.”

  Angie gripped her bracelet. Was getting the jewel before Indira did more important than abusing their power? In effect, stealing the jewel?

  Indira and Kaitlyn couldn’t get their hands on that jewel, no matter what the cost. She slipped the bracelet from her wrist as the royal family and their entourage started to leave, but from across the room, the Princesse de Lamballe’s gaze locked with Angie’s.

  Julia reached out for Angie’s bracelet. “That lady’s coming here. I’ll freeze time.”

  “Wait,” Angie whispered, hanging on to the jeweled bracelet as the princess said something to the queen and rushed toward them.

  “Mademoiselles,” she said, looking first to Angie and then to Julia, “I do not know what makes me believe you are a vision from my past, a specter here to remind me of happier times.”

  Another cannon blast rocked the building, making the chandelier lurch and sway. It cast strange, flickering light across the princess’s face. Angie nearly looked away. Something about the fractured light slashing across her soft features reminded her of the woman’s gruesome fate.

  “Perhaps I am but a fool seeking solace in my own imagination,” the princess continued, sliding a ring from her finger and holding it between Angie and Julia. “But I wish to gift you with this.”

  Angie’s breath caught. The ring seemed at once delicate and ancient, with fine, thread-like swirls of gold wrapped around a large, blood-red ruby in the center. Angie glanced over at Julia, who had her lower lip caught between her teeth.

  “Take it,” Angie urged, her voice echoed by gunfire.

  Julia nodded and plucked the ring from the princess’s fingers, closing her eyes as she slipped it on.

  The princess smiled softly, and Angie’s stomach churned. Accounts of the woman’s demise were horrific. The image she had seen in her textbook of the woman’s head on a pike floated to the forefront of her mind. She reached out, taking a step toward the princess.

  The Princesse de Lamballe raised a handkerchief to her chest as another series of explosions burst through the night. “I fear I might faint.”

  Angie’s lips parted as she felt words on the tip of her tongue— words that might save the princess from the September massacres, or at least offer her a less grisly end.

  But she said nothing. An older woman came to the princess’s side, ushering her to a chair.

  “Get with it,” Julia snapped. “This whole place is going to be blown up in a minute. We have the jewel. Let’s go.”

  She nodded, unwilling to leave. But there was nothing more she could do here. The Princesse de Lamballe’s fate was sealed, as was that of the yo
ung prince, the royal couple, and the thirty thousand others who would die by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

  “Maman!”

  A young woman rushed into the room and embraced the older woman at the princess’s side.

  Angie’s breath caught. A mother... her daughter. Julia’s words echoed back to her through time. She spun to face her friend. “You have the ring. Freeze time. Now!”

  Julia shut her eyes. A moment later, the entire world fell silent and still.

  “Good idea,” Julia said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Angie rushed to the mother and daughter, who remained locked in a time-frozen hug. The Marquis de Tourzel and her daughter, Pauline. Angie’s eyes shut for a brief moment. By some miracle, these two would survive the September Massacres. Years later, the marquis would publish an exhaustive memoir of her experiences during the French Revolution. Her daughter’s future letters would provide historians with details of this very night.

  “They have to survive,” Angie said. “You saw history change. You saw their deaths in your history book. And the Fates led us right to them.”

  Julia bit her lip. She lifted her gaze. “The spell of protection, then?”

  Angie lifted her hands. “Hurry.”

  Julia held up her hands as well. “Guard,” Angie whispered, and the mother and daughter were coated in a shimmer of light. Angie waited until the glow cascaded over their bodies, all the way down to the hems of their gowns. She lowered her hands. “Let’s get out of here and unfreeze time before the creatures have a chance to do any more harm.”

  “Why don’t we protect the kids too?”

  Angie swallowed with difficulty. “Our spell of protection will only keep them safe from the creatures of Mythos, not from whatever will happen. Not against other people.”

  “That’s better than nothing,” Julia declared, rushing over to the royal children. The magic left her hands, streaming over Marie Antoinette’s daughter. Before Angie could join her, the whispered hiss of snakes met her ears.