Stranger

by Zoë Archer

  The sensation was … not disagreeable. Quite pleasurable, actually. A connection between himself and Gemma, living energy that gleamed like silver threads both hot and cool. It wove into the fabric of himself, all throughout his mind and body: arms, chest, legs.

  He knew of no scientific process to explain what was happening.

  Something lodged itself into his will—not an object, but the pattern of a thing. His eyes closed to concentrate on this new presence, feeling it with his mind. It took shape there, in his thoughts and shadow-self. What was it? He did not deal with intangibles; this was new.

  Concentrating. Bringing himself to narrow focus, as he did with mechanics and mathematics, yet this process focused within to the realm of subtleties. He had it now. It formed and solidified into—

  A key.

  His eyes flew open just as Gemma released his hands. She fluttered her lashes and looked at him speculatively.

  “Is it there?” she asked. “Can you feel it?”

  “Gemma,” murmured Catullus, “what have you done?”

  She demanded, “Can you feel it? The Key?”

  “I can,” he answered, scarcely believing what just happened. “It’s there, inside me.”

  “Look.” She turned him so he faced the trees that marked the portal. “What do you see?”

  He started. Stretching between the two trees was a shining membrane gleaming with visible magic. Moments earlier, all Catullus had seen were the trees and the forest beyond them. Now, it was as though the lenses of his spectacles had been replaced with glass that revealed magical energy. To be certain, he removed his spectacles. The vision of the portal remained—though slightly blurred due to his nearsightedness.

  He replaced his spectacles, then glanced back and forth between the portal and Gemma. “I see it. The doorway. I can see it now.”

  She smiled. “I did it. Wasn’t sure it could be done, but it can.”

  “You gave me your magic.” Amazement edged his words. “All of it?” If she’d sacrificed her family’s legacy to him, he would find a way to return it. Immediately. It was too much. He could never accept her gift.

  His heart eased when she said, “Half I kept for myself, but ever since the Primal Source was activated, it’s been stronger than ever, so I barely feel a difference.”

  Even so, he shook his head at the enormity of what she had done. Something akin to awe roughened his voice. “I’ve never been given such a gift.” He looked back to the portal that, even at his glance, moved to open for him. “No door is closed to me now.”

  She blushed with pleasure. He pulled her to him and kissed her, marveling at this fearless woman with a heart of steel, yet a generosity of spirit that seared his very core.

  Bryn had less patience with the enormity of Gemma’s gift. “Cross between the trees,” he said tersely, “and you shall find yourself in Brightworld.”

  Catullus and Gemma broke apart to ready themselves for the passage. Now that their time in Otherworld had come to an end, Catullus found himself oddly sentimental for the maddening, dangerous place. Gemma seemed possessed by the same nostalgia, and they both looked around the forest with suspiciously bright eyes.

  “I think I might miss it here,” she murmured. “Even though we almost died half a dozen times. And I’m starving. And it seemed like every female we met tried to steal my man.”

  Catullus corrected, “One female wanted my blood, not me. Yet I must agree,” he added. “Treacherous and confusing Otherworld may be, but I’ll miss it, too.”

  He would always remember that in these enchanted woods, he and Gemma first declared their love for each other—and for that, Otherworld would forever be a place of profound magic. The magic within its forests and oceans became strengthened through the love of two mortals. She felt this, too. He saw it in the warmth of her gaze, the tiny smile in the corners of her mouth, a hint of wistfulness in her face.

  Catullus moved to stand in front of a hovering Bryn. He offered an index finger, which the pixie took in his own little hand and shook.

  “You’re a good man, Bryn Enfys,” Catullus said. “Couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “It isn’t done yet. Save the worlds.” Bryn couldn’t contain the pride in his expression. “And when you do, have your bards sing of me.”

  Multitalented though the Blades were—cryptographers, linguists, tacticians, inventors—they had a shortage of bards. Still, Catullus answered, “They will sing to make the ladies weep and the men envious.”

  The pixie beamed, then forced his glee behind a mask of brave stoicism. His impassivity did not last, however, when Gemma neared. She offered her finger to shake, and Bryn, reddening, turned her finger over and pressed a kiss to her knuckle.

  “Should you ever weary of Brightworld and its narrowness,” he said, shaking a little, “come find me here.”

  “I will,” Gemma answered solemnly. She gave his cheek a light kiss, and the pixie nearly collapsed from joy.

  He managed to regain a fragment of composure as Catullus and Gemma turned and walked toward the two trees. They stopped just at the threshold, looking back to Bryn. The pixie doffed his hat and waved it overhead. Both mortals waved in return before turning to the portal.

  They each took a steadying breath, knowing that, once they crossed the boundary, the speeding train of fortune would not stop. Only one destination awaited them: all-out war with the Heirs. Perilous though Otherworld had been, Catullus and Gemma had stolen moments of peace for themselves. Such peace would not come again for a long while—if at all.

  Hand in hand, they stepped over the threshold.

  Directly into battle.

  Chapter 21

  The Blades of the Rose

  Men and fog surrounded them. Artillery deafened. The acrid smell and smoke of gunpowder stung. Shouting hammered on all sides.

  Gemma spun around, striving to make sense of the chaos around her. Catullus did the same.

  She had thought, once they’d left the anarchic Otherworld, they would return to the relative logic and stability of the mortal realm. Had even looked forward to some moment of comparative safety—no skinless monstrosities, no blood-drinking sirens. Normalcy. Order.

  Clearly, she wasn’t going to get her wish.

  They now seemed to be in a large mist-shrouded … garden. Gemma made out the form of a greenhouse gleaming dully in the watery light. There were pathways and orderly box hedges, everything tidy and trim. A contrast to the noise of battle all around.

  No one around seemed to have spotted them yet. Everything was a frenzied swirl of action as the men aimed and fired at an unknown enemy. But who the men were, and who the enemy was, Gemma didn’t know.

  “Where are we?” she shouted to him above the din.

  “Don’t know.” Catullus drew his sword at the same time as he reached for his shotgun—movement that should have been awkward, but he managed it with fluid grace. “The portal has either a terrible sense of placement or a wicked sense of humor.” He took a fighting stance.

  Before Gemma could ask what Catullus meant by this, one of the men close by finally noticed them. His face twisted into a sneer; then he raised his pistol and aimed it at Catullus’s head. Gemma grabbed for her derringer. She hadn’t even gotten the gun cocked when, sword upraised, Catullus charged. The man stumbled back, surprised. He hadn’t been anticipating a medieval weapon.

  Catullus cut him across his chest before the man recovered his wits enough to shoot. The man grimaced in pain and took aim, but Catullus knocked the gun from his hand and, with the pommel of the sword, struck him square in the center of his face. Blood shot from the man’s nose as he crumpled, unconscious, to the ground.

  It all happened so quickly, Gemma could only stare.

  “Heirs,” Catullus growled, spinning around. “The portal stuck us right in the middle of a bunch of sodding Heirs.”

  The moment he said this, two men stopped in their tracks to see their fallen comrade. They glanced between th
e unconscious man and Catullus, a look of almost comic disbelief on their faces.

  “What the hell? How’d Graves break the line? And why’s he dressed like that?”

  “Who cares? He’s dead.”

  The men rushed Catullus. He kept them back with the blade of his sword. It swung in arcs, tearing across their arms and legs, and the Heirs yelped at the attack. Yet they were faster in recovering than their immobile friend had been, gathering themselves to charge Catullus. Gemma winced at the collision of fists and elbows, the savage, quick struggle between Catullus’s sword and the Heirs’ muscle.

  “Two against one?” she demanded. “Not fair.” She leapt forward, joining the fray with her derringer in one hand and her new knife in the other.

  If the Heirs hadn’t been expecting Catullus with his knight’s sword, they anticipated Gemma and her dagger even less. She took a vicious glee in their wide eyes and hasty curses as she swung out with her blade. Her movements weren’t as practiced and agile as Catullus, but she didn’t really care when she stuck one Heir in the shoulder—just before he could fire his revolver in her face.

  The man howled, then turned and ran. Gemma whirled around to see Catullus standing over the body of the other Heir, staring down dispassionately at the spreading crimson on the Heir’s shirtfront.

  “Sword-fighting is a messy business,” he said grimly.

  “I’d rather see his blood than yours,” she answered.

  He gave a clipped nod before gazing around. Disorder still raged on all sides as a battle was being fought. A dull red glow flared close by, penetrating the mist. It flashed, disappeared, then flashed again, sizzling as it did so. Voices cried out distantly.

  “What is that?” Gemma asked. “Some kind of weapon?”

  Frowning, Catullus strode toward the red flares, with Gemma half a step behind him.

  She muttered a curse when she saw the source of the light. Not a weapon, but a man. A dark, thick beard shadowed his cheeks, and he had only one sighted eye. The other was a sunken hollow crossed with a thick scar. His hands were engulfed in red light. He chanted words in an obscure language, and the light surrounding his hands coalesced into spheres. At his command, the light leapt from his hands and shot off into the fog—toward an unknown opponent. A thunderous boom sounded remotely, followed by screams, indicating the balls of energy reached their target.

  If these men were Heirs, that likely meant that they were fighting … Blades.

  “We have to stop him,” Gemma said urgently.

  Catullus didn’t answer. Instead, he brandished his sword and, sleek and silent as a hunter, stalked the magic-wielding Heir. The man did not seem to be aware of Catullus drawing nearer, but when Catullus raised his sword to strike, the Heir spun toward him. The light around the magic-user’s hands spread, forming a shield. Catullus’s sword glanced off the shield, and though the Heir staggered from the strength of the blow, he was unhurt.

  The Heir smirked at Catullus. “Graves. We still have a debt to settle, you and I.”

  “Thank you for reminding me, Bracebridge,” Catullus answered. “Lesperance isn’t here, so I’ll have to take your other eye.”

  The Heir snarled. The energy around his hands shifted, forming a gleaming ax. Bracebridge swung his weapon at Catullus, who sidestepped the attack and countered with a blow of his own. Gemma watched, horribly fascinated, as Catullus and the Heir fought, the air hot and bright from arcs made by Bracebridge’s ax, Catullus moving with a warrior’s fluidity.

  Someone ran past her, breaking her concentration. She whirled, knife ready, as more men sped by. Either the fog was too thick, or they simply didn’t care about her presence, because they shouted back and forth to each other without giving her any attention.

  “Bracebridge isn’t holding them back anymore,” one man yelled to another.

  “Doesn’t matter,” someone answered. “We took some of ‘em out.”

  The first man wavered. “But they keep coming!”

  “So let those fools come. They’ll won’t get far into the city, and even if they make it all the way to headquarters, they won’t make it past the front door.”

  This thought cheered the group of men. “Imagine what a mess they’ll make—staining our stairs with their blood. Keep the housemaids busy for a month.”

  They chuckled, but their chuckles stopped when a figure silently leapt from the mist. The rifle seemed an extension of his hands, and he put the bayonet at the end of the barrel to good use—striking out at the Heirs, felling them as readily as one might harvest wheat. Gemma had never seen this fair-haired man before, yet he moved with the confidence and bearing of a soldier. She couldn’t help but be impressed.

  Gemma’s attention was drawn by another person appearing from the mist. At first, she thought this person was another soldier, moving as efficiently and lethally as the fair-haired man. Peering harder, Gemma saw that this slim other man carried a heavy gun, and wore a peculiar long, belted tunic, and trousers tucked into embroidered boots. Maybe this man came from a distant shore—how else to explain the tied-back long, dark hair?

  “Gabriel, behind you!”

  Gemma started when she realized this second figure was, in fact, a woman. The fog thinned to reveal that she was a tall, striking woman. When she spoke, her unique accent sounded something between English and Russian. At her warning, the soldierly man neatly deflected an attacking Heir, then sent his assailant sprawling with a perfect punch to the jaw.

  “Thanks, love,” the man answered, and he had a gruff voice marked by his own unusual English accent, a working man’s dialect, very different from Catullus’s cultured tones. “One to your left.”

  The woman spun and drove the butt of her rifle into the belly of a charging Heir. When he bent to cradle his bruised stomach, she slammed the rifle stock into his forehead. He dropped like an anchor.

  Gemma had never seen two more adept fighters in her life—male or female.

  The woman became aware of Gemma and stalked toward her, rifle directed at Gemma. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Who are you?” Gemma snapped back.

  “Thalia,” the soldierly man called. “Graves is here.”

  Both the tall woman and Gemma spun to see Catullus locked in battle with the magic-using Heir. Bracebridge, as Catullus had called him, noticed the newcomers at the same time that he saw his fellow Heirs speeding away.

  “The battle line’s been compromised,” he muttered to himself. Then, to Catullus, he snarled, “This isn’t a retreat. No use wasting my energy here.” He turned and ran. He disappeared into the fog, with the rest of the Heirs following.

  Abandoned by his foe, Catullus sheathed his sword before drawing his sleeve over his gleaming forehead. He started toward Gemma and the woman.

  “Thalia?” “Catullus!”

  The tall woman made to embrace, but she stopped herself when she caught sight of Gemma’s fierce scowl. “Made a friend, Catullus?”

  They gathered together, Catullus, Gemma, the woman known as Thalia, and the man called Gabriel.

  “It’s been a year and a continent, Huntley,” Catullus said to the man, offering a hand.

  The soldierly man shook Catullus’s hand. Up close, Gemma saw that this Gabriel Huntley possessed a rugged masculinity that contrasted with the touch of humor in his golden eyes. He draped an arm across Thalia’s shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “Wish the circumstances for a reunion were better.”

  “We were called back from Mongolia by Athena Galanos,” Thalia added. “It’s been nothing but battles ever since we disembarked.” She smiled warmly at Catullus. “It’s good to see you again, regardless. And,” she added, sliding a glance toward Gemma, “not alone.”

  Catullus made introductions as if they were in someone’s parlor, and not standing on a mist-shrouded field with the bodies of both dead and unconscious Heirs around them. “Gemma, these are my friends Thalia and Gabriel Huntley. Huntleys, this is Gemma Murphy.”

 
“The American scribbler?” asked Thalia.

  “Just don’t call me a hack,” Gemma replied, sheathing her dagger.

  Thalia’s laugh was husky like her voice, belying her slim physique. “I think you’ll suit us well. Clearly, you suit Catullus.” She sent the man in question a playful, approving glance.

  Gemma shook the hands of the Huntleys in turn, eyeing them with speculation. She could only imagine how the soldier met the Asian-dressed Amazon. A good story—one she’d want to learn later. However that had come to pass, there was no doubt they were remarkable fighters, tailor-made for one another.

  “Where are we?” asked Gemma.

  “Don’t you know?” Thalia asked.

  “Ten minutes ago, Gemma and I were in the realm of magic,” Catullus answered dryly. “At the moment, our sense of direction isn’t sterling. But that over there” —he pointed to the curved walls and domes of the greenhouse— “looks like the Palm House in Kew Gardens.”

  “That’s exactly where we are,” Thalia confirmed.

  Catullus snorted. “Last time I was here, I was fifteen, going to see the new National Arboretum. Now this. A bloody battle in Kew Gardens.” He took his timepiece from his satchel, then frowned at it before giving it a shake. “Damn—Otherworld muddled up the mechanisms. The hands are going backward.” He returned the watch to the bag. “What’s the hour?”

  Huntley pulled a watch from the pocket of his waistcoat and consulted its battered face. “Half eight in the morning. A good thing it’s so early, or the gardens would’ve been full of civilians. So, it’s true, then,” he said, replacing the watch and furrowing his brow. “You and Miss Murphy crossed over. And came back.” He shook his head. “Never would’ve believed such a thing was possible. But there’s a hell of a lot more to this world than an old soldier could ever know.”

  “You’re not an old soldier, Huntley,” said a masculine voice from the fog. “I am.”

  The four of them turned to see a tall, dark-haired man stride forward, with a trim, neatly dressed woman beside him. The man was dressed in civilian clothing, but an officer’s sword hung from his belt. As the couple neared, Gemma saw that, though they were both healthy and fit—the man in particular had broad shoulders and an upright, dynamic bearing—they were not young. Silver threaded through the man’s dark hair, and subtle lines fanned at the corner of the woman’s eyes—she must smile often.