by April White
The grinding of his jaw was the only indication that he’d even heard me. Archer seemed to control his voice when he finally spoke. “Come. We’ll find them and get her vision.”
He took my hand as we left the pages’ annex, and I was idiotically glad it wasn’t me who had done the thing Archer wrestled with this time.
Ringo was alone in his chamber when we got there. He had pulled the mortar out of the fireplace, and it sat on the hearth, hopefully cooling enough to handle.
“How did it go with Dudley?”
Ringo’s face went pink, and I realized I’d never seen him blush before. “You’ll have to ask Milady.”
“She’s here though. You guys made it back safely?”
“She had an hour with Lord Dudley. No one seems the wiser.”
Archer’s gaze was locked on Ringo. I would have felt like a bug in a magnifying glass under that stare, but Ringo stood his ground.
“Ringo …” The word strangled in Archer’s voice, and I looked sharply at him. I could see Ringo brace himself. But just then the Lady Elizabeth swept into the room with Courtney on her heels.
And I mean swept. The times I’d seen Elizabeth before she was always regal and very proper, if not tired and scared from being kept prisoner by her own sister. But this was a very different woman. She held her chin at a proud angle and a smile played at the corners of her mouth while she studied me. Then she strode forward to Archer and put her hand out for him to kiss.
“Lord Devereux.” She actually purred like a predator stalking a mate, and I wanted to throw a punch.
Visions
Archer seemed startled, and I realized they’d never actually met face to face. He took Elizabeth’s hand and grazed the back of it with his lips. It made me want to change trajectory and hit him.
“Lady Elizabeth. I’m honored.” His tone was formal, thank God. If it had been low and growly I might have ended the Tudor line about forty years early.
Her eyes found mine again, and she seemed satisfied to find me seething. The predatory thing disappeared, and her smile was genuinely warm and friendly. “Thank you, Saira.” The undercurrent of a secret laced her voice.
“You found what you wanted?”
A dreamy look flitted across her face. Just for an instant, but it was enough. “More than I could have imagined.”
Archer looked sharply at me. I hadn’t really spelled out that the future Virgin Queen had probably just gotten laid. That sounded bitchy, even for me, so I made a conscious effort to return her smile.
The dreamy look lingered in her eyes as she searched my face. “I finally understand, and I see that you do too.” Wait, what? She knew I’d never …
“No, Milady. I don’t think I do.”
Lady Elizabeth hooked my arm with hers and walked me away from the others. We stood at the window and looked out over the dark gardens. “You love as if you’ve a choice in the matter, as if the bond between you was an option rather than a certainty written in the stars. Yet your heart knows differently. You reacted as a wild thing does to a rival just now. It is a thing I never felt myself, until today. Now if another were to look at Dudley as I just did with Devereux, I’d fly into her face and likely scratch the eyes from her head.” She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“It terrifies me to be so totally at another’s mercy. I find that I have no wish to deny the insistence of my heart that he is the other half of my body and of my soul.” Her hand touched my arm gently. “You have given me a priceless gift. Only one who knows love could have given it. I will go to the scaffold a woman now, and none can take it from me.”
“You keep saying that, but you’re not going to die in this place.”
Elizabeth smiled sadly. “It’s time I kept my part of the bargain.”
She led me back to the table where Archer sat with Ringo, then looked up at Courtney. “Please see that we are not disturbed.”
“Yes, Milady.” Courtney obeyed without hesitation, and we took our places at the table.
Elizabeth included the guys in her gaze, but she spoke to me. “I told Ringo what I envisioned, but since that night, before I was taken from Whitehall and held in this wretched place, I have not looked for it again.”
I turned to Archer. “I want to see her version of it. Something was off in yours; parts were blurry. She might have different details that will help us find that tower.”
Archer looked directly at Elizabeth. “My Lady, I am only a small part Seer. I am unable to call up a vision at will. Is this something you can do?”
“If I have seen it before, yes.”
Archer sat back, impressed. I guess I’d just taken for granted it was a thing all Seers could do. “Isn’t it basically just a memory once you’ve already Seen it?”
“We’re not telepaths, Saira. I can’t project my memories into your head at will.” Archer’s tone was more patient than the words sounded, so I kept my bristling to a minimum.
“Okay. We need to be touching, right?” I reached over to Archer, then held my hand out for Elizabeth. Her skin was cool and so soft I wondered if she’d ever done anything rougher than hold a pen with that hand. Ringo completed the circle and I stifled a smirk. There should have been a Ouija board on the table in front of us.
Elizabeth closed her eyes, and after sharing a quick glance with Ringo, I did too. A heartbeat later a scene filled my head. Like I was watching the movie version of something I’d read, except this time the point of view was different. I could see Ringo and Wilder and the guard I realized with a shock was Lurch, Elizabeth’s nighttime jailer – the creepy one who wasn’t quite Monger, and maybe something worse. I couldn’t see Elizabeth, and then I realized I was looking at the scene through her eyes. I felt like the worst kind of voyeur and hoped that seeing her vision didn’t come with any emotions or thoughts attached. I wasn’t ready to feel everything Elizabeth Tudor felt.
The scene played out exactly as it had in Archer’s vision: Wilder torturing Ringo, wanting information from Elizabeth about the child of the prophecy, and then threatening her with the signed confession that he locked away in the window seat. I tore my focus away from the people in the room and tried to see the space itself. What was different from Elizabeth’s perspective?
There. Under the other window. Faintly etched into the stone.
A spiral.
Abruptly, the scene in my head changed. Dusky light and green grass surrounded by the high walls of the Tower. I could only see straight ahead, so I must have been wearing some sort of hooded cloak. There were people crowding the narrow path, somber and silent, and every pair of eyes was on me. The crowd at the end of the path parted, and I saw it. A big, wooden platform, with an upright piece on top, sort of a stool, but solid, and without legs. Standing on top of the platform was a slight man leaning on something metal. Glittering eyes looked out at me from under a rough wool hood which covered his face. And then I saw it was a sword the man leaned on.
He was an executioner.
My eyes flew open and I threw Elizabeth’s hand from mine. I was horrified and could barely keep the shriek down in my throat.
She looked serene. “I told you it was my fate. You chose not to believe.” I wanted to slap the peaceful look off her face. No one should be that ready to die. Was that wrong, slapping the future queen of England? Except if her vision was right, she had no future.
Archer stood and was pacing the room. Ringo sat very still and held his body tightly, as if he was protecting himself from a blow. I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing – the vision or everyone’s reactions to it. I shook my head like a swimmer clearing water from her ears.
“That vision is wrong. I’m sorry, I know you have, like, mad seeing skills, but you don’t die here.”
Elizabeth hadn’t moved, and she sounded like she was soothing a frightened little kid. “Lovely though it feels, your outrage will not change my fate.”
She wasn’t being reasonable, so I ignored her and turned to Archer. “Did you
see the spiral? Under the window? We didn’t see it before.”
He contemplated that for a moment, as if he was rolling back the tape on the vision. Ringo was already there. “So not a cellar then.”
I’d focused on the spiral, but he saw the window. I shook my head. “I guess it’s not underground. We looked for that room in the wrong places.”
Archer’s voice was thoughtful. “The ground floor rooms are too visible to other people. Wilder wouldn’t have hidden that confession someplace people had regular access to.”
“Which leaves the towers.” Ringo was already at the window. “So we need to go out.”
“Maybe not.” The others turned toward the excitement in my voice. “Maybe I can Clock directly into that spiral.” I spun to face Archer even as his mouth opened. “Only long enough to figure out where it is, then right back out.”
“How do we know you won’t Clock right into Wilder?”
“I could wait and go in daylight.” I hated that option and I knew Archer would too. He was already shaking his head.
“No. I need to be awake.”
“Good, because I’d rather take you with me.”
The surprise in Archer’s eyes actually made me feel bad. Had he really been expecting me to just go off and leave him behind? I didn’t like what that said about me and my disregard for his feelings, but hopefully this was evidence of me turning a new leaf.
“It is quite striking to me that you both believe one’s fate can be altered. You continue to seek change that truly will not happen.”
I squared my shoulders when I faced Elizabeth. “If you really believed that, you couldn’t possibly be the queen I know you’ll become. So please excuse my rudeness, but I’m going to say it anyway: knock the negativity off. It’s not helping.”
Bam. Just told the future queen to shut it. Which made me really badass or really stupid. Probably both, considering the grim line of her mouth and the way Ringo’s shoulders stiffened. Amazingly, Archer didn’t seem fazed. He held his hand out to me.
“We should go.”
I took it and nodded to Ringo. “We’ll be right back. If this goes well, maybe we’ll have the confession with us and I can take you home.”
He grimaced. “Here’s hoping I dodge the privy bath.”
“For so many reasons.”
I followed Archer from the room, and he whispered as we snuck down the stairs. “I never realized how much your boldness … affects me.”
Oh. Well. That pretty much left me speechless. I could only guess what my expression was from Archer’s grin. “So, where to?”
“The chapel. It’s private.”
We stuck to the shadows and back corridors. I figured Lurch would be stationed right outside Elizabeth’s apartments; that was one bad guy I definitely didn’t want to meet around a dark corner.
The Great Hall was empty and the chapel deserted when we got there. I grabbed a candle, but didn’t light it, then chose a spot set back from the door which gave us the best protection from casual observers.
“Watch my back?” I whispered to Archer as I crouched down next to an altar.
“Always.”
I was getting used to this partnership thing. Maybe even taking it for granted a little. And liking it. Which was fascinating. And cool. And freaking scary.
I set my shoulders, pressed my back against Archer’s, and used the candle like a wax crayon to draw a spiral.
The effect was interesting. The edges seemed to glow a lot faster around what were essentially invisible lines. I knew from experience that place jumps in the same time zone went quicker, with less likelihood of puking, and I concentrated on the image of the spiral under the window.
The hum and stretch hit fast enough that I braced myself for landing and hoped the room would be empty so we didn’t have to stand up and fight. Then we were between spaces, and the feeling of Archer’s back against mine was barely more than a memory. I fixed the image of the tower room in my mind, adding more and more detail to my mental picture the longer it took to land.
But it was too long. More than the two or three breaths it usually took. Longer than the journey to 1554 had been. My body was being pulled like a rubber band and the thrum of it hurt my head and left me boneless and raw. A thought was forming, so terrible I could feel the scream build in my throat. Had I screwed up? Was the vision I’d locked us on wrong? Did I just lose us between space, in the place completely devoid of every sense that made me human?
I reached out, or at least I thought I did. Nothing felt real, but I willed my hand to move. And then there it was. A solid thing. Like a force field, only denser and bone-chillingly cold, and … repellant.
There was no air in my lungs. No air between. I had to get us back. Back to the chapel where I could breathe and scream. I forced my brain to switch gears, to ignore the stretching and pulling that threatened to rip me apart, to find the echo of Archer at my back and focus on the dark chapel where he was real and solid.
And then the nothingness was gone, replaced by the blackness of a dark room. And Archer caught me in his arms and gasped with a breath he didn’t need. I could feel him tremble even as his strength kept me from breaking apart.
Breathing was hard. Sobbing without breath was harder.
And I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs to scream.
“What” gasp “the hell” sob “was that?”
Archer didn’t answer. I dragged my gaze to him. He couldn’t. His eyes were squeezed shut and he swallowed convulsively like it was the only thing keeping the puke down.
The cold was still seeping out of my bones and it made the fireless chapel seem tropical by comparison. The only other time I’d been so cold was in the Elian Manor keep.
I gasped. “The room is warded. That’s why we couldn’t Clock in.”
Archer’s grip around me flexed and I knew he understood, even if he didn’t have the power of speech yet. I felt safe. And warm.
The opposite of cold.
I knew which tower held Wilder’s secret.
Tower Run
I refused to do this in skirts.
If we got caught we were screwed anyway, so I braided my hair tightly, shoved it down the neck of the sweater I’d co-opted from Archer, and laced boots over skinny jeans. Archer’s nobleman’s outfit was almost as bad as my skirt, so he changed into 21st century jeans and boots too. Ringo was fine in whatever he wore, though I don’t think I’d seen him take off Connor’s boots since he put them on his feet.
Rubber soles and dark clothes. Free-running gear.
The room with the spiral was warded. It was the only explanation I could find for our failure to get in. And Courtney had complained the Bell Tower was always so cold. It was the one place we hadn’t searched, and the blueprints of the upper floor Professor Singh had shown us were so similar to the vision we’d seen – now from two different angles – of the room where Wilder would torture Ringo … unless we changed it.
Unlucky for us, the Bell Tower was basically inaccessible. It was a corner tower, with sheer stone rising up three very tall stories from the ground outside the walls, and inside the complex they’d built the Lord Lieutenant’s lodgings right in front of the entrance. Which pretty much meant that every guard in the place checked in there during their shift. The one thing we had going for us were battlements on either side of the Bell Tower. Granted, they were designed to keep marauders out, but we were already in, and we had skills.
We left Pancho with firm orders to stay put, and went down the tree. I could sense Lurch like a dead rat decaying in the walls of the Royal Apartments, but his pervasive presence cleared the minute we were outside. The guy was dangerous, and it made me nervous that I couldn’t pinpoint what he was.
“There’s a man on top of each tower. They usually face out, unless it’s shift-change time, then they watch for their replacement.” Ringo’s whisper carried just far enough for us to hear him. Archer nodded as he scanned the darkness.
“Sh
ift changes in about an hour. We have some time on this side of the walls.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we can get close enough from the inside because of the Lord Lieutenant’s lodgings. We should stick to the shadow of the wall and when the shifts change, scale the outside of Bell Tower.”
Archer gaped at me. “That’s a nearly impossible face”
“We do it in two steps. First to the battlements, then across them and up the tower to the upper window.”
“Show me.” Ringo’s whisper challenged. If I couldn’t defend it, the plan wasn’t worth a damn anyway.
Step one: to the battlements. There was a section of wall between Lanthorn and Wakefield Towers that I’d scouted earlier, where the garden walls met the walls of the inner ward. It was far enough away from the corner towers that we had a good chance of staying invisible in the deepest shadows. Hand and foot placement was everything though, and it felt good that Archer and Ringo hadn’t stopped to assess my route. They were right behind me as our fingers dug in and our boots bit the edges of the stones. We stuck to the corner where two walls met and I was glad for the extra surface at my back. That piece of wall was only one story high, but it had been a straight up sheer climb. I tripped over a chunk of brick and caught myself quickly before crouching in the shadow of the low battlement wall to catch my breath.
Archer knelt beside me. “What’s next?”
I nodded at Wakefield Tower ahead of us. “We have to get past that and the Bloody Tower before we have a clear shot on the battlements to Bell Tower. Or if we think that’s too exposed, we could also drop to the other side of the wall, hug the shadows, and scale the whole thing in one go.” There was a bridge between Wakefield and the Bloody tower, and crossing it put us in the direct line of sight of the guards on top of each.
Archer snuck a glance over the wall. “We’re above the main river gate to the Tower, with the same risk of exposure. I think we should stay up high.”