by April White
A spiral. My exit plan.
BOOM!
The third and final explosion filled the green, and the executioner climbed back up onto the scaffold, his giant, deadly sword in hand. He raised the sword with both hands, and for a moment I thought Ringo was dead and the executioner was going to finish his job.
“Stop! Stop! There will be no killing today!”
The voice came from far away, and I thought, idly, that Lord Brydges had finally grown a pair.
Too late. The sword was poised over my body. The hooded executioner stood ready to swing.
The hum and glow of the spiral I’d nearly finished wouldn’t save me this time.
“Saira. Go!”
Ringo. It was Ringo under the executioner’s hood, holding a sword over me. Protecting me.
So I went.
I’d barely even finished the spiral before I felt a pull between that forced me out of the moment. And until I was in the nothingness, I realized I hadn’t chosen when to land.
My brain screamed. My lungs burned for air and my body stretched and pulled like a rubber band with no substance beyond the sound that felt like the end of sanity.
I hadn’t locked onto a time.
I had nothing to guide my Clocking.
Nothing to help me land.
And then I slammed into the ground so hard whatever breath was left in my lungs was crushed out of me. I’d been hurtled out of between, thrown out like something distasteful or wrong.
I cracked my eyes open. Looked out into the first darkness of night.
Okay. I was outside. The smell of the grass under my cheek confirmed it.
I rolled over and looked up a tower like I was looking up its nose. The White Tower. But when?
I held onto the white stone wall as I dragged myself to my feet. I looked down to see Elizabeth’s clothes on my body. Had I slipped in time? Had I skipped the part when I was there, to return the moment after I’d gone forward to change things? Was that why I’d been thrown out of between so hard?
I gulped at the night air, thick with mist, and steadied my legs under me. Breathe, Saira. And think.
It was dark. Archer would be up and looking for me. I knew that with the certainty that I knew my name. Saira Emily Elian. Descendant of Time.
The ring of steel clanged in the mist. It sounded far away, but the ringing in my own ears took up all the space there. I stepped around the side of the tower toward the sound, where the scaffold stood like a monument to death.
Two men fought on the green. With swords. They used the scaffold like a set piece to parry and block and trap and evade each other. It was the sound of their swords clashing that cut through the night, but I couldn’t see their faces in the heavy mist that had settled over Tower Green.
I could feel them as I edged closer. The malice gave Lurch away. If it had a color it would be slimy and green and he would slip in it so the other guy could cut his throat.
The guy Lurch was fighting was smaller, and tired. And clearly the thing that had kept him alive this long was his agility. He bounded around the scaffold like it was a jungle gym. And when he swung his sword at Lurch with two hands I recognized Ringo.
No! Lurch would kill him.
I looked around for something to use as a weapon. Something I could join the fight with to buy Ringo the space to breathe and maybe rest.
I pulled my little Sanda knife out of my boot and prepared to throw it. I didn’t think I could hit Lurch, but at least I was armed with something. Just then, two people came running out of the mist, past the few who still milled about on the edges of the green watching the battle.
“Saira!”
Archer’s voice reached into me and wrapped me in his fear. Ringo faltered for a second, but it was long enough for Lurch to send him backwards off the scaffold with a slice to … something. Something that bled, judging by the line of dark red on the blade of Lurch’s sword.
“No!” Archer leapt to the scaffold just as Lurch was preparing to jump down and finish the job. He knocked the sword away and clocked Lurch in the jaw with his fist. I started for Ringo, still down behind the scaffold, when Tom grabbed my arm.
“Saira, wait!”
Tom spun me around to face Beauchamp tower just as Pancho stumbled out of the door, half-running, half-carrying his brother Thomas onto the green. I almost yelled to him, but Tom clenched my arm even tighter. Behind him, Wilder stepped into view, crazy and wild with fury.
Tom
What was happening? My legs were locked and my feet frozen to the ground. Even my voice seemed to have deserted me as Wilder grabbed Pancho and spun him away. He caught Thomas Wyatt and held a knife to his throat.
No. There was no sound attached to the word in my head, but every molecule in my body was screaming it. Just no!
Pancho begged something I couldn’t hear. Wilder screamed at him. “Tell me!” Pancho sobbed. And then told … something. Wilder smiled demonically.
And then he cut Thomas Wyatt’s throat.
Nearly decapitated him.
The blood spurted in an arc and Pancho screamed. Or maybe I did.
Wilder threw Wyatt’s body down in disgust and stormed past the prostrate boy on the ground. Then threw one glance in my direction as he stalked toward the Royal Apartments.
“Oh my God. He’s going for Elizabeth!” I turned and ran.
I couldn’t look behind me. I couldn’t think about Ringo, lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Or Archer, fighting a demon-ish creature with his fists. Or my poor, brotherless Pancho. Or even Tom, struggling to keep up with me at a full sprint. I just ran.
Wilder had a head start and I couldn’t fight him one-on-one. All I could do was beat him to her and get her away. I veered toward the north kitchen, panic hitching the breath in my lungs.
No one stopped me. No one challenged me. It was as if the time stream itself held its breath.
The north kitchen was empty, so I bolted through the tunnel and burst into the sub-crypt. I felt the cold of the ward evaporate around me as I found Elizabeth and Courtney, huddled against a wall, staring in speechless horror.
I dropped to my knees and started scratching out a spiral in the hard-packed dirt floor. The edges glowed and I drew like lives depended on it.
“Saira.” Elizabeth’s voice couldn’t cut through the panic in my head as I finished the spiral portal. I had to get Elizabeth out of here. I had to take her away and hide her someplace safe. Someplace no one could find her. Where no one could betray her.
“Saira!” Her panic finally found its way in and I stood to find her face in the near darkness of the crypt. Her eyes were staring into an alcove hidden in the wall.
A voice crawled up my spine and I choked on puke. “Thank you for that. I’d been waiting for you to come. Your ward could stand against anything but its maker.”
Wilder’s voice told me I’d just killed Elizabeth. I’d smashed through the one thing that kept her from the pure evil that hid in the shadows at my back.
I still had Sanda’s knife in my hand and I spun to face Wilder. “You can’t have her,” I panted desperately. I was trying to split my brain, frantically re-setting the ward behind me while standing my ground against a pure predator. I felt a ward come up around myself and tried to shift it to Elizabeth, but I couldn’t make it understand somehow.
“Courtney!” I yelled for her to help me. She could feel wards, maybe she could hold one.
Tom arrived behind Wilder and he shrank away in instinctive terror. I could hear his footsteps racing back down the tunnel. I couldn’t blame him really. Maybe I could, but I wouldn’t. Wilder was pure evil and if I had any sense I’d be running too.
I backed up, still protected by the ward, but trying desperately to get it around Elizabeth too. “Courtney, take it!”
I pictured it like a bubble that could be moved from one person to another without popping, and I silently begged her to understand what I meant.
“That’s it, protect yourself from me, little mixed-bl
ood.” Wilder’s voice was the source of nightmares and I was nearly hyperventilating. I kept swishing Sanda’s knife in front of me like it was a light saber and I was Luke. Because Leia always used blasters, and Han Solo only used a light saber once, when he cut open the Ton Ton’s belly to save Luke. That’s how I knew I was losing my mind, which wouldn’t matter anyway, because Wilder would split time when he killed Elizabeth Tudor. And then nothing would matter.
The sound of running feet came back. Was it Archer? Or Lurch coming to aid his master? I could feel Courtney at my back, feel her inside the ward letting it close over her. Wilder swung his fist at me. A closed fist that would have knocked the teeth out of my head. But it connected with the ward that barely covered me. I shivered from terror. From cold. From the certainty that I couldn’t survive against this Vampire with preternatural skills, who fed on rage and fear and killed for pleasure.
It was Tom who appeared in the crypt. Holding a sword. Limping and out of breath. This time Wilder spared him a glance, more for the sword than for Tom. Wilder was unarmed. Tom was not. It still wasn’t even close to a fair fight because Wilder couldn’t die.
Tom swung the sword up and faced Wilder.
“You are not of this time.” Wilder spoke to Tom, but threw an annoyed glance at me. Like I was the one breaking the rules.
“Neither are you,” snapped Tom.
I liked Tom’s snarkiness in the face of pure evil. Who knew he had it in him? While Wilder’s attention was on the sword, Courtney and I slowly backed up. I needed to get to Elizabeth so I could set her inside a ward.
I eyed Tom’s sword jealously. My knife seemed seriously wimpy in comparison, and if I lived I thought I’d take up sword-fighting. Wilder lunged and grabbed at Tom’s arm. He would have gotten him. Should have gotten him. Except Tom wasn’t there anymore.
He lunged again. And came up empty.
Tom wasn’t swinging the sword, he was using it to block Wilder’s hands as he darted out of the way. Leapt out of the way, actually. Every move Tom made seemed to happen a millisecond before Wilder’s, like he anticipated them. Like he Saw them. Like he knew.
Wilder growled. An animal growl that made every hair on my body stand on end. And lunged.
And missed.
Wilder’s eyes narrowed. Calculated the boy in front of him. Took in his strange clothes, his strange skills.
And then he knew too.
Courtney and I backed to the wall, to the place where Elizabeth watched the scene in front of us in horror. “He’ll kill him,” she whispered in my ear.
“He has to catch him first.”
I wrapped the ward around them and somehow gave it to Courtney to hold. I didn’t look back at them, I just knew they were inside the bubble when I stepped out to help Tom.
Because as good as Tom was at dodging Wilder, he couldn’t finish this. He was getting tired, the sword was dropping a little further with each lunge and parry. I could hear other footsteps coming down the tunnel. Someone else to help, or protect, or defend against.
I looked for a weapon. Something bigger and more dangerous than the knife I held. And then I found it. My shaking hands pulled the cloth roll from my dress. My shaking hands untied it.
Lunge.
Parry.
The scalpel dropped to the dirt. Not that.
The brown bottle. And the Zippo. Those.
Wilder lunged again. At me.
Tom yelled and threw the sword to Elizabeth. It skidded across the stone floor, and she picked it up, holding it like a warrior, ready to fight.
Archer appeared in the room, his eyes everywhere at once. He saw me. Saw what I was about to do. And then he lunged at Wilder and knocked him off his feet. Wilder landed on the spiral, right in line with my aim.
I hurled the ether at Wilder. It broke on his robes. He grabbed for me, violently.
Tom hurled himself at me.
I lit the Zippo and threw it.
Tom knocked me backwards out of Wilder’s grasp.
Wilder’s robe burst into flame.
His hand closed on Tom.
My friend looked horrified. And resigned. And then Tom … smiled.
And they disappeared.
“Tom!”
I reached for the spiral, reached for anything that could save him. Archer dragged me back, off the still glowing portal and I fought him.
“I can follow them. I’ll get him back!”
“Where? Where will you go?”
“There must be a trace of them between. I’ll find them!”
I struggled against him but Archer held me. “They could be anywhere, Saira. Forward, back, in England or Spain or China. You don’t know!” He was yelling, trying to shake me out of the single-minded focus that gripped me. I couldn’t let Tom go. I couldn’t let Wilder win this.
“He knows Tom can See. He’ll kill him, Archer. He’ll drain him of his blood and Tom will die.” A sob caught my voice. “I brought him here. He wasn’t the target. Wilder was going for me.” I was in danger of dissolving into agonized tears until Elizabeth stepped forward and spoke in her calm, officious way and broke through the hysteria.
“Courtney, go check the Bell Tower room. There is a spiral in it. He could have gone there. Insist that Lord Brydges go with you.” Courtney nodded and left immediately without question. Then Elizabeth turned to Archer.
“Is it safe for me to show my face, or should I be looking for my own escape routes?”
Archer had stopped shaking me and had pulled me into his chest, effectively trapping me inside his embrace. “Alvin and Wyatt are dead …”
I suddenly gasped. “Ringo?”
“Alive, but in need of stitches.” I sagged a little in relief even as my brain spun furiously on ways to find Tom. Archer continued speaking to Elizabeth. “Lord Brydges stayed your execution at the eleventh hour, so in the eyes of history you are still alive.”
His words cut through the pain in my head.
Elizabeth Tudor was alive.
And maybe, just maybe, time still flowed in the direction it should.
The thing that strangled me released, and I could feel the blood trickle through my veins. The air gasp through my lungs. The heartbeat in my chest.
A muscle twitched in my face. In a different time it could have been the beginnings of a smile. I didn’t feel capable of joy or humor, but maybe I could allow myself a measure of relief.
Elizabeth looked at me for a long time and when she finally spoke her voice cracked with emotion. “I shall see to young Master Ringo’s sutures. And I shall expect you in my chambers before you leave.”
She swept out of the underground room. “Bossy.” I said it under my breath, but Archer’s grip tightened on me.
“It’s a wonder you two can be friends.”
“We are that, aren’t we.”
Archer kissed my hair, then pulled back in surprise. “You showered?”
I looked up at his bruise-free face. “You healed.”
There were pools of fear and sadness in his eyes. “I left you alone.”
I touched his face gently. “No, you didn’t. You slept. There’s a difference.”
Goodbye
The gash across Ringo’s arm was deep. Elizabeth insisted on stitching it herself, but he made her wait until I could pack it with green medicine before she used her perfect embroidery skills to close his skin. He was pale and his eyes looked too big for his face. I held his hand while Archer assisted Elizabeth in her surgery.
“Milady told me about Tom.” Ringo searched my face, but the anguish was already turning into something fierce and determined.
Archer’s concentration didn’t waver as he tied a knot in the thread of the needle Elizabeth handed him. “We know Wilder’s plan now. And he’ll try it again.”
Elizabeth’s head shot up, her eyes wide with worry, but I shook my head.
“He won’t come back here. You know too much, and now he has his Seer. The only thing left is a Shifter.”
&n
bsp; There was a knock on Elizabeth’s door and we froze. Archer signaled that we should retreat into the shadows of Ringo’s chamber. Elizabeth left the room to answer her door, wiping Ringo’s blood off her hands with a strip of linen bandage.
We listened in silence.
Courtney swept into the room. “There was naught in the Tower, Milady. But Lord Brydges would speak with you.” There were two people with her. I couldn’t see them, but I recognized Lord Brydges’ voice.
“My Lady Elizabeth, it is my sincerest wish that you accept my apology for the lateness of the hour, especially as this has no doubt been a most trying day.” He sounded uncertain. He should. His indecision could have cost Elizabeth her life.
Her voice was clear and confident. “You are forgiven, Milord.”
He hesitated a moment, and I knew he got the double meaning of her words. His voice caught, he cleared it, and I could tell her forgiveness mattered to him. “Thank you, Milady.” He cleared his throat again. “First, a small matter. My Warders found a Wyatt pup on the green. He was huddled over his brother and wouldn’t leave him. I won’t clap him in irons, even I have my limits. I thought perhaps …?”
My heart stopped. Pancho.
“I find myself in need of a new taster, Lord Brydges. Please see that he is cleaned up and brought to Courtney.”
The air surged back into my lungs. Elizabeth would see that he was safe. I could feel Archer and Ringo breathe again behind me and realized Pancho had found a place in all our hearts.
“Very well, Milady.” Lord Brydges paused before he continued speaking. He was more nervous than before. “Her majesty the queen has sent her Mistress of the Robes to you with a message. Lady Elizabeth, may I present Lady Valerie Grayson.”
Grayson. Henry Grayson’s mother?
“Thank you, Lord Brydges. Please wait outside.”
If he was surprised at being dismissed he gave no indication. I could practically hear the bow. “Ladies.” The door to the chamber opened and then closed softly behind him.
A few seconds later, Courtney opened the door to Ringo’s rooms and whispered quietly to us, “Lady Grayson would like a word with Saira.”