She helped him to the one chair in her room and handed him a cloth from the dressing table. Her heart didn’t want to ask what had happened. At this point she was fearful of the worst, almost expecting it.
His tears refused to subside and she knelt down, gripping the arm of the chair. “What about Gloria?” she finally asked.
“She’s sick.”
“Thank goodness,” Ariana breathed, hurriedly correcting herself when his sobs increased. “I mean, I thought you were going to say…”
“No one can do a thing for her. It came on suddenly, like a fit. Nothing like that has ever happened before. You’re our best healer, you know you are. Everyone else has tried. She just lies there breathing but can’t move or speak or open her eyes. I know about your house here, I learned it as soon as I landed. I know you have other things weighing heavily, but please come back and help her.”
“Of course I’ll come and do what I can,” she said.
She was proficient at healing spells but Gloria wasn’t young, even though she seemed as healthy and strong as an ox most days. She barely saw the woman sitting, let alone lying helplessly. As if he were in the same room as them, she heard Cousin Dexter’s voice warning her about how Nick had murdered her. Or was going to murder her. It made her head pound.
“Nick’s on his way to Italy,” she said, answering the voice only she heard.
Milo mopped his face with the cloth and nodded, still choking a bit on his tears. “He’d be no help anyway,” he answered bitterly. “You’re the one we need right now. Please, Ariana, we must hurry.”
It was the fact he didn’t call her Your Majesty, or Lady, or any other ridiculous title that decided her. Milo and Gloria were the first witches she’d met when she went looking for others. They were the ones who’d been with her since she’d started her grand plan for a coven. They knew her. Knew she wouldn’t let them down.
“Yes, we can leave right away. I just need to tell my friends.”
An idea bloomed in her mind like a perfect rose. She’d bring them with her. Surely someone amongst her powerful crew would know what to do about Maria. If they could fix her and return her to her family, perhaps have Milo do one of his famous memory spells on them, that would be one major problem solved. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it immediately instead of agreeing to follow them up to Scotland with their tails between their legs. At least Owen wouldn’t be skinned for what happened to Maria. He’d be so grateful if she could fix that for him. They could get back to normal, whatever that might be.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I popped us round to Gloria at the mansion, then pop you right back here?” he asked. His tears were gone, but he still looked worried. “I can do it quick as a wink.”
She frowned at him, shaking her head, already heading toward the door to inform Owen and Maria that they needed to get ready to leave again in a hurry.
“You know the quick spells don’t work on me, and besides, I need them to come with us. There’s a, er, problem that I need the others to help me sort once I see about Gloria.”
He grimaced and grabbed her arm. “I’ve got a new quick spell. Just cobbled it together with Jordie. Should work on even the most stubborn folk.”
“Well, all right, but let me get Owen and Maria first. You can try it on all of us, but I tell you we’d use this time better to gather a carriage to get us back to the mansion, then back to our time from there.”
His grip on her arm tightened and what had been worry and fear now looked like anger on his face. He reached out his finger to her forehead.
“Please, Your Majesty. This is how it has to be.”
He pressed the tip of his finger to her brow. Before she could argue or pull away, a sharp pain shot through her head and down her spine. She didn’t feel her eyes close, but everything went black.
Chapter 16
Ashford closed his eyes and tried not to flinch against his beloved Matilda’s shriek. She so very rarely made such a noise and as much as he hated it, he knew she had every reason to be leveling all her wrath at him. He put his hands soothingly on her shoulders, which he knew was a bad idea, but truly wanted to soothe her.
He felt lucky she only jerked away and didn’t throw the old crystal lamp she was eyeing at him. Just in case, he moved between her and the lamp. With wild eyes, she repeated her question.
“Ashford, say it again, because I’m sure I couldn’t have heard you right. What did you do?”
A wave of exhaustion made him sit in the nearest chair, even though it made him look like he wasn’t taking the situation seriously. All he wanted was to get back to trying to locate Ariana. He should have kept his mouth shut until… he shuddered, afraid to think where things might lead. He prayed things couldn’t get worse. But he hadn’t kept his mouth shut and now he had to pay the price for that.
“I burned down the house.”
“Belmary House,” she said. “That house.”
“Well, not this one, darling.” He regretted it instantly and held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Burning down our home or being a jackass about it?” Tears glittered in her eyes but he could see they were from rage.
He wasn’t proud of it but he was relieved to see something there other than desolation. For a moment he was glad he’d confessed.
“Both, I suppose. Listen, Matilda. It had to be done. Nothing we cared about was left behind, no one was in it. And now the curse is finally ended.”
He’d doused the place from top to bottom in oil and used up the sticks of dynamite he’d swiped from a trip to the early twentieth century years before and had kept hidden all this time. It had to be enough to send that malevolent curse straight to hell where it most likely originated from. He hoped.
“Nothing we cared about? I cared about the actual house! I loved that place. It was my home. And what about the servants? That was their home, too. And their livelihood.”
“The servants have been well taken care of and I made sure no one would be around when I…” He didn’t think he should elaborate too much at the moment, but felt oddly offended that she thought he wouldn’t care for his servants. He’d known some of them since he was a child.
She turned away, too angry to look at him, then quickly whirled back around. “What if Ariana needed the portal to get home?”
He tried to hide the shiver of fear that ran up his spine. He’d thought of that, certainly. “All their notes in the book led me to believe she was using a spell, not the portal,” he said.
Once again, he hoped it was true. His overwhelming desire to be free of his family's long curse might have clouded his judgment a tad.
“What if this ruins something in the future? For us? What if I don’t meet you because Belmary House isn’t there in my time?”
In truth, that hadn’t occurred to him and his heart nearly jumped into his throat. But it just as soon eased its furious beating because they clearly had met. She was right in front of him. Tapping her foot and looking like she wanted to set him on fire, but she was there. Nothing had changed for them.
“We obviously have met,” he said, trying not to sound too satisfied about it. “It must be one of those paradoxes old Liam was always on about.”
Before she could come at him with more sound arguments and deserved fury, Kostya came into the room.
“You couldn’t knock?” Matilda huffed at the same time Ashford said, “Thank God.”
Hurt mingled with her outrage and he wanted to hold her and apologize more sincerely but he simply couldn’t right now. He had a plan he needed to put into action as soon as possible.
“I did knock,” Kostya said. “What’s wrong, Tilly?”
She gripped her skirts in her fists, probably to keep from hitting him with Kostya as a witness. “Have Lord Assford tell you.” She pushed her way past Kostya, slamming the door behind her on her way out.
“Did she just call you—”
“She’s rightfully angry with me. I bu
rned down the London house.” Ashford moved to his spot at his desk, picking up where he left off in his attempt to craft a new spell.
“Belmary House?”
Ashford looked up from his notes. Kostya gaped at him. “How many houses in London do I have?” He waved him into a chair on the other side of his desk. “It’s not important right now. What news do you have for me? Good?”
It took a few seconds for Kostya to compose himself. It was clear he had a thousand questions about the house. Ashford didn’t have a single regret about setting the bloody thing aflame. He only wished everyone else could see it was the only way.
Kostya didn’t see, that was certain. He leaned across the desk to peer into Ashford’s eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”
He decided not to waste time trying to defend his sanity and gave his oldest friend his most ruthless glare. “Were you able to see her or not? I just about have this spell ready.”
Kostya sighed long and hard before giving in. “I don’t believe scrying is my specialty by any means. I tried a dish of water, a bucket, the lake, the river, and a puddle. I tried every spell I came across in the book that didn’t involve killing something— no, I’m not going to use those so get that look off your face.”
“Not a hint of her, then?”
“No. Nothing of Nicholas Kerr, either. I’m very sorry, Julian.”
Ashford swept his gaze over the spell he’d been working on. It would have to do.
“Plan B, then.” He stood up, nodding dismissively toward the door.
Kostya refused to be dismissed. “Well, I know Plan A was to go after Ariana if I could scry a year or a location. But what is Plan B?”
After rustling his papers impatiently and opening and shutting the desk drawers and Kostya still hadn’t left the room, Ashford gave in. “Not a word to Matilda.”
“I can’t promise that. Especially not with the way you’re flailing about. It’s quite worrisome.”
Ashford stilled his hands and sat back down. “Then go and look through the book again for more scrying spells your tender heart can handle casting. I no longer need your help.”
“I’m going to forgive you in advance for this behavior because I know how worried you are about Ariana.”
Ah, he was being a jackass, taking out his frustrations on his loved ones. Next he’d be snapping at the boys. He’d never once felt so helpless and he’d been in some fairly bleak situations in his life. None so bleak as the thought of losing his precious only daughter.
He slammed his fist into the top of his desk, then put his head in his hands, ignoring the throbbing in his knuckles. No pain was worse than the constant stabbing fear that he might have lost Ariana forever. Or the knowledge that it was his fault.
“I’m going after Nick,” he finally confessed. He knew Kostya wouldn’t leave the room or his side until he did.
“But I wasn’t able to locate him, either,” Kostya reminded him.
“I know exactly where and when to find him.” He lowered his hands and stared at Kostya, daring him to try to stop him.
“You don’t mean to try and go back to before Ariana was born? To your own timeline?”
“That’s exactly what I mean to do. And I mean to succeed.”
He didn’t need Kostya to tell him how dangerous it was. He had never before ventured into his own past. If he came too close to his earlier self, he could become gravely ill or accidentally change something that might ruin things for him in his future.
“You’re going to murder him?” he asked incredulously.
Ashford didn’t want to think of himself as a cold-blooded killer. Technically, by returning to a point before Nick was ever able to meet Ariana, the man was still innocent. It was why he hadn’t gone back and torn him to shreds before. Matilda hadn’t wanted him to lose his soul by killing an innocent man. But he’d been to a future that showed Nick was as guilty as sin. If only he hadn’t balked back then, everything would be fine. Ariana would probably be engaged to some young member of London society. Matilda would be happily planning the wedding.
They never would have had to spend all those years lying and covering up the past and trying to change the future. Surely that was worth his soul?
“I have to make this right,” he said raggedly. “It’s all my fault that it’s happening.”
Kostya pulled his chair closer to the desk and reached across it, gripping his hand. Kostya’s own hand was like ice. He was as frightened as anyone. His own child was out there somewhere practicing magic, going down a road that had no end and could never be turned back from. They had been fools to think otherwise when they tried to give it up.
“It isn’t your fault at all,” Kostya argued, looking grim. “How could it be? If you’d killed Nick back then, you wouldn’t have a daughter, or any children. At least not with Tilly, because she would have been so horrified by you she would have gone back to her own time for good. Sometimes… sometimes bad things just happen, no matter what we do.”
“You’re wrong. My mind is made up.” He gripped the paper with his spell on it. “I’ll leave at once. Try and come after me at your own peril.”
Kostya’s grim look turned to one of utter sadness. “What if it’s already too late, my friend?”
The paper crumpled in his hand. “Then it shall be retribution.”
“Do you hear yourself? This isn’t you, Julian. I’ve known you since we were children. You’re not a killer. Not this way. We’ll keep looking, we’ll keep waiting. But don’t you remember all those years ago when we agreed to let things happen as they may, without our wicked and unnatural meddling?”
Ashford turned and slammed his fist into the wall, feeling as out of control as he was acting. “You can never understand this, Kostya.”
Kostya hissed and stood so fast his chair teetered backward. He pointed out the window, toward the hill where his own daughter was buried. Ashford’s beloved niece Lucy, cut down by bad luck or Kostya’s curse, they’d never know, but gone nonetheless at only age eight.
“Do you forget I understand completely what it’s like to lose a daughter?”
Abashed, Ashford turned and shook his head. “I’m sorry. But I must do this. For Ariana, for Matilda. For myself. It’s the only way. I’m going mad here—”
“We all feel that way. Helpless and unsure. But Ariana is capable and you did so much to change things. We have to trust she’s merely off gallivanting in another time, perfectly safe and nowhere near Nick Kerr.”
“I can’t—”
“Promise me you’ll go and get some sleep right now. I’ll continue scrying. I’ll kill one of the chickens and do some of the blood spells. Get some sleep and we’ll speak more about this when you’re rested.”
Ashford stared at his oldest friend for a long while, sorry he’d confessed his plan. Kostya would keep chipping away at him with arguments and run to Matilda when he refused to acquiesce. But he knew this was the only way to be free of this threat forever. He looked down at the floor, knowing he couldn’t lie to his face.
“I’ll get some sleep,” he said, brushing past him on the way out. He headed upstairs as if he were going to his bedroom.
At least he’d have a few hours head start.
Chapter 17
Owen woke with a start, not sure where he was. The surroundings were the nicest he’d been in for a long while and for the briefest moment he snuggled down under the covers. A slight rustle made him stick his head out from under his pillow and he saw Maria sitting in the room’s only chair, staring past him.
He didn’t bother turning to see what she was looking at. For all he knew, she was asleep with her eyes open. Since they’d been reunited, he hadn’t once seen her actually lie down and go to sleep. Even though she looked more and more haggard every day, she had boundless energy. He didn’t think it was good for Maria. Real Maria.
“You need to eat a proper breakfast,” he said, sitting up. “Sausages, bread, the whole lot. I don’t think you�
�re taking very good care of… yourself.”
She smirked. “Ariana’s gone.”
It all came rushing back to him at once and he was suddenly wide awake. They’d found Ariana. Everything was finally going to be all right. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
He threw on his clothes. He’d given up being modest around her. She simply didn’t care and refused to leave his side long enough to give him much privacy. He could barely slip behind a tree when they were out on the road. He’d had to put his foot down when they were on the ship so she’d leave him in peace for five seconds with a chamber pot.
“She’s not in her room.”
“Ah, well, she’s probably arranging horses or a carriage for the trip.” He hoped it was a carriage. A plush one. He was done with roughing it.
Maria shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. Her bed wasn’t slept in. The door was unlocked so I looked,” she said before he could ask how she knew that.
That was odd. She’d been as exhausted as he was, plus had the added trauma of finding out her home was ashes and splinters. And why would the door be unlocked? A tiny claw of fear hooked into him but he ignored it.
“She probably just went down to get something to eat. She didn’t have anything with her so probably didn’t think it was important to lock her room.” He couldn’t explain away the bed not being slept in. He knew Ariana wouldn’t have made it up herself. She didn’t do that at home, why would she at an inn? “Let’s go check.”
With another shrug, Maria followed him down to the common area, through the dining room, finally going into the kitchen and getting tossed back out into the main hall. He approached the man who stood behind a long desk, swiping papers around and generally looking like he worked there. He pulled Maria close to him.
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