The Isis Knot

by Hanna Martine

Jem was saying something to Elizabeth, but his meek protests were lost to the volume of her wails and the way she backed him against a wall, pummeling his chest and arms.

  “Where would she be?” Elizabeth screeched.

  She.

  “I told you. She doesn’t want you,” Sera said.

  “But why would he do that? I thought things had gotten better.”

  Her face was grim. “He wants me away from you, and he was willing to give me up to Elizabeth to do that. He wouldn’t have to know who she is or what she wants. He probably doesn’t even care, only that you and I are separated.”

  Frustration boiled up. “But he knows how important you are to me. Hurt you and he hurts me.”

  There was great apology and heartbreak in her eyes. “But I hurt him first. I said something to him earlier…”

  “What? What did you say?”

  She licked her lips, rolled them together, then looked him straight in the eye. “I asked if he loved you. He got very angry with me. But he didn’t deny it.”

  William sagged heavily against the wall.

  “You had to have known,” she added quietly. “You had to have at least suspected it.”

  He sighed deeply and again looked down into the courtyard. Elizabeth was in Jem’s face, shaking a finger like he was a child. Which he still was, to a certain extent. And William had been the older, stronger man who’d saved him, given him a chance, presented him with a sliver of life.

  “Perhaps I did,” he murmured.

  And perhaps he should have paid more attention to it, to the hurt in Jem’s eyes when Sera had joined them, and the way he’d continually tried to place himself between them. Jealousy was a terrible, powerful driving force, and William had been too lost in his own directive, too lost in Sera and his Spectre, to give Jem’s emotions the credence they deserved. Not because the lad deserved coddling, but because at least William should have been more aware and more intelligent about what could happen.

  He tried to feel sorry for Jem right now, but found his pity weak and lacking. That madwoman had tried to kill Sera and had shot him…and now Jem had betrayed his only friend and ally to her. Bitterness created a sour taste in William’s mouth.

  The Waldgraves’ door opened, throwing the tanner into light as he stormed out. He waved his arms, shooing Elizabeth and Jem away, and shouting something about the constables.

  “I want to get closer,” William said. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

  Sera was already on her feet. “Be careful. I heard that part about the constables.”

  He nodded, took her hand, and led her out of the half-finished house. They snuck quietly down the steps, taking new refuge behind a tenement just one level up from the courtyard. Now he could see for himself the crazed swim of Elizabeth’s eyes and the fearful disappointment in Jem’s. The latter made no sense—why on earth would Jem be disappointed in failing her?

  “I’m sorry, Lizzie,” Jem kept saying. “I’m sorry. I tried. I really did.”

  He was apologizing. To her. And he’d called her Lizzie.

  “Where are they? Where would they go?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Jem whimpered. “I truly don’t know. They stay here.”

  “You’re no help to me, James. No help at all.”

  William was still holding Sera’s hand and she gave him a tight squeeze.

  Two constables veered around the corner, paused at the sound of the commotion, then hurried into the courtyard. Their voices were too low to be heard beneath Elizabeth’s bellowing.

  When she saw the constables, panic flashed briefly across her face, only to be replaced by calculation and bitterness. Her bony finger thrust into Jem’s chest. “This one’s a bolter!”

  “Lizzie…” Jem exhaled, his massive eyes widening in disbelief.

  “A bolter, he is,” Elizabeth went on. “Good for nothing but running. Goes by the name of Jem.”

  The constables exchanged a knowing look and William’s gut flipped. They edged closer.

  “Where’s your friend?” one of them asked. “The one with the yellow hair and the quick fists.”

  Sera pressed closer to William, her fear palpable.

  Jem held up his hands. “I don’t know. I swear.”

  One constable reached for Jem. Elizabeth gleefully stepped back, allowing him access. The constable wrenched Jem away from the wall, and even though the lad tried to fight, it was a pitiful effort and the constable soon had him subdued. The other uniform tied Jem’s wrists behind his back with rope, then pulled him to his feet.

  “Who are you?” one constable asked Elizabeth.

  She fanned a hand in front of her face, as though she’d been the one to have been attacked. “Wife of an emancipist, sir. Heading home.”

  “This was my fault,” Sera murmured. “If I hadn’t—”

  “Don’t.” William’s throat tightened. “This was his own doing.”

  The constables pushed Jem out of the courtyard, his shoulders curved forward and down, his head nearly parallel to the ground, his feet shuffling over the dirt. Elizabeth taunted him until he disappeared.

  “Where will they take him?” Sera asked.

  “Hyde Park Barracks, likely.”

  “Will they…?”

  After a moment he nodded. “I would imagine so. Bolting means hanging.”

  “You know, we have a saying in my time. ‘If you make your own bed, you have to lie in it.’”

  He glanced at the sky, considering that. “Your time sounds wise.”

  She clamped the fingers of one hand around his arm and pointed with the other. Elizabeth’s skirts flittered around the corner and out of sight.

  “The rings,” she gasped.

  William blinked. “The rings?”

  She spoke quickly, almost too quickly for him to follow. “Those rings Tuthotsut wore, the ones with Seth’s image. I know them. Well, one of them. Malik Elsayed was wearing one when I met him, when he made me go into the cave. I didn’t put two and two together until now. And when Elizabeth attacked me she was screaming about some ring.”

  William jumped to his feet. “Bloody hell. She’s Seth. The ka inside Tuthotsut—”

  “Where are you going? The constables just left. There could be more nearby.”

  “I’m going after Elizabeth. Now we both want information.”

  She grabbed his hands, held him steady. “You’ve got to be careful.”

  “I will. I promise.” The depth in her dark eyes made him want to remain by her side, but anger and desperation drove him elsewhere. “Meet me at Fort Philip. When I’ve got her, I’ll bring her there.”

  She threw herself at him, wrapping one arm around his neck and kissing him, hard and brief. “Don’t let her get away.”

  He loved the iron-strong glint in her eye, the confident set to her jaw, the way her narrow shoulders pressed back with certainty and confidence in him. It enhanced her unconventional beauty. It differentiated her from every other woman on Earth or in the heavens, in the past, present, or future. He loved how she trusted him.

  He loved her.

  “I won’t.” He darted into the Rocks, on the hunt.

  #

  Sera watched William bound down the staircase on bare feet and slink after Elizabeth, who had sidled out of sight.

  Worry rose up like a ball in her throat. She kept seeing those constables take Jem away. She kept hearing them call him a “bolter,” and then asking specifically for William because he was one, too.

  And now William had run off in their very direction.

  He would find Elizabeth and get her to Fort Philip without anyone knowing. Sera had to believe this, or else the sense of loss swiftly eating at her mind would take over.

  Fort Philip stood on the bluff behind the Rocks. Once she went there, she couldn’t ever come back to Waldgrave’s room, because who knows what Elizabeth had told other people? Or if the constables would return? Or if Waldgrave himself would sell out his tenants?<
br />
  Sera ran down the steps into the courtyard. It was clear of shadows and quiet of voices, so she slipped into the hidden room. It had never been theirs, truly, but there in the corner was the set of blankets she and William had covered themselves with, staring at each other over the ragged hems deep into the night. And there was the paper and ink and quill Jem had used to teach William letters.

  She quickly grabbed what little food was left behind and a water skin, and then turned to leave for the last time. The table caught her eye again and she gave it a long look. It was difficult to think about Jem now. He’d been so skeptical of and harsh with her at first, and then when she’d figured out his secret he’d managed to make her pity him, and then he’d gone and betrayed the one person he supposedly loved, all to get back at her. He was a sad creature, made sadder by this awful night.

  A small part of her felt sorry for him.

  She knew that even in his anger, William, deep down, was also saddened by Jem’s actions. She suspected that William would even let part of himself think that he’d failed the boy somehow. But, as she’d told him, Jem had made his own bed.

  She clutched the food and belongings to her chest and shut the door behind her for the last time. It felt so final, so scary. She climbed the stairs again, stopping at the unfinished house at the top to retrieve William’s boots and slip on her own, and then headed straight into the unsettled darkness that surrounded Fort Philip.

  Walking alone through New South Wales, heading away from the dirty, ugly Sydney civilization, she had never felt so alone or out of her element. She had never felt the time shift between her past and her present more profoundly.

  Up ahead rose the incomplete Fort Philip. One of the papers Jem had read to William told of how Macquarie had halted the fort’s construction since he believed the colony’s earlier unrest to be over, and that it wasn’t needed. The three completed walls faced the Rocks and the rest of Sydney. The guns had been removed, but she could tell where they had once sat.

  With a shudder, she realized the half-formed walls weren’t ruins. There were no phones out here to use if she was attacked. No 911. No true recourse or punishment for rape. Out here, alone in the black, the centuries between her birth and now were terrifyingly apparent.

  Before, Viv had kept her cocooned in his farm. And then, after her memory had been returned, William had made her feel safe. He’d brought her knowledge about this time and place. He hadn’t ever babied her. He trusted her to learn, to be able to stand on her own, and it was that solid, quiet encouragement and sharing of stories and information that had made her feel more comfortable in this world.

  Now she was alone.

  The fort looked deserted, but she hid herself behind a tree until she knew it for sure. When it was clear there was no one around, she ran across the open space and ducked into one of the roofless rooms. She sat herself against the wall and drew deep breaths, concentrating on remaining calm. Concentrating on not fearing for William’s capture, or his life.

  She closed her eyes, but not to sleep. In her mind’s eye she imagined William at sea. He talked about it so lovingly, and with such frustration over having to have left it too early. He deserved to be on the water again, after all that he’d endured. Maybe one day he would be.

  A smile touched her lips. Her body shivered in sensory recollection. The heat of his mouth on hers, all over her skin. The tender roughness of his hands. The perfect grip and slide of their bodies.

  Her eyes opened. She waited for Ramsesh to intervene, to make Sera doubt what she felt…but the woman was silent. Blissfully silent. Terrifyingly silent.

  Because now that Sera could claim no other influence over her emotions, William’s presence inside her was rising and rising, becoming all consuming.

  No. She would not love him. She could not love him.

  She had just managed to separate Ramsesh from herself; it was impossible for her, Sera, to love someone so quickly. If she loved him, it would only be harder once they were apart. Sitting here alone, just a short distance from William, was already difficult enough. What if—

  Sera choked, one hand going to her throat.

  What if she was sent back? What if Isis—because that was who she now knew was pulling the strings—had brought her and William together, giving Ramsesh and Amonteh their long overdue reunion, only to whisk Sera away again?

  She didn’t know what disturbed her more: the possibility of that happening, or the fact that she wasn’t so sure she even wanted to go home again.

  Wrapping her arms around her shins, she lowered her forehead to her knees and focused on breathing. Something her therapist had taught her what felt like ages ago, how breathing was vital to calming a mind and helping you dissipate all the things that weighed on you. So she breathed. And breathed. And breathed.

  When the whistle sounded, floating through the night, she lifted her head with a gasp. She’d fallen asleep. And that was no birdcall.

  She scrambled to her feet, wondering if the whistle had been a dream or not. When it came again, she knew it was William. Peeking out of the doorless entry, she saw him coming up the slope of the hill, the intermittent lights of Sydney Town less than a half mile behind him.

  Her heart revved up to a thousand beats a minute. Until she saw what he was dragging behind him, and her heartbeat nearly stopped.

  At the end of a short rope, her wrists bound together, her mouth gagged, stumbled Elizabeth.

  CHAPTER 25

  Elizabeth’s eyes shot bullets of rage, which Sera easily deflected with her own determination and anger and disgust. Elizabeth shouted into the gag and struggled hard against William, but he held on tight, dragging the woman inside the fort. Elizabeth fought and kicked, and he eventually had to pick her up and lay her on the ground. Sitting on her legs, he grabbed the loose end of the rope and twined it around her ankles, hog-tying her. She flopped on her side, her face red from restraint, her stare spearing into Sera.

  He stepped back and his hands were shaking. He’d fight a willing man to a bloody pulp and take pleasure from it, but restraining a woman—no matter how crazy and dangerous she might be—seemed to bother him greatly.

  At last he swiveled to Sera, and she fell into his arms. He took her face in his hands and kissed her with ferocity, as though they’d been apart for days or weeks or centuries, not most of the night. The low groan in his chest sounded like music.

  Don’t love him, she warned herself. Whatever you do, don’t love him.

  As though he’d heard her, he pulled away and glared at Elizabeth.

  Sera pointed to the large ring on Elizabeth’s thumb. “That ring…is it…” She didn’t want to get any closer.

  He crouched down and reached for Elizabeth’s hands. Now she really fought, bucking against the ropes and his tight grip on her wrists. The gag soaked up her hoarse cries. William pried her thumb straight and yanked off the ring. As he straightened, a visible shiver made its way through his body. His eyelids flipped up and he pinned Sera with a dark stare.

  “It’s the same one Tuthotsut wore. It’s Seth’s.”

  On the ground, Elizabeth stiffened at the mention of that second name.

  “Are you him?” Sera edged a little bit closer. “Are you Seth?”

  Unmistakable confusion wrinkled Elizabeth’s brow and she shook her head vehemently.

  William held up the ring between two fingers. “How did you get this then?”

  Elizabeth moaned something into the gag, tears filling her bloodshot eyes and rolling over the lids, making streaks across her dirty face.

  Sera motioned for William to remove the gag, and he tugged it off, letting it dangle beneath her chin.

  “Morrrrrre,” came Elizabeth’s wail. “More, more, more, morrrrrrre…”

  Something inside Sera stirred and twitched and recoiled. Something different from Ramsesh.

  It was Isis herself. She wanted Sera to run, but Sera couldn’t. Not when another piece of the puzzle was sitting right in
front of her. Elizabeth might not hold Seth’s ka, but the god had touched her in some way and she wore his ring. His taint was lathered thick upon her soul.

  “More what?” Sera asked.

  Elizabeth continued to moan the same word, the tears coming out in buckets.

  “More what?” Sera crossed her arms, the motion pulling back on her sleeve. A sliver of gold flashed in the dark room.

  Elizabeth saw it and the tears immediately stopped, a look of vile purpose consuming her face. Oh, this one was a master, a real pro, when it came to conning and manipulation. And Sera should know.

  “William,” Sera said calmly, turning to him, “go throw the ring in the harbor.”

  He played along perfectly. “Gladly.” He wrapped his fingers around the ring and pivoted to exit the fort.

  “No!” shouted Elizabeth.

  “Why not?” Sera spun back to her. “What is it to you? Who gave it to you?” And when Elizabeth still didn’t answer, she jerked a hand to William, who obediently started to leave again.

  “Moore gave it to me!” shrieked Elizabeth. “Mr. Moore. Ages ago. When I was a girl.” Her chest heaved. Spilling all that had stolen her breath.

  He slowly stepped back into the room. “Who is Mr. Moore?”

  Elizabeth blinked up at him, then her lip curled. “You said you knew him. You said his name. Seth Moore.”

  Sera concentrated hard to keep her face like concrete, to betray nothing.

  Elizabeth wasn’t Seth. But Mr. Moore was.

  Seth’s ka, as Amonteh had surmised in the dark of that cave two millennia ago, had skipped from body to body over the ages. He’d been Malik Elsayed in the early twenty-first century—she’d seen the proof on his finger and had felt the presence of the god when she’d stepped out of that cave.

  He was Seth Moore in 1819 England.

  She turned back to Elizabeth. “Why did Moore give you this ring?”

  Elizabeth made a show of pressing her lips tightly together. But her eyes flicked ever so slightly to the narrow stripe of gold peeking out from underneath Sera’s sleeve. Interesting.

  She fingered the cloth and nudged it back even more. “Did it have something to do with this?”