by C. L. Wilson
The tree came back into focus and he scowled. Who even cared? They’d soon be parting ways whether they liked it or not.
“Tell me about some of these ornaments,” he said, to distract them both from the countdown. He rose to his feet and stepped closer to inspect the tree. “What’s with the squirrel and other animals?”
“The hunting dog and the wolf pups belonged to my cousins. As for the birds . . .” She joined him next to the tree. “You recall that I mentioned once spying a nest of sparrows atop the roof? Occasionally, a bird finds its way down a chimney. I have no way to set them free, so on the morrow a new figurine appears upon the tree. Same with the squirrel. Animal or human, once you’re in, there’s no way out.”
He considered the lifeless ornaments. They didn’t fill him with Christmas cheer. He tried not to focus on what it meant for him. “The bird over there by the bishop looks more like a parrot than a sparrow. Was this area known for its parrot population before modern technology came along and ruined everything?”
“No,” she said with a sad little smile. “Hildegard was a birthday gift when I turned sixteen. I kept her in a golden cage.” She closed her eyes as if in pain. “I’ll never do that again.”
He hugged her tight. “You didn’t know.”
She made no answer. Her face was buried in his shirt.
He reached over her shoulder to straighten what looked like a samurai ornament. Had explorers really come all the way from Japan?
The moment his fingertips touched the figurine, a bolt of electricity blazed through his arm and shot him halfway across the room.
He ended up on his back in the middle of the room with the wind knocked out of him, arms and legs at all angles and his shoulder throbbing like the devil.
“What. The hell. Was that?”
Marigold picked herself up from where she’d fallen. “I told you not to touch them.”
“You didn’t say they would attack me!”
“’Tis the curse. The figurines mayn’t be handled.” She shivered at some old memory. “’Twas part of my torture. That first night, I tried to take my parents back to my chamber so they could watch o’er me as I slept. I ended up four paws to the heavens, every muscle aflame. Just as you did.”
“Good Lord.” He tried to shake the burning sensation from his shocked-stiff arm. Failing that, he pushed to his knees and half-crawled back to the blanket. He left the tree alone. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again.
Marigold glanced over at the mechanical clock on the far wall.
He flopped onto his back and stretched his sore muscles. “How we doing on time?”
“Half eleven.”
Thirty minutes? He sat up fast enough to make his head spin and swung his head toward the clock. Thirty minutes wasn’t nearly enough time. Even as he watched, the hour hand slipped a little closer to midnight. He frowned. Actually, there was only an hour hand. Had minute hands not been invented yet in her world? How did anybody get anywhere on time if they couldn’t be more specific than on the hour? Did the concept of being on time even exist? Maybe they—
He clapped his palm over his face. Focus. This wasn’t the moment to channel Curious George. This was the moment to channel Houdini. What Lance needed was a quite literal eleventh-hour plan to save his life.
He yanked his belongings into his lap and began to go through each loop and pocket. The flame swords had already proven their uselessness against the curse. His rope and spare grappling hook would only come in handy once they were actually outside of the castle. Gloves, flares, blanket, snowshoes, spellbook . . .
Spellbook?
He pushed everything else out of his lap. At the time, he’d considered the spellbook to be the least useful of the all items Sancho had given him. But now that he had the suspicion the only way to fight magic was with magic, a spellbook seemed like just the ticket. He opened the leather cover to the title page and read:
BARTLETT’S COMPENDIUM
OF QUOTES & CURSES
Not a spellbook. A compendium of quotes and curses. No remedies.
He slammed the cover shut. After counting to ten, he reopened it. And heaved a dramatic sigh.
“Gracias, cabrón,” he muttered under his breath. Figured. It had probably been too much to hope for a “How to Escape an Inescapable Prison” spell.
He flipped to the first page and began to read.
“Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
— Benjamin Franklin
There. That was helpful. He slammed the book back shut with a growl. If he got out of there alive, his first step would be to kick Sancho’s ass.
“A book!” Marigold snuggled up beside him. “I didn’t know you had this. What is it about?”
“Quotes,” he said morosely. “And curses.”
“May I see?”
“You can have it.”
He went back to rummaging through his supplies. No ideas struck him. His sword and scabbard were unlikely to succeed where the flame swords had failed. His quiver of arrows was likewise useless. Like the grappling hooks, the night-vision goggles would only be useful outside the castle. And his smartphone was out of battery, which meant he couldn’t even spend his last moments fighting level sixty-two.
He supposed he could ask Marigold to beat it for him, as she’d done the day before, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit defeat. Not even in Candy Crush.
Not even at ten ’til midnight.
“Lance,” she cried suddenly, jabbing a finger in the middle of Bartlett’s Compendium. “I— I— Read this!”
He took the book from her shaking hands. There, in the middle of a thousand other quotes and curses, was:
CASTLE CAVANAUGH
Unbound to man or sands of time,
the golden bloom in darkness lies.
Forever caged in ice and snow,
until held fast while letting go.
“’Tis me.” She reached over him to jab her finger at the page some more. “Castle Cavanaugh! Golden bloom! Me!”
Holy shit. It was her. He read the stanza again. No brilliant solutions occurred to him. “But what does it mean?”
Her hand stopped jabbing at the verse and fell back into her lap. “I’ve no idea.”
He stared at the words some more. “The first part is obvious. You belong to no one, and you’re unaffected by time. That’s what gave rise to the mythical Golden Bloom of Eternal Youth. ‘Forever caged in ice and snow’ is the rest of the curse. The last line must be the clue.”
“How is it a clue?” She slammed her fists in her lap in frustration. “Holding fast and letting go are opposites. Besides, I’ve nothing to hold on to. I can’t touch my parents without flying across the chamber, and anything I do during the course of the day becomes undone upon the morrow. Since I cannot open the door, I cannot even save sparrows that tumble down the chimney, much less save myself. If I cannot let go of an innocent sparrow, how in Zeus’s name am I to—”
The clock struck twelve.
Marigold paled and clapped a hand over her mouth as if she might vomit.
Lance felt exactly the same. He struggled to his feet anyway.
The second bell rang out.
“Lance, I . . . I . . .” Eyes glassy, she glanced away, refusing to meet his gaze.
He was glad. He didn’t want his last memory to be of her tears.
The third bell rang.
To his horror, the figurines upon the tree began to glow.
He picked up the book of quotations and threw it across the room.
The fourth bell rang.
“There’s not much time,” she blurted out. “The castle resets between first bell and twelfth bell, and I wish for you to know that—”
Something clicked inside his brain. He dropped to his knees and began scrounging through his scattered belongings.
The fifth bell rang.
He leapt to his feet, flame sword in hand, and aimed for the wall of ice behind the tree.
&nbs
p; “Lance? What are you doing?”
The sixth bell rang.
He depressed the trigger.
An unearthly boom echoed through the cavernous chamber as a brain-deadening flash of blinding light enveloped the room.
The seventh bell rang.
He blinked his eyes back into focus.
An icy breeze enveloped them from a spherical hole punched in the middle of the exterior wall.
The eighth bell rang.
“Come on!” He grabbed Marigold by the arm and dragged her toward the three-foot hole.
The ninth bell rang.
“Wait! It could be a trap!” She scooped a loaf of bread up off the blanket and hurled it out into the snow.
The tenth bell rang.
The sphere was already shrinking, the hole much too small now to fit a grown man, much less both of them.
The eleventh bell rang.
The figurines upon the tree stopped glowing. The wall of ice was solid. His fingers still clasped with Marigold’s.
The twelfth bell rang.
Lance’s heart rattled as stillness resumed. Speechless, he turned to Marigold. They stared at each other in wonder. He was still alive.
He was still alive.
CHAPTER TEN
No matter how hard Lance tried to sleep, dreams eluded him. He was too wound up from the events of the evening. The trepidation, the adrenaline, the flood of relief . . . And what they’d learned! The curse was not invincible. Granted, the flame sword’s damage had only lasted for a second, but if they used them in tandem and took nothing else with them, there should be time and space for the both of them to leap through to the other side.
Twenty-four hours. They need only wait twenty-four more hours—No! By now there were less than twenty—until they would both be set free. How was he supposed to sleep before a day like that?
At the first rays of sunlight, he shot out of bed. Well, off of the dais. He’d forced Marigold to take her bedroom so she could get some sleep, since all he was going to be doing was tossing and turning all night. Once they were outta here, that would be the time to start thinking about how they intended to spend future nights. If he managed to pay off his bounty in time.
He cleaned up in a basin of soap and water, then fished his smartphone out of his pocket. Seventy percent battery life. Everything had reset exactly on schedule. In nineteen hours, he and Marigold would Jedi their way out of the castle and into the sunset.
Well, not sunset. It would be midnight and freezing cold, so the plan wasn’t one hundred percent foolproof. But still! He’d far rather battle the elements than a medieval curse. He was an adventurer. He was prepared for elements.
He exited the sitting room and almost crashed into Marigold in the hallway. Barely five o’clock, and she was up, dressed, and fresh as a daisy. Or as a marigold.
He offered her his arm. “Sleep well?”
“Are you jesting?”
He laughed exultantly. “Tonight, baby! I told you I’d get us out of here! Make a special note. Lance is always right.”
“You promised it would be the previous night,” she pointed out. “You’re two days late.”
“After six hundred years, you’re going to nitpick a few measly hours? It’s called ‘beach time,’ princess. Once you’ve had a few umbrella drinks, you’ll stop caring about the clock. Or pretty much anything. Tequila has a special way about it.”
He led her into the kitchen. Despite having eaten the night before, he’d been starving for hours—which he belatedly realized was because he had been hungry when he crossed the battlement two days earlier. The castle had reset him to his precise arrival condition.
“I don’t mind eating bread and soup all day today, now that I know it’s the last time it’ll be on the menu for the rest of our lives.” He held the kitchen door open for her. “Starting tomorrow, it’s nothing but pancakes and fried eggs and—”
Marigold came to a sudden halt just inside the door. Alarmed, he leapt around her to ward back whatever danger she had sensed. It took several long seconds before he found the source of her anxiety.
“We’re missing some bread?” he asked.
She nodded, wide-eyed. “’Tis impossible.”
They turned and ran.
Feet skidding on the stones, they raced through the corridors to the crystalline wall on the far side of the solar and peered through the solid ice.
There, in the snow, was the missing loaf of bread.
She latched onto his arm. “A robin is eating it. A robin!”
A wave of relief washed over him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d feared they would escape the castle but not the curse, until he saw the bread still lying there in the snow. Marigold must have had the same fear.
The wool blanket was gone—likely returned to the same spot where he’d found it—as were all the other foodstuffs he’d brought for his makeshift picnic.
His ninja-suit arsenal was still strewn upon the floor. He knelt down on the cold stones to gather the various items and replace them in their correct hooks and pockets. He frowned. Something was wrong. He froze, then checked again.
His stomach soured.
One of the flame swords was definitely lighter than the other.
“What?” Marigold’s voice trembled. “What is it?”
He lifted the heavier one to his nose and sniffed. It smelled vaguely of incense, the sort Sancho always burned at the Pawn & Potion. He lifted the lighter cylinder to his nose, but he didn’t even have to sniff. The stench of burned plastic was already searing his nostrils. His skin went cold.
The flame sword hadn’t reset.
“What is it?” Marigold demanded again, her voice higher this time.
He rose to his feet. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but this was definitely cause for concern. And utter despondency.
“Flame swords,” he said, “are single use.”
She frowned. “So are candy bars. At least, until midnight.”
“Not this time.” He held out the worthless cylinder.
She leapt back as if it were venomous. “It cannot be spent.”
“Like drachma at a strip club, baby.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means . . .” He dropped the cylinder back onto the pile. “Only one of us is getting out of here.”
She paled. He probably did, too.
It would have to be her, he realized immediately. There could be no other choice. After all, she was the treasure.
“Go,” she said, her expression resolute. “’Tis my curse, not yours. Thus, ’tis my cross to bear.”
“Well, that’s a bunch of crap. It’s my curse now, too. For whatever reason, it hasn’t been able to zap me onto the tree, and—” His voice cut off as he realized what must have caused the glitch.
The necklace. The stupid, string of bones necklace.
It had bound him to the thing he loved most, after all. Which turned out not to be his smartphone, or pirate ship, or even his freedom. It was life. He had always viewed each new day as one more chance for adventure, and hadn’t his experience in Castle Cavanaugh been exactly that?
He reached up behind his nape to untie the necklace. “Here. I want you to wear this when you leave. Never, ever take it off.”
She pushed his hand away before he could tie it around her neck. “That’s not yours. It belongs to Sancho.”
“Possession is nine tenths of the law. I want you to put this on. Right now.”
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not going anywhere. If only one of us escapes, then we haven’t broken the curse. You deserve your freedom.”
“I won’t have any freedom. There’s a price on my head, remember? That’s why you’re the best candidate for Operation Lightsaber. Nobody’s waiting on the other side to kill you.”
Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady. “Take an illuminated manuscript. You said they were priceless. I have hundreds of them.”
“I’m not going to pa
wn one of your priceless manuscripts. The library is your only escape. You love those books, and—” He broke off as he recognized the ironic reversal of his last conversation with his best friend, when Sancho had refused to sell the triptych.
Lance swallowed. This was really it. He was about to make the strongest commitment of his life. By sending Marigold through the looking glass, he was effectively consigning himself to his worst vision of hell for the rest of all eternity. Yet he couldn’t live with himself if he chose any other path.
He could go back to the Pawn & Potion for reinforcements and an entire duffel bag of flame swords, but what if he couldn’t get back into the castle? It was too great a risk to take. He would never forgive himself if he had it within his power to save her, and he chose to save himself instead.
“You have to go,” he said softly. “Six hundred years is long enough. I can’t keep you caged.”
Her voice rose hotly. “You think I can walk away carefree, knowing what future awaits you betwixt these walls? What kind of woman do you believe me to be? Cavanaughs are warriors. And warriors stay and fight. I am no coward, who leaves another man behind to die. If we cannot leave together, I shall not leave at all.”
“I won’t die,” he pointed out. “And I won’t be completely bored. You’ve got a big library, and I’m a slow reader. Who knows? I might even learn to paint.”
Her cheeks flushed and her knuckles went white. “Knave, if you think for a moment—”
“Check this out. I have a plan.” He brandished his smartphone. “Believe it or not, this thing can do more than music and gaming. It even can make phone calls. Do you know what phone calls are?”
She nodded hesitantly. “Chaz of New Brunswick had just gotten a cordless one. And a microwave.”
“They’ve changed a wee bit since then.” He unlocked the screen. “See the little phone icon? Obviously not, since you don’t know what a phone looks like. It’s this one right here in the corner. Watch what happens when I touch it. See what comes up? It’s a list of ‘Favorites.’”
“It’s not a list. It just says ‘Sancho.’”
“When you get a cell phone, I’ll add your number. Now, pay attention. You just unlock the phone—which you already know how to do—and tap this button. When you see Sancho’s name, touch it once and wait for the ringing. He always answers within the first few seconds.”