Connal must have known how Mallora felt. “We will talk further,” he said and then hurried up the beach to offer his arm to Comorra’s aunt.
Al cast an appraising eye in his wake. “You did not exaggerate the hotness factor,” she murmured.
By the time the sun was close to setting, arrangements had been decided on and the refugee Celts had seamlessly melded with the island’s Iceni, making themselves comfortable in the small caverns that dotted the cliff face all along the beach. Mallora had requested the solitude of one of the remoter caves so that she could rest and recover. Connal told Clare that it had taken weeks for him to regain his physical strength after the crossing. And that his magical strength still hadn’t fully returned.
Mallora’s wild women were the only ones allowed to accompany her. The other Celts seemed fine with that arrangement, and Clare had a sneaking suspicion that the scathach made everyone uncomfortable, even the people Mallora had called upon them to protect.
Clare, Al, and Marcus would share the cave that Connal and Comorra had claimed for shelter. Clare decided it was a pretty sweet setup, actually. She’d been on camping trips in Algonquin Park back home with modern equipment and amenities that had seemed far more like roughing it. They sat around a cheery little fire on thick-woven throws and shared a meal. It consisted of toasted flatcakes made from a sort of soft grain and stuffed with some kind of mouthwatering seafood—Clare figured it was lobster meat, or maybe crab— nested on beds of fresh field greens with cold, clear water from a spring pool at the back of their cave that had a slightly coppery tang.
After they’d eaten, Clare got down to catching Connal and Comorra up on everything that had transpired, giving Al and Marcus a chance to sneak away and get caught up on each other. Some of what Clare told her Iceni pals didn’t really translate—she gave up trying to explain that Marcus, for example, was also from the “diztan-fee-you-chur” (as Connal had once called the “distant future”), but from a different era. The extreme passage of time was still a concept the Celtic mindset didn’t quite seem to bend to. But Connal and Comorra understood immediately what it was that Clare and her friends were trying to do.
Like Obi Wan Kenobi, Connal had sensed that there was, as Clare put it (in geek speak; the company she kept was so totally rubbing off on her those days), a Disturbance in the Force. It was why he and Comorra had gathered their people and sailed to the island in the first place.
Connal arranged another couple of twigs on the little fire from a carefully stacked bundle. “We have made a home on the mainland to the south, with our folk and some of the people already there. They don’t come to this island. Only the others do—and from a place far beyond this.”
“The others?”
“The ones the Druiddyn come to learn from. The ones that taught Mallora how to summon the scathach.”
“Oh.” Clare frowned. “So … scary people.”
Comorra grinned. “Don’t worry, Clare. Like the scathach, they appear only when called upon. If you don’t call them, they don’t come.”
Well, Clare supposed, that was reassuring. Still …
Others.
Clare glanced nervously toward the mouth of the cave. It was almost dark and Al and Marcus had yet to return from their beachy stroll, no doubt happily making out somewhere, but Connal’s talk of “others” struck a chord of worry in her guts. She looked at her watch.
Five more minutes and I’m calling it, she thought. Then she grinned to herself, hoping Al was having fun getting reacquainted with the Legion of Soldier Boy and his Mighty Thews.
AWKWARD MUCH, MCALLISTER? Allie groaned inwardly to herself as she scuffed alongside Marcus down the sandy beach. They were walking silently, neither knowing what to say now that they were alone and with no dire peril to add that spark of urgency.
Now we’re just a couple of kids on what kind of amounts to a first (century) date.
On the plus side, the scenery was romantic as hell. Off to their right, the sea was a shade of purple so deep you could have named a sixties rock band after it. The sun was slowly setting behind the island’s cliffs and the clouds that had moved in overhead reflected its last blaze of glory in swaths of hectic crimson, marigold, and electric pink. Allie and Marcus walked barefoot in the cool sand at the water’s lapping edge, not quite holding hands.
Thank god I don’t get sweaty palms, Allie thought, a bit panicky at the prospect. Wait. Do I? She casually folded her fingers up, checking for clamminess. Nope … just dry mouth, hyperventilation, and head rushes.
Since the moment they’d decided to come back for Marcus, Allie had wondered what she’d say once they were face to face again. Because, really? Ninety percent of everything that had transpired between them from the moment they’d met had been snark. Maybe what he’d said were just heat-of-themoment things (the heat mostly provided by flaming projectiles). Maybe he really had had second thoughts about coming with her when they’d shimmered. Maybe that was why he wasn’t saying anything. Or doing anything.
He’s frowning. That’s something …
As the silence stretched out between them, she began to wonder—kiss on the boat notwithstanding—if he’d really expected her to come back. If he’d even wanted her to. She didn’t know what to think of his silence. Didn’t know what to say …
“I brought batteries,” she blurted.
“Sorry?” His frown deepened as he glanced her way.
“For your player. Thingie. Walkman.”
He smiled down at her, a bit perplexed. “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.” The smokiness of his slight Scottish burr made the soles of Allie’s feet tingle. “But … if you came back to bring me with you into the future—or, I should say, the present … why would I need them?”
Good question.
“Um. I … I wasn’t sure you’d want to come back.” She looked out to sea, not wanting to read it in his eyes if she was right.”
“You don’t want me to?”
“What?” Her head snapped back around. “No! I mean—yes! I mean …”
The look on Marcus’s face was like a heavy door slamming shut, blocking out all the light and air.
“Right,” he said. “Okay, I get it.”
“Get what?”
Allie stopped short, utterly flustered. Suddenly he was Legionnaire Marcus Donatus again, just as he’d been when she first met him. Hard, cold … closed off as surely as if the protective armour he wore was wrapped around not just the person, but the personality.
What did I say wrong?
“Look. Allie.” He turned his gaze toward the ocean as the muscles of his jaw bunched with tension. “I heard what your friend Clare was telling those Iceni back there. About the torc and how the two of you have come to return it to its proper place in the timeline. I get that’s why you’re here. It’s your priority. For all I know, you didn’t even mean to see me again on this trip and, look, that’s okay. Like I said, I get it. You don’t owe me anything, and if you don’t want me to return with you all you had to do was say so. I don’t need pity and I can take care of myself here just fine. I know I’m … I’m obsolete tech to a girl like you so you don’t have to pretend. Go do what you came here with your friend to do and—”
“You’re what I came here to do!” Allie exclaimed. “And that totally came out wrong!”
Again with the blushing! Damn it!
Yet her slip of the tongue (as it were—gah! Stop it, McAllister!) seemed to have knocked the wheels right off Marcus’s argumentative wagon. He stammered something unintelligible and then turned to stalk away from her down to the waterline, fists clenched at his sides. Then he half turned and spoke over his shoulder, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
“Seriously. Why are you here, Allie? And please. No humouring me.”
“How can I humour a guy who has absolutely no sense thereof? I just told you. You thought I wouldn’t come back for you? You think I’m some kind of … of … what? Era snob? ‘Obsolete tech
’—where on earth did you even get such a stupid idea, you stubborn … arrogant …”
“Morholt. Actually.”
“What?” Allie stopped mid-tirade and blinked at him. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Nothing.” Marcus sighed and shook his head. “Except for taunting me for days on the ship with the thought that the minute you’d gotten back home you forgot all about me.”
Allie crossed her arms in front of her. “And you believed him.”
“No … yes. A bit.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Pretty much.” He walked back over to her and held out a tentative hand, as if he was afraid she wouldn’t take it. “Do you remember when I told you that … that you’re the kind of girl I never would have dared dream of asking out when I was at Cambridge?”
“And I think I told you you had the wrong idea about me. Extremely.”
Allie’s cheeks surged with fevered heat again. Her arms unknotted and one hand drifted upward of its own accord. Marcus took it in his sword-calloused palm and held it tightly.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t. And I wanted to go back with you so badly that … when it didn’t happen … it felt like something inside of me ripped in half and left a hole behind. Like I was half-stuck in that … shimmering. Whatever you call it.”
“I call it the ‘zot.’ Never mind. Go on.”
“Well … I was just … it hurt. Being left behind again. And then Stuart started flapping his gums and— I know, it was stupid of me to listen to him. And I tried not to. But …”
“Yeah. It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “I get it. The dude’s insidious.”
“Exactly.” Marcus nodded, but his gaze was still troubled. “And then I started to think … was I deluding myself to imagine I could even have a life in the twenty-first century?”
“Hey.” Allie shrugged. “If Quintus Postumus can do it, so can you. Believe me, you’ll be fine. I’ll be there to help you be fine. We all will.”
“I won’t even have a place to live.”
“You could stay with my cousin Milo. He has an extra room at his place.” The last thing she wanted was for Marcus to start dwelling on logistical hurdles. “Or you could stay with Clare’s aunt Maggie—don’t glower! I know you’re still pissed at her but it really wasn’t her fault and she has a whole townhouse and major guilt about leaving you stuck in the past—and I’m pretty sure you could get some kind of a job or internship or something at the museum with her help. Or at the university. Milo knows a guy who could totally fake any credentials you’d need. And I’ll be there with you until the end of summer, and then it’s only a couple of months till Christmas break and I can totally bribe my mom to let me take another trip and you could get all reacclimatized and stuff and then, after final year, I’ll come back to Britain—I’m pretty sure Clare’s gonna do the same thing, because you know she and Milo are like whoo! now—or you could come to Canada if you wanted and … then … we can … um. You know. Hang out.”
She stared up at him as the faint traces of a smile began to lift the corners of Marcus’s mouth. One straight, dark eyebrow arched upward.
“Hang out?”
“Go to movies and stuff and … um.” Allie’s blush went supernova.
Marcus looked down at her with a glint in his eye. “Date?”
“Pff.” Allie waved a hand spasmodically. “No. Yes. Only if you wanted t—”
Mercifully, he kissed her.
All the weirdness and uncertainty and nervous energy suddenly melted away and Allie reached up and circled her arms around Marcus’s neck. He was still wearing his Legion gear, but she was starting to get used to that, and even the creaking and the scent of leather were delicious to her senses. Almost as delicious as the sensation of his arms wrapping around her and her feet leaving the ground when he lifted her up as if he would fly away with her like characters in some classical myth.
The sun had set completely by the time he let her go and the last lingering light was fading to deep purple. Between the gathering clouds, a handful of stars managed to spy down on the couple as they turned and headed back to the cave they would share that night with Clare and her Iceni friends. Marcus put an arm around Allie’s shoulders when she shivered in the gathering chill.
“So …” he said. “I’m not obsolete?”
She elbowed him and grinned. “You’re charmingly retro. And not at all hipster.”
“Hip …”
“Never mind.” She laughed. “It’s all good. You’re all good. Great. Fantastic, really …”
He kissed her again, and they continued on. Allie gazed up at the dark, sheer cliff face on their right.
“Where do you figure we are?”
Marcus shrugged. “I think somewhere off the east coast of North America.”
“What? That’s crazy talk!” Allie said. And yet the farther they’d journeyed west, she’d had the same nagging suspicion.
“Best guess?” Marcus looked up at a massed bank of towering thunderheads moving in from the south to fill the darkening sky. A wash of pale lightning illuminated the ocean horizon for a brief moment, too far away for them to hear the thunder. “Could be somewhere off the coast of New England, but I think it’s more likely that, judging by the landmass we passed earlier, we’re probably somewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.”
“I’m back in Canada?” Allie blinked. “Neat!” In the next breath she murmured, “I hope Milo has a valid passport …”
Marcus glanced at her sideways, but Allie decided not to burden him with logistical worries. Again. She just shook her head, glancing at the neatly arranged boats their Celtic welcome party had dragged up the shingle and stowed in the lee of the cliffs at the far end of the beach.
“I wonder how the Druiddyn found their way over here in the first place,” she mused. “I mean, sure. Whip up a little blood magic and you can conjure some magical mystery time-bendy funtubes, but before that somebody would have had to just plain old sail here. In, like, one of those.” She pointed at one of the boats on the beach.
Marcus shrugged. “It’s not as far-fetched as you might think. When I was at Cambridge, I remember having to translate a Latin text—an account of the voyage of Saint Brendan to the Blessed Isles. Some think the story is based on earlier Welsh tales of transatlantic voyages. I think this kind of thing happened far more often than historians know.”
Wow. First-century Celts in the Maritimes. My history teacher would look at me like I had two heads if I even suggested such a thing.
But there they were, elegant, proud people moving about the island in pairs or groups, some singing quietly, others conversing in their liquid flowy language, all drifting away, as night fell, to the series of caves that ranged along the shore.
A scattering of perfect circles appeared up and down the beach. Al blinked in surprise, then realized what they were when a raindrop the size of a grape landed with a splat right in her eye. Marcus grabbed her hand and said “Come on!” They scrambled back to their cave as the clouds’ dark underbellies split open and poured forth the most furious rainstorm Allie had ever encountered.
Inside the cave, the small, nearly smokeless fire burned brightly.
Marcus looked down at her, panting a bit. “You’re soaked.”
She grinned and pushed the dripping hair from her face. “So are you.”
“Yeah, yeah …” Clare appeared out of the cavern shadows. “You’ll have to get out of those wet clothes. And enough with the smouldering glances, you’re steaming up the place.”
Allie gave Clare a side-eye glance and retrieved a tank top and a pair of leggings that were rolled up tight and stashed in her messenger bag. Having required a change of clothes once in the past, she’d come prepared. With the help of a battery-powered flashlight she commandeered the little back alcove as a change room.
After trying to make her hair do something remotely stylish, she gave up and just pulled it back off her face with an elasti
c. Marcus, with his full-service legionnaire carryall, had already changed into a fresh linen tunic. Meanwhile Clare had fished the Korg 70,000 BC walkie talkies out of Allie’s bag and, by the light of the fire, was fitting the batteries into the housings. She handed one to Allie.
“Put that back in your bag and keep it with you at all times,” Clare said.
“Okay. Why?”
“You were gone a long time,” she explained. “I was worried. I assumed you’d been devoured by a bear. If you’d had this with you, I could have radioed for confirmation.”
“I wasn’t devoured by a bear.”
“Uh-huh.” Clare leaned in close and squinted at Allie’s face.
“What?”
“Devoured by something …” She tapped Allie’s chin with one finger, whispering, “Got a little stubble burn going on there, champ.”
Allie snorted and slapped her hand away, willing herself not to blush again. She slung her messenger bag over her head and paused, a faint frown shadowing her brow. “You know …” She dug out the vial of blood Clare had given her to carry and held it up. “By that logic, if we do get separated— not that we will—then you should probably keep this with you. You’re the one who has the Boudicca blood link already established.”
“Ew …” Clare grimaced. But that was as far as her argument went. With the very tips of two fingers, she plucked the glass tube from Allie’s grasp. And then shoved the thing way out of sight, into the very deepest corner of her bag.
THE RAIN OUTSIDE came down in waterfall sheets, curtaining the mouth of the cave, but the cheery little fire and richly woven rugs and furs that Comorra had spread out made it seem as if they were at a rustic ski lodge. The Iceni princess and her handsome Druid had gone to visit Mallora and had yet to return. Clare figured the deluge meant they’d keep Comorra’s aunt company throughout the night. But with a decent supply of fuel for the fire, and Marcus having already proven himself overly competent with sharp objects, Clare wasn’t all that worried.
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