by J M Robison
An echoing pause stretches, and I know when he talks it’s going to be something very, very bad.
“Remember my telling about the Fae Arches being the only way into the Fae Realm, because they are special made to relocate someone through the five Fae layers?”
“Yes.”
“Did thy tastes, smells, sights, and hearing become overwhelmed?”
“Why…yes.” Though he’s coming closer to explaining what happened, I fear it.
“Each of those is one layer.”
“So, we traveled into the Fae Realm without arches?”
“Without arches, yes, but it isn’t the Fae Realm, though we touched upon it briefly. The Fae Realm functions at a different time than the Human Realm. The Fae Realm is not supposed to be breached without arches, but somehow Eudora did it. In doing so, all five layers ripped open and…displaced those fallen into the tear. Ye must have been standing in the square above me.”
Heat rises in my shoulders. “What do you mean ‘displaced’?”
He swallows. “The tear kicked us out of Rome onto another place, and put us a hundred and sixty-nine years into the future.”
I should have been devastated. Should have panicked at the confusion of my new reality and said “bloody” twenty times, but I don’t. I drop my cane and wrap all ten fingers around his stupid neck.
“You’ve sent me into the bloody future? With the bloody colonials?”
Zadicayn gurgles, prying at my fingers.
“Clarissa is dead! Henry is dead! And I’m stuck here with you!”
Zadicayn is saved by three pairs of hands which pull me off him.
He sits up in bed, holding his neck. “Release him,” he commands my captors. “He meant no harm. He’s upset and rightly so. We are traveling companions, and I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. Let him go.”
With reluctance, my captors do. I rip my arms away from them and straighten my coat. I swipe my cane off the floor. “Good day,” I snap, and sit back on the chair that’s not made of wood or fabric, but something smooth and shiny. The three men leave, shooting me daggered glances.
I twist my cane with both hands until I’m certain I won’t twist Zadicayn’s neck off. I stand and pace. “So now what? This is my new life?”
“The Fae know what happened. Certain ye heard them shriek, as did I, as we were sucked into the tear. Our relocation through time and place was not supposed to happen. They shall make it right again.”
“But you can get us back,” I declare. My eyes drop to his chest, where his shirt has been ripped open for whatever magic the doctors used to bring him back to life. “Where’s your amulet?”
He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Joseara has it.”
“She bloody what?”
“The Faewraith at the train happened because I was searched. To prevent that from happening again, I gave Joseara my amulet to hold onto until we made it to Rome. I brought her back to life six years ago with my blood, and we discovered she can touch my amulet without summoning a Faewraith and can even command spells because I taught her some Faery. But we got to Rome, and she vanished.”
“So, you’ve been without your amulet since the train?”
“Yea.”
“And you marched into the Pantheon to face the Black Magicians…without your amulet?”
“Yea.”
I should have seen this, all his excuses why he couldn’t take the paint off his skin, why he couldn’t magic our way out of the demon-locked room.
“You’re an idiot.”
“I had no choice. I had to go into the Pantheon, and Joseara was nowhere to be found.”
I would have done the same thing had I been a wizard and my wife kidnapped. But since it wasn’t me, he’s an idiot. “Joseara arrived just after you went into the Pantheon. Ran in there after you to, I assume now, give your amulet back.”
He exhales but I don’t know what it means.
“She came back out and said she saved Brynn and was then going to save you.”
“None of that matters if we can’t make it back to 1848.”
“And how is that supposed to happen if you don’t have your amulet?”
“The Fae will find us and take us back.” He looks at the tubes in his arms and stuck to his chest. One by one, he removes them. A frantic beeping emits from somewhere in the room. There’s a small needle stuck in his arm. He slides it out and a stream of bright red blood spurts out, hitting the wall. He slaps a hand over it and slides out of bed, wavering on his feet.
I hold onto him to keep his balance. “Where are we going?”
“To find food. I’m famished.”
“And when exactly are the Fae going to take us back?”
“The Fae shall be looking for my blood, and shall pull me into the Fae Realm as soon as they do.”
“Just you? Not me?”
“They track my blood. They can always find me. For that matter, they’re likely to suck Joseara into the Fae Realm as well, because they shall think it’s me. Keep hold of me, so when they pull me in, you’ll follow.”
I suck his arm into my chest with more intimacy than I’ve ever given Clarissa. “If I’m left behind, I will find your descendants and throttle them.”
“I shall warn them to avoid the crazy Englishman in a top hat with a cane.”
“This isn’t funny!”
We are stopped in the doorway by a female medic. “Sir, you have to get back in bed. The doctor needs to clear you for release.”
“No, thank ye.”
“I must insist.”
“Move out of our way, strumpet! I’m a hundred and sixty-nine years away from my wife, and oceans away from the great country of England. You’ve already robbed the Queen of her colonies, and I’ll break my cane over your throat if you rob me of my freedom to walk out of this infirmary. Good day.”
I hustle Zadicayn out of there, holding his arm like it’s an extension of my own.
Chapter Forty-One
Darik
Joseara’s feet pound beside mine, following so closely and making all the right turns the moment I do that I wonder if she already knows the way. She shouldn’t have spared the time to save me. A man who has a wife and child is more deserving of life than I. And he’s now going to die.
A sound like water gushing back into a hole catches my ear on my left side, and Joseara vanishes.
I skid to a halt and look around. Did she use magic? “Joseara?”
No response. I keep running. Have to save Zadicayn. She will have to catch up.
I reach the Palazzo Giustiniani. The locked door and barred windows on the first floor prevent entry, but the bars are easy to climb. I pull myself onto the narrow porch above the door and smash my boot through the window. I descend the galleries until I reach the bottom floor and a closet beneath a stairway. The closet is not locked, and I throw the door open and duck my head, shuffling to the trap door. I fling it open and drop inside. I scoop the flint and steel up from beside the lantern on the floor and strike them inside the lantern with shaking hands until it lights. I shut the glass pane, pick it up, and run.
The lantern swings side-to-side, swaying shadows across the ruins beneath Rome from what might have once been baths, brothels, or pagan temples.
I’ve still got two blocks to run back toward the Pantheon, and I’m breathing so hard anyone else in this passage is bound to hear my pants long before my light comes into view. But that might not be a bad idea. Whatever stalls them from killing Zadicayn.
“Hey!” I shout, then realize I have nothing sensible to say and–too late–I don’t have any weapons on me. The Camorra slipped my stilettos out of my sleeves before they tossed me in the river. I finally feel bad about what I told Joseara about saving my life. I am grateful. I need to tell her.
I alternate between shouting, “help me!”, “I’m lost!”, and “what time is it?” to further distract anyone else in this passage as I run, skirting around crumbling columns and lumps of stone that might once have bee
n statues. I’m bound to be shot in the head around the next corner, and that saddens me only because it doesn’t sadden me.
I reach a point in my exhaustion where it’s either breathe or shout, so I breathe. I’m approaching a glow against the earthen walls. I made it. I dash into the chamber, lantern swinging crazily along with me.
A girl with long brown hair stands near the center of the chamber. She must only be six or seven years old. An amulet identical to Joseara’s hangs around her neck. A combined shout directs my gaze to the right, where three men are pinned with backs to the wall six feet above the ground, in the same manner, Joseara pinned me with magic when she first woke up beneath Trevi Fountain.
None of the men look like what Joseara described as Zadicayn. I look back at the girl who is studying me as if analyzing whether I’m threat or friend. I back slowly away, looking for Zadicayn, but the girl, myself, and the three men kicking and wiggling against the wall are the only ones here. I’m certain I’m in the right place since this girl clearly knows magic. Her amulet matches Joseara’s. Would she know Joseara?
“I’m a friend of Joseara’s,” I say in English, frantic to give her further reason to believe it. “Do you know her?”
“Aunt Joseara?” Her eyes light up. “Where is she?”
I thought Joseara said her family all died in the fire that burned her. “I’ll take you to her.”
She steps forward then stops, looking at her feet, then back at me. “Where is Fǽder? I saw him. Right here. Tied to a chair. Then he vanished.”
I don’t know what Fǽder is. “Do you know Zadicayn?”
“Zadicayn. Yea.”
Strange. Joseara never mentioned a six-year-old girl traveling with them.
I see movement behind the girl. A section of air wavers like heatwaves across brick, but it is not warm down here. Though odd, I’m not concerned about it. This girl knows magic. Maybe it’s something she did. I hold out my hand. “Let’s find Aunt Joseara.”
She hustles over, not caring to even glance at the three men still struggling against the wall. She reaches for my hand, and I take it.
My lantern’s flame shrinks in the vanishing oil. I scoop the girl up to my hip and hurry down the corridor. Another moment and my flame dies, pitching us in thick darkness where once this space was open to the sky.
The girl says something incomprehensible and her left hand bursts into flame. I jolt and nearly drop her, but she doesn’t seem concerned. The flame sheds enough light to see the ground at my feet.
“My name is Darik, by the way.”
“Are you a friend of Fǽder?”
Asking what she means by that word would lessen her trust in me, and I’m mortally terrified of her doing to me what she did to those three men. “I’m a friend of Joseara’s,” I repeat. “And Brynn,” just to be safe.
“Modor!” Excitement peels through her, and I have to hold on with both arms to keep her on my hip. “Where is she?”
I feel this girl is speaking another language that’s not English. I’m afraid of admitting I don’t know who Modor is, or she’ll stop trusting me. I don’t know where Joseara went, but Brynn and Jaicom are both at the Pantheon. Maybe she means Brynn? “I’ll take you to her.”
The girl hugs me.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Eudora.”
“Nice to meet you, Eudora.”
We reach the ladder and trap door I came in by. I put her on the ladder. She shakes the fire off her hand and climbs. We walk out of the closet and up the stairs to the window I broke. I feel mightily bad for doing so, and wish I could pay for it. Or leave a note. Or not have had to break the window at all. But I broke the window because I met Joseara, and for that, I don’t feel so bad.
I help Eudora through the window. As I’m figuring out how to get us to the ground, she grabs my fingers, and in the next blink, we’re on the street.
“Modor,” she demands.
With her narrowed gold–gold eyes?–and pouting lip, I’m terrified what she’ll do to me if Brynn isn’t this “Modor.”
I set her on my hip again and walk toward the Pantheon, holding her as warmly as I’d hold my own child if I had one; the touch of her makes my heart ache with all I do not have but want.
Coming closer to the Pantheon, I hear a growing cacophony of screams and polizia whistles. The Piazza della Rotonda moves with violence. The high-class fence of indulgence has collapsed, and the stampeding middle-class herd has stormed in; fists and weapons swing in constant motion, fires catching on clothes, tablecloths, and vender canvas.
I backtrack, coming up the street directly beneath the roof Joseara said she had put Brynn on. I hope this is Eudora’s Modor.
“Eudora, Modor is up there.” I point.
She claps her hands together, and in a blink I’m on the roof, teetering on the edge, so I have to throw myself forward to prevent falling off.
“Modor!” Eudora screams in my ear and fights to free herself from me.
I let her go, and she runs into Brynn’s arms to be whirled around in a dress glittering from what I swear is a solid fabric of gold. The woman’s beauty takes my breath away, just as it must have Zadicayn’s.
“Eudora! How did you get here?”
“I used magic to come through from the Fae Realm…without an Arch!”
Brynn looks at me. “How did you find her?”
Oh boy. The part I tell her I have no idea what happened to her husband. Or Joseara.
“He found me where I saw Fǽder,” Eudora pipes up. “I came through the Fae layers, saw Fǽder tied to a chair, and then he and the chair vanished. There were three bad men with him. I relocated them into the wall and asked them what they did with Fǽder, but they spoke funny words. And then Darik showed up.”
Brynn’s wet eyes look up at me, pleading. “I don’t understand what she saw.”
“I didn’t see it myself, but there were three men…magicked to the wall.” Something nags at me to mention the heatwave-look of the air in the chamber. “I don’t know if it matters, but a portion of the air down in the chamber where I found Eudora wavered, like a heatwave. I believed it to be magic.”
Brynn releases Eudora and stands, running her hands down her gold skirt. She looks at her daughter. “It’s impossible to come through the Fae Layers without an Arch, Eudora. The Fae would never approve that spell. It would tear and…” Brynn’s eyes widen. “How did you do it?”
“I kept asking permission to come through the layers one layer at a time, and the Fae approved it. Fǽder wouldn’t let me come with him to see you, so I followed him on the Fae Realm side.”
Brynn shakes her head and looks at me. “It’s possible that Eudora coming through like that tore into the Fae Realm and created a time rift since the Fae Realm functions on a different spectrum of time. Zadicayn might have gotten sucked into it.” Brynn puts a hand to her head and sits on the ledge bordering the edge of the roof.
“If that happened,” I begin, fearful of her answer, “is Zadicayn going to come back?”
“I don’t know. I’d think so.”
“Well…I’ll go back down there and wait for him.” It feels like the right thing to do since I’m restless to help this family. But mostly so I’ll stop ogling another man’s wife. “I’ll bring him here when he arrives.”
“Where’s Joseara?”
I fumble with the bottom edge of my shirt. “I don’t know. We were separated.” It’s the honest truth, but if feels like a lie.
She nods, pulling Eudora to her. I walk away to go back and watch for Zadicayn’s return.
If he returns.
Chapter Forty-Two
Zadicayn
Jaicom limps out of the infirmary…dragging me. I remember feeling similar to this once when I drank a full goblet of mead when I was just tall enough to pick it off the table. Lightheaded…weak. Slightly detached, surprised my limbs respond when I move them.
Jaicom said they put blood back inside me with magic.
I know it wasn’t magic. I’ve been to other realms before where they have something called teknology. Flying machines. Machines that can pull water out of the air. Too advanced, they said, to need Fae Magic. They are right. But because they still need Fae Magic present in their realm to keep the Faewraith away, at least one Fae has been commissioned to live among them.
Jaicom rattles on about the amazing horseless metal carriages that move on their own. He says it’s all magic. I sympathize with him. When I first left the undercroft, I thought daguerreotypes, gas lamps, and flushing garderobes were magic, too. I and Eudora have the only magic. If any of my descendants live in the year 2017, I highly doubt they would have sold their services to such a broad audience as to have horseless carriages and glass walls that open upon seeing us approach.
He’s clutching my arm so hard my fingers tingle. His head turns as a horseless carriage whooshes by us, upsetting his hat, so he has to clamp a hand down on it. We both watch and wait for the moment it will crash, but it turns a corner and zooms away with a mechanical roar. We walk onward in search of food. We don’t discuss how we’re going to pay for it.
I don’t have the heart to tell Jaicom I think we’re stuck here. The Fae can track my blood, but I don’t know if I have any of my own blood left in me. Likely not enough to find me. Worse, when they open their reach to find me, they’ll find Joseara. They’ll know I went behind their back and created a female wizard without their approval.
We trudge down a hill, the entire pathway made of black stone. Horseless carriages speed by us with such force, Jaicom keeps a firm hand clamped on his hat.
To the left of the pathway further down the hill is a sign that reads Jaker’s Bar and Grill. I point it out to Jaicom. “Grill has me suspecting that’s a restaurant.”
If his stomach grumbles with the same severity as mine, he’ll agree with me.
He does.
Arm-in-arm, we walk off the black pathway and trudge down a wide spread of grass, walking around to the front of the building where males and females exit and enter. The men–though oddly dressed–aren’t nearly as odd as their female counterparts, whose clothing ranges from long and short pantaloons to all sorts of exposing blouses. One woman walking toward the horseless carriages parked in front of the building has naked fat rolls gushing out all around the bottom of her blouse. I pale at the sight, but it’s Jaicom who voices my thoughts.