Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken
“Pardon me,” he said, bending down to scoop her up off the ground. One of her hands came up, smacking him in the face in protest. “I wasn’t aware you walking out of here on your own was still an option, but if you think you can fly out on pride alone, by all means…”
She went very still.
“I thought not.”
He rose onto unsteady feet, his vision blacking out as the blood left his head. He wasted precious seconds waiting for his exhausted body to steady before carrying her to the door. Her skin had gone the sickly shade of a fish left too long out of water, and her trembling hands…
Medicine. Surely they wouldn’t have made the poison without an antidote? Surely there was something here if Fitzhugh Jacaranda truly was a healer? Surely?
Nicholas carried her over to the worktable, setting her down only long enough to pick up the man’s bag and cinch the opening closed. He had them to the door in two quick strides when he doubled back to the chest, where he’d seen the small wooden box. With a huff, he plucked the harmonica out of its bindings and slid it into Sophia’s bag. They wouldn’t need it now, not with the passage bellowing loud enough for all of creation to hear, but he couldn’t trust the future to bring the next one to him so easily.
He kicked the door open, shifting Sophia from his arms to over his shoulder. She hit him weakly in protest.
“Be easier to run—” The words died in his throat. From his vantage point on the second story of the building, he could see over the courtyard’s wall into the street below.
Four figures were shouldering quickly through the milling crowds—four men, in a sea of women and children. The one leading the way at the front wore a faded blue tunic, his head ringed with blond, strawlike hair, clearly older than the rest. He looked to be in danger of being trampled by the men charging up behind him. Their “tunics” were poor imitations of togas, with sheets likely stripped off a nearby bed in a hurry—worse, their hair was still parted and slicked down in the style of the nineteenth or twentieth century. One even had a dark, neatly trimmed mustache like a slug above his upper lip.
It was a surprising lack of planning by a group of Ironwoods, who usually prided themselves on prudence and an overabundance of caution to avoid tampering with the Grand Master’s timeline.
Not for the first time, Nicholas wondered what price Ironwood had put on his life. Most travelers wouldn’t risk the old man’s wrath, or throw away decades of conditioning and training, for anything less than a tidy sum. He felt a foolish swell of pride at that.
“It’s just up here,” he heard the old man in front—Fitzhugh?—say.
“Your tip better be good, old man—” groused the traveler behind him. Miles Ironwood, of course. The last time he’d seen the man, Miles had been ordered by Ironwood to pummel him with his fists for Julian’s death. What a charming reunion this would be.
No time.
“Who…?” Sophia asked.
“Miles Ironwood,” he said.
“Always…wanted to…stab him.”
“Well, here’s your opportunity,” he said. “Don’t die before you give me the pleasure of watching you do it.”
The house had the same problem the city did: if the Ironwoods were coming through the courtyard, then he and Sophia had run out of exits. Unless…
Nicholas made for the stairs that led up to the next level, and the next one after that. Sophia went alarmingly slack against his shoulder. “Sophia? Sophia!”
“Hey!” The shout rose from the street, cutting through the din of voices. “Carter!”
His legs burned as he raced up the uneven stairs, Sophia bouncing against his shoulder, his whole body quaking with the effort of keeping them upright. Third story, fourth, fifth—he nearly lost his footing as they reached the roof, momentarily distracted by the heavy pounding of steps behind him. He swung them both around, scanning the roofs around him for the nearest one to jump to.
His breathing was so labored, tearing in and out of him, that he didn’t hear the whistle of the arrow at all—only felt the pain of it slamming into his shoulder. Nicholas staggered forward, knocked off-balance by the force of the blow.
“Carter, stop!” one of the men shouted. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself!”
Make it worse how? As far as he was concerned, these men would only be taking him back to Ironwood one way: dead. And he still had too much to accomplish before he’d ever let that happen.
He still had to find Etta.
Nicholas dug deep into the well of his strength, moving to the far end of the roof, trying to judge whether or not the distance would be too great to throw Sophia, when he heard a sharp whistle.
It took him a moment to locate the source: a small, dark-robed figure, crouched on the roof just beyond the one he’d been studying, waving him forward. His heart surged with the hope that it was Rose, that he might finally achieve the dream of strangling her for this mess she’d tossed them all into—but he wasn’t, to his surprise, disappointed to realize that the mystery figure was Li Min. If the choice was between Ironwood’s men and a thief who was at least clever enough to find them a way out of Carthage…well, the choice was rather simple.
“Apologies,” he told Sophia as he slid her down off his shoulder.
“—what—”
He tossed her like a basket, wincing as she struck the solid roof. He reached back, gritting his teeth, and snapped off the long end of the arrow, ignoring the warmth soaking through his tunic. There was only about a yard of distance between the two buildings, and he crossed it without trouble. Li Min met him there, kneeling to help him pick Sophia back up.
“Ma’am, are you here to help for your own mysterious reasons, or are you here to kill her for stealing your money?” he asked, his face serious. “Because I haven’t the time for the latter, and your competition is arriving shortly.”
Li Min looked up from her study of Sophia’s ashen face. “What has she been given?”
“Hemlock.” Saying the word aloud made the immense danger of it tangible, gave the threat new life.
“Quickly, then,” Li Min said. “We haven’t much time.”
Out of other options, his body fast approaching that murky line of uselessness, Nicholas followed her over to the next roof.
“Drop,” she told him, eyes flickering to something just over his shoulder.
He barely had time to take a knee before she flung a small knife from the depths of her hooded cloak, striking the first man at the dead center of his heart. The weight of his body sent the others tumbling back down the stairs. The one who managed to remain on his feet found another knife lodged directly in his throat.
Nicholas turned back to Li Min, only to find her already making her way down the stairs winding around the back of the building.
“This way, this way,” she called. “Keep up!”
“Keep up, she says,” he muttered, trying to pick up his pace without sending both himself and Sophia into a tragic tumble.
Li Min was incredibly light on her feet, not difficult for her diminutive size; still, he felt like an inelegant beast lurching along behind her. He was beginning to lose feeling in his left arm, where he felt the tip of the arrow scraping against the bone. Nicholas couldn’t focus on that thought without feeling like he was about to retch; instead, he turned what remained of his drifting attention to maintaining his grip on Sophia. The voices shouting in English were still so close, tearing through the unpleasant stillness of the besieged city.
He was grateful when his feet were back on solid ground, but there was no time to stop and clear the darkness edging into his vision. His eyes tracked Li Min as she wove in and out of the startled crowds around her like a dolphin leaping through waves. Someone—a woman—put a concerned hand on his arm as he passed, but Nicholas brushed it off and kept going, his stomach tightening as they continued up the hill to the buildings crowning the Byrsa.
Just before they reached the apex of the hill, Li Min took a sharp turn and duc
As if sensing them, the pitch of its voice grew higher. Nicholas felt himself faltering, choking on dust and the metallic tang of blood, but he gave himself one last shove forward and felt himself vanish like a passing breeze.
ALICE HAD TOLD ETTA ONCE that in order to become a concert violinist, she would need to protect four things above all else: her heart, from criticism; her mind, from dullness; her hands, so she would never falter in eking out the notes; and her ears, so that she could always judge the quality of the sound she was producing.
But in that moment, Etta couldn’t hear anything over the sharp, painful ringing that jabbed like knives into her head. The weight of the world pressed down on her chest and shoulders, smothering her next few breaths.
She forced her eyes open, gagging on the thick air.
The cloud of smoke masked everything, creating a dreamlike haze, even as fire raced up the silk panels hanging from the wall, scorching the plaster. The chandelier above the table had shattered, glass raining down like ice on the wreckage below. And the table…the table and a section of the floor beneath it had caved in, leaving a jagged, gaping hole. Etta’s eyes stung as she blinked, searching for the others through the embers rising up.
They were gone—the tsar, Winifred, Jenkins. The waiter. They’d gotten out, then—rescuers had already taken them to get help—
No.
A chill of sudden certainty crept over her, stifling the scream in her throat.
No.
They hadn’t gotten out. There would have been no time to move away from the blast. Which meant that…
They fell through the floor. Or they…their bodies had…the blast…
Etta gagged again, her chest too tight to breathe. There was a stabbing in her side that seemed to drive deeper and deeper each time she shifted, trying to push the crushing weight off her chest and bring air into her lungs. One hand was pinned beneath her back, the other between her chest and the warm mass on top of her.
Henry.
“Henry…” Etta felt the word leave her throat, but couldn’t hear it above the ringing in her ears. “Henry! Henry!”
He’d managed to throw himself over her, covering her almost completely. Her heart began to ricochet around her rib cage, beating so fast, so hard, she was terrified it might burst.
His face was turned away from her, one arm drawn up over it protectively. But he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving.
Etta dragged her hand out from where it was trapped between them, her still-healing shoulder screaming in protest. Without the benefit of her hearing, with the smoke still churning around them like waves, Etta felt like she was moving underwater, watching the distorted images of life beyond the surface. Her hand flopped around, touching the exposed, raw skin of Henry’s back; he’d been burned by the blast. She began to tremble as she felt up his neck, searching for a pulse.
Don’t die, don’t die, please—
It took her a moment to sort her own shaking from the faint murmur beneath his skin, but it was there. He was alive, if just barely.
With as much care and strength as she could muster, she rolled his weight off her, just enough to slide out from beneath him, but not enough to flip him onto his scalded back. The stench of burned flesh and hair made the bile rise again in her throat. She had to press a fist against her mouth to keep from retching when she looked over and saw what remained of Winifred. Oh my God, oh my God—
Iron—Jenkins had shouted Iron, unable to finish the word, to fully name the assassin. Ironwood. The waiter, the assassin, had shouted a word she hadn’t been able to make out, but she’d recognized the moment when the timeline had shifted again.
Henry had been right—Cyrus Ironwood had sent agents out to push the timeline back to his version…but this wasn’t what had happened in the timeline she had grown up in. This couldn’t be Ironwood’s timeline. Which would make it…a new one?
Her hatred made it feel as though her whole soul had caught fire.
The floor beneath her feet was still crumbling; she felt a section of it collapse and realized she’d lost both shoes in the explosion. It wasn’t safe—Etta felt a wave of panic swelling, threatening to wash away whatever rational thoughts she had left as she surveyed the room. Its bright, glorious colors and shining gold had been replaced by shards of glass, splashes of blood and cinders.
She was alive. She had to stay alive. She had to—just breathe—just get out—
The ringing was so piercing that she could think of nothing else. She reached down on unsteady legs and got her arms under Henry’s, circling around his chest. The open wounds on his back oozed blood onto her dress, and the mere touch was enough to make him groan; Etta felt the vibration move through his body.
The jagged mouth of the floor revealed the smoldering room below. The fragments of metal and wood that had flown like shrapnel sliced through her stockings, lacerating her heels and ankles. She winced as Henry’s long legs butted and bobbed helplessly against the ground. The only way she could move him was through sharp, short surges of strength, and she could already feel herself fading when a door appeared through the smoke. It had been left open, a tray of food overturned nearby.
The smoke had already drifted into the hall, but Etta felt herself take her first real breath as she put Henry down, carefully laying him out on the plush carpet. She knelt, searching his face again for signs of life. He’d cracked his forehead against something—a knot had formed on his right temple, and blood continued to trickle down his cheek.
She should have surged up onto her feet and started to run back the way they had come through the palace, but Etta found herself rooted there, unable to move when parts of her felt like they were fading.
She’d only just found him, and now…
Etta choked on an unwelcome sob, unwilling to release that last bit of control she had over herself until she could think.
What would it have been like, she wondered, to stay with the Thorns? Her mind played scene after scene, waltzing through the possibilities. To be with a father who wouldn’t use her, who appreciated her talent, who explained their way of life, who showed some sliver of interest in her beyond some task he was saving her for in the future. To strike back against Ironwood until his grip on their kind dissolved into memory. To find Nicholas, and bring him to a group that might appreciate and respect him the way he deserved. To see the whole of time, the scale of everything her beautiful world could offer….
“Etta.”
With the piercing whine in her ears from the explosion, Etta would never be certain if she’d actually heard her mother, or imagined her voice the instant she felt the deadening weight of Rose’s presence. She turned slowly, and a moment later her mother took shape in the smoke.
When she’d been taken by Ironwood, drawn into his net of deception, Etta would have done anything to see her mother and have her explain what was truly happening. But now she knew, and it had come only through loss and the most devastating of betrayals. Staring at Rose now, truly seeing her, Etta wondered how she had ever missed the tremor just below the surface of cold calculation Rose projected. As if the wild delusions skimmed just beneath her skin.
She would be here now for a reason. Rose always had a reason.
“Did you do this?” she demanded, shouting to hear herself.
Her mother wore man’s pants tucked into tall boots and a loose white shirt. Her long blond hair was braided back away from her bruised left eye and right cheek. Etta’s heart gave an involuntary clench at the sight, before she let the anger back in to harden it. At Etta’s question she flinched.
That’s right, Etta thought, I know what you’re capable of. What you want.
Her gaze lowered from Etta’s face to Henry’s and she took a step back, as if only seeing him now. When she came closer, making as if to kneel, E
“All right, all right, darling.” Rose’s face looked strained as she spoke loudly, holding out her hand. The other strayed to the gun at her side. “You need to come with me now.”
God, how Etta had prayed for this exact moment—how desperate she had been for any sign that her mother was alive and coming for her.
A sign that she wanted me.
“Henrietta,” Rose said, her voice scalding. “You don’t know what’s coming, what’s been chasing me for years! I’ve kept them off your trail for weeks, from the moment you were taken, but the Shadows—!”
Shadows. Etta let her lip curl back in disgust. That last, small hope in her that Henry had been wrong, that they’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, turned to dust.
Beneath her hands, Henry shifted, and Etta grabbed him by his lapel as if she could hold him there, conscious. As a child, she had always hidden her tears from her mother, too aware of how little patience Rose had for them, but she didn’t care now—not when Henry’s eyes opened. They moved from her face to Rose’s.
Her mother’s hands went slack at her side. Neither moved, but Etta felt his heartbeat as it began to drum harder and harder against his ribs. She leaned down, straining to hear him. “Come…to finish me off, Rosie?”
Her mother’s face was stone. She stood, unflinching, even as her voice iced over.
“You never understood. You never believed me—”
“I understood…me…” he rasped out. “But Rosie…Alice? Why…why did she have to die?”
Alice.
“Etta, she’ll protect you…go now—” He clutched her hand, trying to get her to look at him.
Alice.
Rose’s face appeared in front of her own, still speaking loudly, urgently, “I can explain as we go, but—”
Alice.
Etta stepped back, out of her mother’s reach.
She’d been taken and manipulated and shot and nearly lost her hearing for Rose. Everything Etta had ever done had been to earn a smile, squeeze a measure of respect, from her. She’d made excuses for her mother time and time again, even as the material she was using to build those protests dwindled down.