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hmhteen · 8 years ago

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Read an excerpt of SPARKS OF LIGHT by Janet B. Taylor!

Time travel and romance seem to go hand in hand these days, don’t they? We’re certainly not complaining, because it means we get to read the second book in the Into The Dim duology, SPARKS OF LIGHT!

In INTO THE DIM, Hope Walton went back in time to the 12th Century to rescue her mother and learned she comes from a line of time-travelers. Now she’s back to rescue something else: an invention made by Nikola Tesla in the 1800′s in New York City! But danger lurks behind every corner, and Hope must decide if saving the past is worth destroying her present.

You can read the first three chapters of SPARKS OF LIGHT below!

CHAPTER ONE

Decapitation.

De-Capitate, verb. From the Latin, Decapitatus. To remove the head from the rest of the body.

It happened in the bedroom. In my bedroom to be specific, though it still seemed bizarre to think of it as mine, this once-sumptuous chamber of velvet and marble and antique furniture so massive and solid it would likely survive the apocalypse. As with a prom queen at the end of a long night of debauchery, only touches of the room’s original glamour remained.

Not that I had firsthand prom knowledge per se. But one does read about these things.

After another excruciating day, which had included three muddy hours of‘stabbing practice, my muscles were in full-on noodle mode, and I was already mentally sinking into my comfy, if craterous, feather mattress. So when I pushed open the door, it took me a second to get it. Though I froze before the utter and complete annihilation scattered across the scuffed floorboards, my brain, old reliable, began to catalogue the horror.

Splayed, crooked limbs. Clothing ripped to shreds. Matted clumps of hair strewn about a slim, fragile neck that was now nothing but a ragged stump.

I did not see a head.

My life had become decidedly weird in the last few months. And though it hadn’t been what most folks would call apple-pie normal in the first place, at least there’d been no brain-twisty flights through time and space, no assault, no mutilation or bloodshed.

That was no longer the case.

Since arriving at my aunt’s manor in the Scottish Highlands, I’d seen medieval soldiers battle with blood and sword. I’d befriended a legendary queen. I’d been pursued by a vengeful saint. I’d engineered a prison escape and helped bring my mother back from the dead.

I’d killed a guy.

Maybe. Probably. The temporal jury was still out on that one. The fact that he’d been a very bad guy didn’t temper the horrible nightmares.

But this victim had been an innocent. Her destruction a direct result of my own negligence. I took in a breath and stepped inside. As I picked my way through torn lace and body parts, my heart tried to crumble into miniscule, crackling bits.

No, I thought as I faced off with the murderess herself. No. This I will never forgive. This was assassination. And I forever swear vengeance upon your head.

With a smirk playing around her mouth, the killer sat down on the floor amid the carnage she had caused and—without the slightest hint of remorse—began to lick her own butt.

“Oh, that’s real nice.”

My best friend’s new calico kitten interrupted her bath, one leg raised in that peculiar contortion only cats can perform, and blinked at me with wide, oh-so-innocent eyes.

“Oh, don’t you dare look at me like that,” I snarled down at the little puff head. “I know you did it.”

The fur-ball stood on three stubby legs and glared at me for daring to chastise her. The right rear leg dangled, nothing but a nub, though it didn’t slow her even the slightest.

Mac, Collum and Phoebe’s grandfather had found her outside the barn. Wet, bloodied, one of her legs mangled beyond repair. After returning from the vet, the feline had quickly usurped control of the manor.

She stretched languidly, back arching as she gave a yippy little yawn. I frowned and reached down to snatch a hunk of blond hair caught in her whiskers.

“This.” I waved it before her. “Is evidence. See it? Red. Freaking. Handed.”

With a little hiss, she raised a minute paw and batted at the blond curl. I jerked back just in time to avoid having my finger ripped open by the needle-sharp claws.

The kitten had evil in her, I was sure of it. She despised anyone with an X-chromosome, though for some reason, she adored the guys. Mac, in particular, was smitten, toting her around, the little whiskered face peeking out from the pocket of his down vest. Her only redeeming feature was how utterly uncomfortable she made Collum, as she continually appeared out of nowhere and yowled at him to pick her up.

“Why?” I whispered as I surveyed the destruction. “What did I ever do to you?”

She’d been delicate, beautiful. Ancient. Much, much older than the eighteenth-century house itself. The beheaded doll that now lay in scattered ruin across my bedroom floor was the only evidence of my true origins. The only reminder of the child I had once been.

That is, the only tangible reminder. In a way that hurts my brain to think on, just twelve years had passed since someone had plucked her from an icy forest, and kept her safe until he could return her to me.

Twelve years, give or take a few hundred.

“Hey, Hope, have you seen Hec .º.º.”

Phoebe MacPherson skidded to a halt in the doorway. Her hair, previously spiky and the color of blue-raspberry soda, now bore a sleek, chin-length bob, and was dyed what could only be described as shrieking purple. Freckled, barely five feet, and sporting her favorite panda-print jammies, my friend would’ve looked closer to twelve than sixteen if it hadn’t been for her rather abundant chest.

Phoebe gasped as she took in the shredded, headless body. “Oh-h-h,” she moaned. “No-o-o. No no no! Tell me she didn’t.”

I shrugged. “She did.” I turned away before my friend could notice my lips trembling. “My fault. I must’ve left the door open.”

Phoebe knelt, and carefully scooped up the doll’s fragile carcass. Bits of yellow silk floated to the ground. We both looked around for the head. I spotted it first, half-buried beneath a pillow.

“Got it.” I climbed up the three wooden steps and stretched out full-length across the mattress. As my fingers closed around the round shape, the cat jumped up onto the bed to claim her prize.

Avoiding her, I sat up and stared at the delicate painted face in my cupped palm. I sniffed. Stupid to get upset about a dumb doll. Still.

Soft fur rubbed against my elbow. I glanced down as Sister Hectare “Hecty” MacPherson gave a sympathetic meow and nestled against my side.

“Oh, no.” Feet dangling over the edge of the bed, I glared at her. “I do not accept your apology, you furry little butthead.”

Hecty nudged me.

“Don’t you get all purry with me, missy,” I said. “You are a bad, bad kitty.”

Phoebe climbed the steps and settled in on my other side, holding the carcass’s torso in her lap. I tried to maintain my ire, but when the kitten put her paws on my leg and looked up at me again in that melty, Puss-in-Boots way cats have, I sighed. Conceding defeat, I reached down to scratch the velvety spot just behind her ears.

She hissed, and tried to rip the head from my hands with her tiny teeth. I snatched it away just in time. Disgusted, the cat hopped down and—tail high—stalked out the door.

“Doesn’t really match the name, does she?” I said. “Sister Hectare was nice. That thing is a nightmare.”

“Well, the good sister did have sharp claws, aye?”

I huffed. “That’s true enough.”

The stud through Phoebe’s eyebrow glinted as we shared wobbly smiles, both of us thinking of the decrepit little nun who’d used up the last bit of her strength to save our lives. To us, Hectare had died only a few weeks before. Not a thousand years in the past. Her image, and that of the incomparable Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, remained sharp in both our minds.

Though the history books chronicled many details of Eleanor’s life, Sister Hectare’s story had disappeared into the mists of time.

“So.” Phoebe sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “Is it broken, then?”

I examined the doll head in my palm. The carved wooden features were blessedly intact. But the paint was scratched, and there was a bald patch on one side where the kitty had snacked on the brittle golden strands of real hair imbedded in the skull.

“No.” I said. “I don’t think so.”

I should have known better than to leave it lying right there on the bed, with full-on feline access.

But I’d taken to sleeping with the doll. Stupid, I knew. Childish. Still, it was all I had left of that murky “time before.” And .º.º. the only thing I had left of him. Of Bran Cameron. The only physical evidence that we—as a we—had really existed. That what had happened between us was real.

Every morning when I woke, there were always a few sleepy seconds before it hit me. A hammer blow to the chest.

Not one word in all this time. Not since he’d gone back. To her. To his mother, Celia Alvarez, the woman who’d trapped my mother in the past, then left us all there to die. And though she’d allowed Bran to return to the Timeslippers, I didn’t want to think what kind of torments she’d inflicted on him for his betrayal.

“Oy.” Phoebe reached out and took my hand, squeezing hard enough to pull me back from the dark place. “He does love you, you know.”

“Oh, really?” I jerked away, and rubbed my bloodless fingers. “Then why not one word in all this time, huh? It’s been nearly two months. Two bloody months.”

I scowled when her pointed nose crinkled and one side of her wide mouth curled up.

“What?”

“It’s just funny to hear you say ‘bloody.’” She grinned. “It’s all like .º.º. bluudee.”

“Shut up.” I jabbed her with an elbow. But a reluctant smile began to tug at my lips.

We sat in silence for moment. We had no idea what Celia was planning. Where or when she might decide to travel next. The only thing we knew for sure was that she would never give up, not until she found the Nonius Stone, the infamous opal she believed would allow her to better control the entity we knew as ‘the Dim.’

This we could not allow.

And the thing that knotted my stomach the most was that I knew Bran. He’d take crazy risks. To protect us. To protect me. And if Celia caught him thwarting her plans, adopted son or not .º.º. I had no doubt what she’d do.

As if she’d read my mind yet again, Phoebe said, “He’s okay, you know. I mean, it’s Bran. If anyone can talk themselves out of a tough situation, it’s him.”

I sat up straighter at that. “Well, that’s the truth. He does have a kind of knack for getting out of trouble, huh?”

When Phoebe beamed that grin at me, the one that lit up an entire room, I couldn’t help but return it.

“That’s my girl,” she said.

She gave my leg a pat and launched herself off the bed, clearing the steps in one acrobatic leap. Despite her petite size, my best friend was freakishly strong. I followed, easing down the steps in my own distinctly unathletic manner.

“Gram can fix her, you know.” Phoebe plucked the doll’s head from my hand and stuck it in the pocket of her jammies. Cradling the battered torso in one hand, she said, “I’ll drop her off in the sewing room, then I’m for bed.” She gave a huge yawn. “It’s late and you could use some beauty sleep yourself. You look like something the dog dragged in.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “But I think I might—”

“To bed. No excuses,” she ordered, giving me her sternest—no use arguing—face.

In that moment, she looked and sounded so much like Moira, I raised my hands in submission. “Okay, okay.”

“Good girl.” At the doorway she turned. “Actually,” she mused,“think I’ll drop off our mangled friend here, then scoot downstairs and see if I can’t entice my Doug away from that damn computer of his. Lad’s been working around the clock, and it’s not good for his condition.”

“Good luck,” I said. “But you’d better watch out. I swear he and that thing have something going on the side.”

She gave a lewd wink. “Oh .º.º. I’m not worried. I’ve a few moves I doubt that blasted computer can match.”

She sashayed out the door, hips swaying. I shook my head, smiling because I knew she was right. Our resident genius might be deep down his computer rabbit hole. But I’d seen Phoebe bring it before, and I had no doubt that in the end .º.º. she’d have him—probably literally—eating out of her hand.

CHAPTER TWO

The girl’s grandfather, gangly and stooped in his scholar’s robes, held tight to her hand as they hurried through the huge, ornate chamber. She was feeling very important indeed as they followed the Lord Chamberlain through room after room, moving past all the handsome lords in their doublets and ruffs. Past ladies in their silks, their hair piled high and strung with pearls as they waited for an audience with the queen. Though she’d been instructed to stare directly ahead, back straight, chin high, she couldn’t help gawping at the ladies’ white-painted faces.

Her mother claimed painting one’s face was nothing but vanity, and silly besides. Though she wondered sometimes had her mother been a great lady, instead of the wife of a cloth merchant, if she might feel differently.

As they passed through the last pair of green and white doors, the girl saw her. The orange-haired queen sat behind a small desk, eating orange slices. She felt a little stab of disappointment not to find Her Majesty seated on her great throne, beneath a canopy of state. But her jewel-encrusted gown sparkled prettily in the light that slanted down through the mullioned windows, and the girl thought that was very nice.

A tall, handsome man in a velvet cape the color of grass leaned against the queen’s chair, speaking quietly to her.

“That is Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester,” her grandfather told her in a whisper. “A great friend to the queen and to myself.”

When they entered, the Earl straightened and came around the table to greet them.

“Good morrow, John,” he said to the girl’s grandfather. “’Tis been some time. I’ve missed our games. No one else beats me at chess quite as soundly as do you.”

“It has been a while, Your Grace,” her grandfather agreed. “And if I recall correctly, you very nearly won the last time we played.”

Grinning down at the girl, Robert Dudley doffed his feathered cap and pressed it to his chest. “Oh Glorious Majesty. Queen of my heart.” He turned and gave the queen a theatrical wink. “I do believe this beautiful maiden might have just stolen my love clean away.”

“Oh, do get out, Robin.” The queen waved him away with a ringed hand. “And don’t come back for two days. I tire of your jokes.” Her voice sounded severe. But the girl saw the queen’s lips quirk, and observed that her gaze never strayed as she watched the Earl sweep into a deep reverence, then saunter out the door.

They approached the desk. The queen’s face turned terribly stern, though there was a sadness around her eyes as they flicked again toward the closed door.

The queen swallowed hard, and the girl thought maybe Her Majesty hated wearing the high, frilly collar as much as she herself did. When the girl’s fingers rose to tug at the thing—starched into submission by her mother that very morning—her grandfather whispered to her to stop fidgeting.

As I lay curled beneath the quilts in a half doze, I knew the scene filling my mind was no dream. It happened like that now. The once-cloaked memories of my strange early childhood bubbled up from the shadowy part of my brain, returning at odd times. When I was distracted, or my brain logy with sleep.

Unlike the memories of so-called normal people, mine emerged crystal clear. Every detail as sharp and crisp as if it had happened only days earlier. Before I’d come to Scotland, my photographic memory had been yet another thing that singled me out. Made me different. Made me a joke with my father’s family. Add to this that I was the only home-schooled kid in our entire infinatesimal town and it’s not hard to deduce that my social calendar was rarely full.

And yet, as the memories emerged full-bodied and complete, I felt removed from them. As if I were watching a beloved character from one of my favorite books come to life.

A few feet from the desk, the girl’s grandfather bent low in a respectful bow. She followed with her best curtsy, proud that she held it without tipping over. Back at home, before her grandfather had hoisted her onto his great horse, her sister had leaned down to hiss into her ear, “Do be careful, sister. You know how clumsy you are. I’d hate for you to fall flat on your face when you meet Her Majesty.”

One winter day, as the girl wept in her mother’s arms, her mother had explained that it was envy that caused her sister’s occasional cruelty. She resented their grandfather’s special affection for the girl, her mother had said Though he visited their house often, eating at their table and spending long hours teaching all three of them—her brother, sister, and herself—to read and write, he took only the younger girl with him when he went to visit his mother’s home at Mortlake.

After he informed the girl’s mother he was taking her to meet his great friend, the queen, the girl’s sister had yanked on her braid and would have pinched her had their older brother Willie not warned her away.

Her small legs trembled as she held the curtsy. When, finally, the queen’s rich, husky voice ordered her grandfather and her to rise, the girl dared a look. The queen’s lips, painted in a red cupid’s bow, stretched as she smiled fondly at the girl’s grandfather. When he returned a slow grin, the girl knew something special existed between them, this magnificent queen and her own ratty old Poppy with his ink-stained fingers and scruffy gray beard. Her chest and cheeks glowed with pride. She wondered, though, why the queen’s own mother hadn’t taught her to use a willow twig to clean her teeth, as they looked very dark against her white face.

After a moment, her grandfather made the introductions. “Your Majesty,” he said. “This is the child I’ve mentioned to you.”

Queen Elizabeth Tudor’s painted eyebrows arched into a high, plucked forehead. “Ah,” she said, smile dimming. “Yes. I seem to recall. You did help support a poor orphaned child once long ago, did you not? A girl, I believe? Grown now, with children of her own. How very .º.º. philanthropic you are, John.”

The girl’s grandfather went very, very still as the queen picked up a tiny golden spoon and began to tap the end of a boiled egg. It cracked, and she peeled the shell off in one long coil.

“But.” She reached out to pinch some salt from the engraved silver salt cellar, sprinkling the egg before stabbing the spoon into the tender white flesh.

A dripping bit of yolk made its way to the queen’s painted lips. And when she looked back at the girl’s grandfather, her black eyes had gone cold.

“In truth,” Queen Elizabeth said. “This child is your granddaughter. Her mother a bastard, a by-blow from your younger days. A fact which you did not deign to share with me.”

The girl’s back stiffened at that, though her grandfather’s hand squeezed hers in warning.

How dare you, thought the little girl, her small body almost vibrating as she seethed with outrage. How dare you call my mother a bastard!

Even at four and one half years, the girl knew what that meant. A scurrilous lie, she thought, crossing her arms over her thin chest as she waited for her grandfather’s no doubt furious rebuttal.

She waited and waited. And when her grandfather only stared down at his feet, the girl’s heart sank. She determined then to demand the truth from her grandfather the moment they set out from Windsor Castle.

“Did you think I would not hear, John?” The queen stood, anger cracking the smooth white paint. “Nothing happens in my kingdom that I do not learn of it!”

Queen Elizabeth threw the spoon hard against the nearby window. It clattered to the ground. A trail of yellow slime dripped down the glass. Silence reined for a long moment. The girl watched sunlight glint off diamonds and emeralds as the queen paced back and forth, a ringed hand pressed to her flat abdomen. The girl may’ve been young but everyone in the kingdom whispered of it. How the great Virgin Queen would not choose a husband. How she had no child, no heir, to call her own. How she was beginning to age.

Her grandfather spoke softly. “Your Gracious Majesty,” he began. “When I was young, I made many mistakes.” His grip on the girl’s hand loosened, though he did not let go as he looked the queen in the eye. “My only regret in this matter is that I did not share this with you. But the deed itself I cannot regret. Not for one moment. Not when this child is the outcome. She is like me. She holds my gift of memory. And I believe with the right training, she could one day be very useful to you and to England.”

Finally, seeming to come to some decision, Queen Elizabeth gave a short, sharp nod. Her grandfather’s shoulders relaxed as he let go of the young girl’s hand. The girl held tight to the poppet he’d bought for her in the market only that morning, squeezing her as the queen’s sharp black eyes roved over her face.

Opening pursed lips, the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, Queen of all England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, began to scream.

Wait, that’s not right. I thought. What had happened next was that the queen had taken her grandfather aside to speak privately while the girl .º.º. while I .º.º. looked out the window at the garden. Then—

My eyes popped open as the scream came again, faint and lingering, followed by a high-pitched wail. A glance at the digital clock on my bedside table told me it was 11:43 pm, meaning I’d been in bed a total of twenty-seven minutes.

I threw off the covers and stumbled down the wooden steps. Dashing across the room, I threw open the door.

Illuminated only by antique wall sconces, converted in the last century from their original gas, the darkly paneled hallway seemed to stretch out to nightmarish lengths. My bare feet slid on the faded carpet runner as I skidded to a halt before the last door on the left.

From inside came two distinct cries.

I wasn’t the only one who’d heard. Moira MacPherson, plump cheeks flushed from sleep, appeared seconds later, and I allowed myself an inward sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to face this alone. In her fluffy bathrobe and pink sponge curlers, Moira nodded at me solemnly.

Down the hall, Mac, Moira’s balding husband, was wrapping a flannel robe around his gangly form.

“Happening again, is it?” Yawning, Mac scrubbed at small blue eyes, identical to his granddaughter Phoebe’s. “I thought Greta had prescribed something to help our Sarah rest?”

In the last month, Dr. Greta Lund, Aunt Lucinda’s Danish doctor friend, had spent hours with my mom, helping her learn to cope with the aftereffects of her traumatic ordeal. Afterward, Greta and Lucinda often spent time together, sharing a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

That the good doctor also knew all the family secrets came as something of a surprise.

“Thick as thieves, those two were,” Moira had told Phoebe and me one evening after Aunt Lucinda had escorted Greta through the back door to her car. “Greta spent all her holidays and summers here, her own family being a bit of a mess, you see? When she chose medicine over staying on with the Viators, it nearly broke Lu.”

Taken aback, Phoebe and I looked at each other. The idea of anything “breaking” my imposing aunt was beyond both of our imaginations.

The hell? Phoebe mouthed.

I shrugged. But as Moira ambled off to clear the dinner table, Phoebe and I scrambled to the kitchen window to watch Lucinda and the pretty, gentle-voiced Dr. Lund. They were standing very close together. And when Greta laid a hand on Lucinda’s cheek, my aunt smiled down at her with such devastating emotion, I could only gawp.

“Whoa,” Phoebe whispered, eyes going round as marbles as she turned to look at me.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Whoa.”

Phoebe beamed. “But that’s brilliant! I always felt sorry for Lu, you know? No matter how strong she is or how she claims to be ‘married to the Viators,’ she has to be lonely. And especially now, with the illness and all. Gram claims the blood transfusions are helping. But I heard Greta tell her that without a sample of the disease, there’s no real way to cure it.”

I turned away from the window, giving the two women their privacy. Whatever was killing my aunt’s red blood cells was a complete mystery to her doctors. Of course, what they did not know—could never know—was that the disease rampaging through my aunt’s bone marrow had been acquired during a trip to thirteenth-century Romania.

From behind my mother’s closed door, the baby mewled.

“Mom won’t take the sedatives, ’cause of the nursing,” I told Mac.

“I offered to wean the babe to the bottle,” Moira put in. “But Sarah wouldn’t have it.”

As Mac started down the hall, Moira waved him back.

“No need, mo ghràdh,” she said quietly. “Get to yer bed. Hope and I can handle this. It won’t be the first time, aye?”

Mac paused, then stifled a yawn as he nodded. “A’right then. But call if you have need of some warm milk. Or a tot of whiskey. I can fetch either.”

As the door to their bedroom closed, Moira turned back to me. “Scotsmen,” she tsked. “Always thinking life’s ills can be cured with a bit o’ whiskey.”

Moira and I faced the door together. For the moment all was silent.

Maybe they went back to sleep.

The staccato tinkle of shattering glass sounded through the thick wood. Moira gave a cry and grabbed the crystal knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t open. Cursing in Gaelic under her breath, Moira reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a skeleton key.

“Learned my lesson last time,” she told me as she twisted the brass key in the lock.

Though every lamp was lit, so that the room blazed with light, I didn’t see my mom. The wicker bassinet in the corner was empty, but the room was filled with the sound of my two-month-old sister’s squalls.

The bedroom smelled of baby powder and furniture polish, underlaid with a metallic tinge. Light from the small chandelier glinted off shards of glass that lay strewn across the wooden floor and braided rug. On the bedside table, strands of purple heather tangled in a puddle of water where a crystal vase had stood earlier that evening.

While Moira dashed to the bed and rifled through the rumpled quilts, hoping to find the baby there, my gaze flicked around the room. In the shadowed space beneath the four-poster bed, I thought I saw something shift.

“Mom?”

Moira, back at my side, pointed a shaking finger. “Hope,” she murmured. But I’d already seen it. A small scarlet stream that flowed from beneath the bed.

I dropped to my hands and knees. “Mom,” I choked out. “It’s me, Hope. Mom, are you hurt? Is Ellie okay? There’s blood, Mom. Why is there blood? Please come out, you’re scaring me.”

“Hope?” My mother’s voice sounded scratchy and hoarse, as if she’d been shrieking for hours. “Is it really you? She .º.º. she didn’t take you?”

“Wh-what?” Stifling the sob that was trying to wrench itself from my throat, I croaked, “No one took me, Mom. I’m right here. Just .º.º. come out, okay?”

Moira eased down, knees cracking as she knelt.

“Sarah,” she called softly. “It’s me, darling girl. It’s your Moira. Hope’s fine. Come on out, now. We’re sore worried about you. And the babe.”

For a time, my sister’s wails quieted and all we could hear was my mother’s uneven breathing. I glanced down as something warm touched my fingertips. The blood had reached the spot where my hand pressed against the floor. It began to pool up around my fingers. Shuddering, I jerked away.

“Mom! “My voice cracked. “Mama. Plea—”

“Sarah Elizabeth Carlyle!” A stern voice cut me off. “Stop this nonsense and come out of there this instant!”

My arms wobbled, and I nearly wilted in relief as my Aunt Lucinda marched across the room, towering over me.

“L-Lu?”

“Of course it’s me, Sarah,” my aunt snapped. “Now come out from under that bed. Your child is in distress.”

With a sharp gesture, my aunt waved me back as my mom began to shuffle out from beneath the bed, her left arm squeezing my red, flailing sister tight against her side.

Over the last few weeks, my mother’s strawberry blond hair had developed a large streak of white. Marie Antoinette syndrome, Dr. Lund had explained. A condition that occurs when a terrible shock causes the hair follicles to stop producing pigment. Aunt Lucinda, eight years my mother’s senior, had always looked much older than Mom.

But now, seeing her ragged face beneath the unforgiving lights, I realized my mother had aged a decade in the last year.

Dr. Sarah Carlyle, had been one of the world’s most sought-after and respected historians. An author of bestselling biographies, once a year my mom had crisscrossed the world on her sold-out lecture tours. Later, of course, I learned the true reason a renowned critic once wrote, “Dr. Carlyle’s descriptions are so clever and so damn realistic, one would swear she had been there to witness the events for herself.”

My mother was clever, no doubt. But she’d also put her trust in the wrong person, and it had almost killed her.

For eight long months, she had been trapped in the twelfth century. Tricked, then abandoned in medieval England by a woman who’d once been her very best friend. Celia Alvarez had sold her out, and the abuse my mother had endured at the hands of the brutal man she was forced to marry was unimaginable. Alone and heavily pregnant, by the time Collum, Phoebe, and I arrived in that distant era to save her, my strong, brilliant mother had been so badly broken, I’d barely recognized her.

Lucinda helped Mom to her feet, gently pried my squalling sister from her arms, and handed the squirming bundle off to Moira.

My heart twisted itself into a hard, pulsing knot when I saw blood smeared across the tiny ducks on Ellie’s Onesie. Moira laid my sister on the bed and gave her a quick, practiced once-over.

“The babe isn’t hurt,” Moira whispered. “Only scared and likely hungry.”

Lucinda’s broad shoulders sagged just a bit as she gave Moira a brisk nod. Mom flung her arms around her sister’s neck, clinging as she trembled and muttered to herself.

When I saw the large shard of crystal jutting from my mother’s clenched fist, all the breath left me in a whoosh. Blood poured down her wrist to stain the back of Lucinda’s peach bathrobe as my mother held on.

“Aunt Lucinda.” My voice vibrated. “Her hand—”

“I’m aware,” she said, without moving. “Moira? The child?”

“I’ll take her downstairs,” Moira said. “If you’ve got this?”

“She’s coming for us,” my mother whispered in a voice that felt like spiders marching down my spine. “Celia’s coming. She swore it, Lu. She came to me and said she’d take us all back there if it was the last thing she ever did. I had to protect my daughters.”

A silence fell, as if the name had poisoned the very air around us.

The back of Lucinda’s neck flushed. Cheek pressed against my mom’s lank, sweaty hair, she said quietly, “Moira, please fetch the first aid kit before you go. Hope and I will tend to Sarah.”

As Moira bustled out, Lucinda slowly eased my mother’s arms from around her neck.

“Hope, a clean cloth, if you please.” Though she aimed to speak in her normal, stolid manner I could hear my aunt’s voice quiver as I snatched a cloth diaper from a nearby laundered stack. Holding on to my mom’s other side, I helped Lucinda ease her down into the wooden rocker next to the bed.

“Sarah.” Lucinda knelt before the chair. “Remember what Greta told you. They are only nightmares. Dreams. Nothing more. You know we have eyes on Celia. She cannot hurt any of us.”

I flinched, knowing full well who was keeping an eye on Celia. Who supposedly reported her dealings to my aunt, commander general of the Viators. I shoved away thoughts of Bran, refusing to dwell on how much danger he was in, or what would happen if Celia ever found out he was spying for us.

As Lucinda gently opened my mother’s fist, I swallowed hard at the damage. Only one person was to blame for this.

One day I would make her pay.

Tutting, Lucinda carefully withdrew the vicious shard. I took it from her outstretched fingers, then dropped it into the nearby metal waste bin with a heavy plink as my aunt pressed the cloth into the jagged wound.

“Oh, Sarah,” she said under her breath. “What have you done?”

My aunt snatched up a thick, folded sheaf of papers from the floor beside the bed and passed them to me. “Take this away, please.”

Nodding, I turned my back to them and unfolded the pages.

The stark, black words at the top read: DIVORCE DECREE: Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.

I closed my eyes as rage flared inside me.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. When Dad had arrived weeks earlier, responding to my aunt’s urgent summons, he hadn’t taken the news well. Not only was his wife back from the dead .º.º. he also had a newborn daughter. A scientist, my adoptive father refused to accept the truth, even after my aunt, Mac, and I had explained everything. That his wife had been trapped in the past. That she’d been tricked by an evil woman. That—after being told for years it was impossible—the baby she bore was his.

He’d begged me to go with him. As if I would ever think of leaving my mom alone.

“This is my home now,” I told him, realizing the truth of the words even as they left my lips.

Later, of course, we learned that he and Stella had become engaged on their vacation. That while we were fighting for our lives in the brutal medieval world, my father had been kneeling on a beach in Mexico, proposing to a nice librarian.

I’d hated him for it at first. His cowardice. His disloyalty. But Mom convinced me that in the long run, it was best for everyone. My dad’s world was algae and test tubes. Fourth of July parades and iced tea on front porch swings. She’d said she’d known that about him, and had thought it was the life she wanted too. It was why she’d never told him the truth about who she really was. About who I am, and where I came from. For years, she’d tried to stuff herself—and me��into a world that was always going to be too small for people like us.

Apparently, he’d made his decision. And it was just one more thing to pile on. One more punch to the gut, along with everything else Mom had suffered. Well, maybe I couldn’t protect her from this, but I sure as hell would protect her from Celia Alvarez.

I crumpled the pages in my fist as I turned back around.

“Mom?” I said, my voice fierce and low as she raised her bloodshot eyes to mine. “I—I love you, Mom.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Blade!”

By the time I managed to snatch my dagger from its hidden sheath in my boot and bring it up, it was far too late. My attacker’s sword whipped down, so close I felt the breeze on my cheek and heard the weapon slice the air next to my ear. A few dark curls floated to the muddy ground and disappeared into the muck.

Heart slamming, I tried to dance away. But the tight waist of the practice gown had long ago stolen what little breath I had. The full skirts tripped me up, and I went down hard. In seconds the cold, boggy ground seeped through the thick layers of wool and muslin.

I scuttled back on my butt, boot heels making divots in the mud.

“Stop. Can’t brea—” The sword tip nudged my throat. Cold, sharp, stinging.

Ignoring the raindrops that pattered my cheeks and eyelashes, I glowered up at the grin spreading across my opponent’s broad, freckled face.

“Better.” Collum MacPherson sheathed the short gladiator sword that had once belonged to his father. “You drew quick enough that time.” He offered me a hand up. All pride gone, I took it.

“But you paused,” Collum went on. “And you can’t hesitate, Hope. Not for an instant. Not when you’re under attack.”

“But,” I said, my voice just south of a whine. “I could’ve cut you.”

Collum’s blond eyebrows quirked puppy-like over his eyes, though he was kind enough to hide the smile. “Unlikely.”

That was true enough, though it irked me to no end that he had to look so damn smug about it. Despite weeks of endless training, I was still clunky and awkward with any and every type of weapon. Besides, I’d never seen anyone faster with a sword than Collum MacPherson.

Well .º.º. that part wasn’t exactly true. But before the image of a dark-haired figure whipping two curved blades like they were extensions of his own body, could fully form, I pushed it away.

“What?” Collum’s hazel eyes narrowed on me.

“Nothing. Just cold.” I shivered for effect.

“Cold?” he queried. “In July?”

“It’s a Scottish Highland July. What is it, like sixty-eight, seventy degrees? It’s ninety-eight in Arkansas right now. In the shade. Plus,” I added, gesturing to the mud that was congealing on the back of my skirts. “Ick.”

“Ick?” Collum closed his eyes and pinched the creased skin between his sandy brows. “So what you’re saying is that when you get into trouble on a mission, you’ll simply .º.º. what? Call a time-out?” His voice went high-pitched in the worst American accent I’d ever heard. “‘Excuse me! Hello, all you murderers. Could you stop swinging at me for a moment, please? I’ve a muddy bum.’”

“Well, I—”

“No.” He picked up my blade and handed it to me, hilt first. “Again. And again and again. And never mind the ‘ick.’”

In the two months since my abrupt return from the past, Collum had been relentless. Two hours. Every day. Tired or exhausted. Rain or .º.º. well, less rain, I was dragged outdoors to defend myself—in costume, no less—against an opponent of his choosing.

With Phoebe, a much more patient and gentle teacher, I learned how to use my opponent’s larger size against them. Only for me, that happened about one out of every hundred times, and usually because my feet got accidentally tangled with theirs.

Phoebe had trained almost since she’d left the womb, in an insane regimen of a variety of martial arts. With a body weight of a hundred pounds dripping wet, my petite “bestie” could put down any attacker. Usually in less than five moves. Watching her send Collum crashing to the mud was one of the joys of my life.

I wasn’t any better at knife throwing, Phoebe’s other exquisitely honed skill. As Mac often said, “My granddaughter can peel the wings off a fly at thirty paces, she can.”

After days, weeks, two months of kicks and punches, knife chunks and bow twangs. After countless nicks from steel objects—mostly self-inflicted. After hours in Moira’s Epsom salt baths, trying to soak the feeling back into my numb muscles, you’d think I’d have become at least somewhat less pathetic.

You would be wrong.

“Argh! I can’t do this!”

I threw the light practice sword away in disgust. It twirled through the air, hit the mud point first, and stuck there.

“Hey!” I called to Collum as I watched the part that wasn’t sunk in the mud sway back and forth. “Kinda stuck the landing, didn’t I? I mean sure, it was an accident and all. But you gotta admit, that wasn’t too bad, was—”

From twenty yards away, Collum rushed me. Like his woad-painted ancestors before him, he raised his sword and shrieked an ancient battle cry as his large feet pounded across the stable yard.

It happened without conscious thought. A translucent film, tinged neon green, overlaid my vision. Multiple arcs drew themselves from every angle, tracing out possible escape routes and countermeasures. Instantaneously, my mind filtered through every lesson, every bit of training, calculating each possible outcome of this scenario.

As two hundred pounds of bellowing Celtic warrior descended on me, my mind discarded one idea after another after another until .º.º.

I stepped aside and stuck out my foot.

Collum’s speed was such that he couldn’t veer off in time. His trajectory took him straight into my path, where he tumbled over my outstretched leg and splatted, face first, into the mud.

“Ow!” I hopped on one foot, trying to rub the already bruising flesh where the toe of his boot had cracked against my ankle.

He rose slowly while hunks of slimy earth slid down to glop back onto the ground. Collum MacPherson swiped at his eyes, flinging mud from his fingers as he glared at me for a long moment. All I could see of his face were two clear hazel eyes amid the brown gunk.

“Um.” I grimaced. “Sorry?”

White flashed amidst the rich ocheras he grinned. Grinned and began to laugh.

And then I was laughing too because well, it was all so utterly, utterly ridiculous. All of it.

“You .º.º.” I wheezed. “Covered in.º.º.º. And holy crap, we .º.º. freaking time travelers.” I bent, breathless as I let it all go in a long, soundless spasm that I was sure would burst every blood vessel in my brain. “How .º.º. st-stupid is that?”

“Aye.” Collum hiccupped. “And damn my eyes if you don’t look like a wee barbarian yerself with your hair all stuck to one side of your head!”

We laughed. We laughed until we couldn’t laugh anymore. Until tears tracked through the mud on our faces and the sun peeked through the clouds to infiltrate the raindrops.

“They say when the sun shines through the rain it’s the devil’s beating his wife,” Collum said as we headed toward the house.

“Well, that is so not cool.” I climbed the steps to the screened porch. “Mrs. Satan should file a restraining order against that ass-hat.”

He snorted and reached out to pluck something from my hair. Turning his palm over, I saw it was a solid clump of stable yard mud or .º.º. what I sincerely hoped was mud. Above us, the mountaintop had disappeared behind a cloak of white mist. The air around us had turned an odd peachy plum, as if each droplet emitted its own tiny rainbow.

Collum sighed. “Oh, but I do love this time of day,” he said. “When the day rests her bones beneath night’s soft cloak.”

“Why, Collum MacPherson,” I said. “Were you just being poetic? Hang on, I need a pencil and paper. Someone has to notate this auspicious occasion.”

Collum’s always windburned cheeks went neon as he bumped me with his shoulder. And despite the mud and the rain and the sore muscles .º.º. as we both smiled, I felt something peaceful and comforting settle around me, a warm blanket to chase away the chill.

“Might be that a shower is in order.” He gave the dark clump a dubious look.

“Right back atcha,” I threw over my shoulder as we headed inside. “’Cause you look like a golem.”

We were still laughing as we headed upstairs.

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