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“JB said they’ll remember,” Jonah said.

“But he said they have to choose to come with us,” Katherine said. “We can’t force them. What if we can’t convince them?”

“We’ll figure out the right thing to say when we get there,” Jonah said impatiently.

He stepped forward, straining because it took so much effort now just to pull his feet through the mud. This portion of the swamp was even wetter, the mud even deeper.

What if it’s really quicksand?
Jonah wondered.
What if we get stuck out here, and we die and nobody discovers our bones for hundreds of years?

He wasn’t sure why this bothered him so much—not just the dying, but the not being found. What did it matter,
if it was going to be hundreds of years before anyone he knew was even born?

I’d want Mom and Dad to know what happened to us
, he thought.
I’d want them to know we were trying to be brave, trying to do something good. …

He felt dizzy and disoriented again. Maybe this was one of those swamps he’d heard about in Boy Scouts where there were swamp gases that could knock you out. Maybe they were doomed no matter what.

“Jonah?” Katherine said beside him. “Are those the right troops?”

She pointed at a cluster of silver helmets in the clearing ahead of them.

Jonah tried to remember the map JB had drawn.

“I think so,” he said.

The cluster of helmets, the bright sunshine, the screams from the battlefield—everything was so much more vivid than it had seemed from the crude pencil drawing JB had shown them. It was hard to get oriented.

“I’m going to climb this tree and look,” Katherine said, bracing her foot against the trunk of a nearby oak with low-hanging branches.

Jonah remembered the arrows whizzing through the air not that far away.

“No! No—I’ll do it,” Jonah said, pushing her out of the way.

He pushed a little too hard, and Katherine landed on her backside in the mud.

“Jerk!” she called up to him.

Jonah didn’t bother answering, or helping her up. He scrambled up the tree—tree climbing was something else that was made much more complicated by armor. He ended up clinging to the thick central branch, peering out through the leaves.

Hundreds of silver helmets lay before him, worn by hundreds of soldiers fidgeting on the sidelines of the battle.

“Well?” Katherine called from the ground below. “Do you see Chip and Alex?”

“I … I don’t know,” Jonah stammered. He hadn’t thought about this being hard too, just finding their friends. Why hadn’t he asked JB exactly what kind of armor Chip and Alex would be wearing, exactly where they’d be standing?

Why hadn’t he requested a GPS reading, while he was at it?

“Let me see,” Katherine demanded.

“No, no—stay where it’s safe …,” Jonah began.

But Katherine already had a foot on the lowest branch. A second later she was standing beside him, on the other side of the tree trunk. Silently she surveyed the rows and rows of helmets.

“See?” Jonah said. “It’s not doing any good to stand up here, we’re just putting ourselves in danger. …”

Katherine opened her mouth—
To tell me off
, Jonah thought.
To argue
. But she surprised him by throwing her head back and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Chip Winston! Where are you?”

That was really stupid
, Jonah fumed.
No one could hear her over the sounds of the battle. Or if they do hear her, it’ll be the wrong people, soldiers who’ll think we’re spies, maybe. … They might not even look for us, they’ll just, I don’t know, set the tree on fire. …

At first nothing happened. And then, slowly, slowly, one of the silver helmets began to turn around.

“Third row from the back, fourth person in,” Katherine said, jumping down from the tree.

She landed hard and rolled forward, practically doing a somersault in her armor. Some of her hair dragged out on the ground, collecting more mud to go with the mud on the chest and backside of her armor. She took off running.

“Wait for me!” Jonah cried.

He jumped too, his armor clanking as he hit the ground. A few of the soldiers in the back row looked around nervously, but Jonah ignored them.

Katherine was darting through the rows of soldiers, dodging bulging packs of arrows and jutting-out bows and swords that the soldiers kept at the ready, pointed out, as if they were sure they’d be called into the action at
any moment. Jonah did his best to keep up.

They came upon Alex first, standing quietly and resolutely in the lineup of soldiers. Because of the armor and helmet Jonah could see nothing but Alex’s face, which looked surprisingly like the twenty-first-century Alex’s, rather than the fifteenth-century Prince Richard’s.

Oh, yeah
, Jonah thought.
If Chip aged from twelve to fourteen between 1483 and 1485, Alex would have aged from ten to twelve. Not that much different from the thirteen-year-old I knew …

Chip was just beyond Alex, standing a little apart from the other soldiers. Up close it was even weirder to see him two years older, with facial hair and a more defined jawline and a thick, muscular neck.
Did they have steroids in the fifteenth century?
Jonah wondered. But it wasn’t really the physical changes that startled Jonah the most—it was the look in Chip’s eyes, a wise, worldly look, as though he knew all sorts of things a thirteen-year-old wouldn’t have learned yet.

Katherine planted herself exactly between the two boys.

“Chip? Alex?” she called softly.

Neither boy moved a muscle. Both continued staring, as if hypnotized, directly out into the battle.

Jonah began to doubt that it really was Chip who’d turned around when Katherine screamed his name. He stepped back for a moment and counted—Chip was the
sixth person in from the edge, not the fourth. The fourth person was an old, whiskery man. They were just lucky that that man had turned around, that he’d been standing so close to Chip and Alex.

Hopelessness began to sweep over Jonah. What if they couldn’t even get Chip and Alex to acknowledge their presence?

Jonah stepped forward and tugged on Chip’s arm. Not hard—he wasn’t trying to get Chip completely away from his tracer. It wasn’t time for that yet, and he couldn’t do it in front of all the other soldiers. But he wanted Chip—the real Chip, the twenty-first-century Chip—to come out just for an instant, just long enough that Jonah could tell him what was going to happen.

Jonah’s fingers seemed to slip right off Chip’s arm.

“Let me try,” Katherine said.

She pushed at Chip’s back just as uselessly. She pushed harder. She tugged, she yanked, she stepped back, got a running start, and tried to tackle him.

“Careful,” Jonah said. “This is what made JB pull us out the last time.”

“But it’s not working!” Katherine muttered through gritted teeth.

Jonah sidled up beside Chip and leaned in close to whisper in his ear.

“Please, Chip,” he begged. “Remember who you are. We’ve got to get you out of here, for your own good. Remember home? Remember cell phones and iPods and TVs and computers and cars and … and pizza! Remember pizza?”

Chip turned his head. But it was only to look at Alex, only to say, “Watch Norfolk’s men. They’re fighting the hardest.”

“Hello?” Jonah screamed. But the sound got lost in the cheers and shrieks from the battlefield. Chip continued to look right through Jonah.

“I have an idea,” Katherine said.

She shoved past Jonah and put her arm around Chip’s shoulder. She had to reach up high and stand on tiptoes; he was that much taller than her now.

“Chip,” she said, her lips almost touching his ear, “six boys have asked me to be their girlfriend in the past year.”

“Katherine, what are you doing?” Jonah fumed. “Nobody cares about that right now!”

Katherine glared at him for a moment, then went back to whispering to Chip.

“I told them all no, and do you want to know why?” she asked. “Everybody’s supposed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend in sixth grade, but I didn’t really care about any
of those boys—it wouldn’t have meant anything to say that Tyler Crawford was my boyfriend, or that Spencer Rajan was my boyfriend.”

“Spencer Rajan asked you out?” Jonah asked incredulously. “I didn’t know that.”

Katherine ignored him.

“But you know what, Chip?” she said, leaning in closer. “If
you’d
asked me to be your girlfriend, I would have said yes. That would have meant something.”

Swaying a little on her tiptoes, weighed down by her mud-covered armor, she turned her head and gave him a timid kiss on the cheek.

At first nothing happened. But then there was a small flare of light around Chip’s face, the reappearance of his tracer, barely separated from Chip. The tracer continued staring out at the battle, but Chip turned his head to look at Katherine.

“Really?” Chip said softly, his nearly invisible mouth moving while the tracer’s mouth stayed firmly shut. “You really like me?”

“Well, duh,” Katherine said. “I came all the way to the fifteenth century for you, didn’t I?” She took a step back, as if she was a little stunned that Chip had heard her. She looked him up and down. “And it’s not just because I know now that you’re going to be really hot by the time you’re fifteen.”

“I am?” Chip said. “Hot? You think so?”

“Hey, hey—can the romance and hot talk, all right?” Jonah interrupted. Both Chip and Katherine turned toward him, looking annoyed. “Or save it for later,” Jonah amended. “We’ve got a lot of other things to worry about right now.”

“Aye, the battle,” Chip said. His face started to retract into the older, fifteenth-century version of himself, into his tracer.

“No, no, Chip—wait,” Jonah said frantically. “Katherine and I came to get you and Alex out of here. So you don’t die in this battle.”

Chip’s face hovered, barely apart from his tracer’s.

“I won’t die in battle,” he said confidently. “I’m an expert swordsman. Everyone says so.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Jonah said. “All the time experts say you and Alex are going to die if we don’t take you away.”

Jonah saw a flash of light—it was Chip’s arm separating from his tracer’s. Chip reached out to grasp Alex’s shoulder.

“My brother?” Chip asked. “
He’ll
die?”

Jonah got an idea.

“Pull him out of his tracer,” Jonah said. “Let him hear what’s going to happen.” This had worked before, Jonah remembered. Chip had been able to separate Alex from his tracer when Jonah and Katherine failed.

Chip glanced around, his head separating from his tracer’s head even more dramatically. None of the soldiers around them were watching Chip and Alex. They all had their eyes glued to the battle. Chip jerked on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex’s head pitched forward, leaving his tracer’s face behind. Dazedly, he peered around, his eyes focusing slowly on Jonah and Katherine.

“Two years,” he murmured. “I haven’t been able to fully think with this brain for two years.”

“We’re almost ready to take you back,” Jonah said. “You can think with that brain all the time after this.”

Alex blinked.

“I—,” he began.

Suddenly there was a thundering of hooves, drowning out whatever Alex had planned to say. A man on a white horse sped toward them, leaning forward in the saddle, intent on his goal.

It was King Richard III.

Jonah stiffened.
Our cue!
He wanted to scream at Katherine, “Remember? We can pull them out after Richard sees them!”

But he and Katherine had to step out of the way, because Richard galloped right up in front of Chip and Alex. Both boys had completely rejoined their tracers and were staring up at their uncle. Around them the other soldiers had their hands on their swords, but Jonah couldn’t tell if they were prepared to attack Richard or defend him.

Richard slid off his horse. His eyes flicked from Chip to Alex and back again.

“My nephews,” he said, sounding stunned, as if he couldn’t quite believe the sight before him. “So it is true. … You live?”

“Aye,” Chip said, a challenge in his voice. “Against your wishes.”

He stood bold and strong, his hand tight on the hilt of his sword.

Would he try to kill Richard?
Jonah wondered.
Right here? Right now? What could we do about that?

“And yet, you’ve been betrayed,” Richard said mockingly. “Spies told me you were here.”

“Spies told us not all of your subjects are loyal,” Alex countered, stepping up beside Chip. “Some of your noblemen refused to fight for you.”

Jonah remembered Lord Stanley, refusing to fight for Richard even if it meant his own son’s death. Richard grimaced, every bit as pained as if Alex had struck him with a sword. Jonah expected Richard to lash out, maybe grab for his own sword at the insult. Jonah put his arm protectively on Alex’s shoulder, ready to snatch him away at the first thrust of a sword. Out of the corner of his eye Jonah saw Katherine do the same thing to Chip.

But Richard didn’t reach for his sword. He dropped to his knee and bowed his head before Chip.

“My nephew,” Richard murmured. “I have sinned before God and man, but I have been granted a second chance. When the battle is over … when we have vanquished Henry Tudor …” He looked up, his eyes boring into Chip’s. “As soon as this battle ends, I will give you back your crown.”

Jonah’s jaw dropped. This was a complication he’d never expected, one he’d never even dreamed was possible.

Why didn’t JB warn us about this?
Jonah wondered. Maybe it was just Jonah, but it seemed like it would have made a lot more sense for JB to tell him and Katherine they could yank Chip and Alex out of time “after Richard offers the crown back,” rather than “after Richard sees them.”

Before Chip could answer, an overwhelming wave of cheers and screams and gasps flew through the crowd, seeming to drown out all other sound.
How could all those people have heard what Richard said?
Jonah wondered. But they weren’t reacting to Richard’s proclamation. They were reacting to something that had happened out on the battlefield.