The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel (24 page)

She froze, her eyes huge. “You . . . what?”

“I love you. With all my heart.” Given the stunned look she currently wore, she needed that clarification.

“Glorious goddess!” Gwen’s first mother said, clutching the second mother. “Isn’t he wonderful? I’m not upset that you’re male at all, young man. And neither is Alice.”

“Well . . . ,” the second mother started to say, but at a look from the first, she added, “Gwen has clearly made up her mind, and since you make her happy, then we shall welcome you to our family without reservation.”

Gwen closed her eyes for a moment, shook her head, then opened her eyes to give him a steely look. He beamed more love at her. He couldn’t stop himself; it just seemed to keep welling out of him.

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” Gwen said, nodding toward the two men on the floor. “Things are a little bit hectic right now.”

“Life,” he said with as much sagacity as he could muster, “is never too hectic for love.”

“August!” the first mother said. “We must have an August wedding. The bower will be in full bloom then.”

“Consuela!” Ethan bellowed out the tent entrance. “Bring my datebook. What does my schedule look like in August? Can I get away for a wedding at a bower? No, I don’t know where it is, but clearly they need me. Diego, no!”

Holly reappeared, grabbed Ethan by his alien hand, and pulled him out of the tent. The faint cries of, “Holly! You’re hurting Diego! You know he’s just going to want more of that later—” trailed behind them.

“Gwen?” Gregory took her hand and pulled her against his chest. The mothers were busily planning what events would take place at the wedding, while Ethan could still be heard, arguing with Holly about whether or not he could leave Anwyn. He didn’t like the stressed look around Gwen’s beautiful eyes, and thought seriously of kissing her silly right there. “You do want to spend your life with me, don’t you?”

She wouldn’t look him in the eye. She stared at his ear, and a line appeared between her brows. The faintest shadow of doubt pricked his skin. What if she truly did not want to wed him? What if she couldn’t learn to love him as he loved her? What if he was just a number on a long list of men with whom she spent time?

Fear gripped him hard in the pit of his belly at her words. “I’m not sure what I want. Everything’s so confused right now, what with those men trying to hurt my moms, and Death chasing me down, and we have to find that bird or else Aaron won’t let us go, and . . . and . . . I just don’t know.”

She didn’t want him. He released her, wanting to stagger over to the nearest chair and weep as he’d never wept before.

She truly did not want him. How could that be? How could he love her so fully and deeply and irrevocably as he did—he ignored the fact that just a few minutes before he hadn’t the slightest inkling that such an emotion existed—and she not reciprocate those feelings?

He wanted to cry. He wanted to yell. He wanted to beg her to love him, even just the tiniest little bit. He’d be happy with just a tiny little morsel of love.

“That’s a lie,” he said aloud, despair swamping him. “I wouldn’t be happy with a morsel. I want it all. I need it all. If I can’t have it, then . . .” The sentence trailed off, unfinished.

He truly did want to cry.

“I’m sorry, Gregory. I just don’t know what I want—” Gwen’s gaze met his, and in her eyes he saw the only hope he had of happiness. And as her pupils flared with awareness of him, of what he hoped they had between them, she gave a little hiccuping sob and threw herself into his arms, kissing his jaw and chin and nose and finally his mouth, and with that touch, the love within him threatened to burst forth in a blaze of . . . well, love. He couldn’t think of an appropriate metaphor, not with Gwen kissing him like she’d been without his lips for a lifetime, and it would have been rude of him not to give that kiss all his due consideration.

“Of course I want to spend my life with you,” she said a few minutes later when he was forced to stop kissing her so they could breathe. “Even though you are the enemy, I want to be with you. But what are we going to do—”

He laid a finger across her mouth, stopping her from finishing the question. She bit his finger. “We’ll work something out. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me now how very much you love me? Perhaps a quick statement regarding how you can’t live without me, and how life would be bleak if you were forced to do so?”

She stared at him.

“Too soon?” he asked.

“Yes.” She reached behind him and pinched his ass.

He couldn’t possibly love her more than he did at that exact moment.

“What are you going to do about what?” her mother asked. “Is there a problem with you marrying? He’s not married already, is he?”

“No,” he answered quickly. “There are just a few people that must be taken care of. These two”—he nudged the man nearest him with his shoe—“and another woman who’s hanging around Ethan’s camp trying to find Gwen. Not that I’ll let that happen, but I’ll have to deal with her once and for all.”

“Not the reclaimer!” gasped the second mother. “She’s here?”

Gwen stared at them both, openmouthed with surprise. “You know about her?”

The two women exchanged glances . . .
guilty
glances. “Er . . . yes. Don’t you remember before we came to Anwyn how we hurried you out of that psychologist’s office? That Death woman had followed you there, and we felt it wiser to have you elsewhere.”

“Yes, I remember that. But what I want to know is why you are both looking so guilty now
?
” Gwen asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You didn’t
do
anything to her, did you?”

The first mother made a gesture that could only be described as wringing her hands. Their faces expressing their distress, the second mother blurted out, “It’s all our fault that she’s chasing you, Gwen. We weren’t going to tell you because you were safe here in Anwyn, but if you say she’s here now . . .”

“It’s not your fault in the least,” Gregory told them. “If anything, the blame lies with me, since I am the one who made sure that Gwen didn’t stay dead.”

The mothers gawked at him. “You mean she was telling the truth when she said that she died and came back to life?”

Quickly, Gregory explained the pertinent events.

“Honestly!” Gwen slapped her hands on her thighs. “What is the world coming to when your own mothers don’t believe you when you tell them you’ve died and been mysteriously resurrected!”

“The issue of the loss of time is why Death’s minion is after Gwen,” Gregory added when the two women looked doubtful.

“Er . . .” Once again the two mothers exchanged a telling look.

“Er what?” Gwen stopped looking annoyed and switched back to looking suspicious. “What aren’t you telling us? Does it have something to do with the reclamation woman?”

“We might as well tell them,” the second one told the first. “It’s better if they know, Mags.”

“Yes, but . . .” The first mother fretted with the apron she wore, giving Gwen a doubtful look. “Gwenny will be so . . .”

“Angry? Annoyed? Irritated? Because I’m quickly getting to all three,” Gwen told them sternly. “Spill.”

“The woman may say she’s coming after you because of dear Gregory stealing the time to save your life—and really, that was terribly sweet of you, and Alice and I will always be grateful to you for it, because we just couldn’t be without our darling girl—but it’s not exactly the truth.”

“What is the truth?” Gwen asked, taking his hand. He twined his fingers through hers, a sudden sense of contentment stealing over him. Whatever the problem was, he told himself, he and Gwen would handle it together.

“Well . . .”

“No.” Gwen shook a finger on her free hand at them. “No more of those pregnant looks you’re giving each other. Just tell us how bad it is so we can set about fixing the situation.”

He was even more pleased that Gwen now included him in the mop-up duties of whatever mess her mothers had created.

“I love you more now than I did five minutes ago, and that’s saying a lot,” he told her.

She squeezed his hand. “No distractions from the peanut gallery. Mom? Tell us.”

Her mother took a deep breath, and said so quickly that the words tumbled over each other, “Death is annoyed with us because about three hundred years ago we sold him a love charm that . . . er . . . went awry.”

“Instead of attracting the lady he desired, the spell was intercepted by a behemoth. One that had unconventional tastes,” the second mother confided to them.

“He enjoyed unsavory methods of sexual engagement,” the first mother said, waving vaguely toward her derriere. “Very unsavory when you consider just how large behemoths are. And when Death demanded that we fix the situation—you know full well we never offer guarantees when it comes to love charms because they are so unreliable—we tried to reason with the behemoth (his name was Carl), but he escaped us and locked himself in Death’s bedchamber with Death while he was sleeping in order to have his wedding night—did we mention that Carl wanted to marry Death? I thought that was sweet, really, although what Death said happened that night . . . Well, we won’t go into details because that sort of thing is better not mentioned in mixed company, and really, it wasn’t our fault, but Death didn’t see it that way, and he got a bit stroppy and said that he wasn’t going to rest until he made us as miserable as he was the morning after his . . . I suppose you could call it his nuptials, although he had another word for it, and we knew that he would target you once he found out you’d been born to us because you are so very dear to us both, my darling Gwen, and it was all very upsetting and we didn’t want you to know because you make the biggest fusses about things that really aren’t that dire, and you wanted to go back to the States so you could continue your work, so we didn’t tell you.”

Gwen stared at them for the count of seven before turning to look at Gregory. “I’m going to give you the chance right now to retract your offer of marriage. It’s the honorable thing to do, and I just want you to know that I wouldn’t blame you in the least for not wanting to be connected to my family.”

He flicked his thumb over her lower lip to keep from kissing the breath right out of her. “Not even a violated Death would keep me from your side.”

“OK, that’s going to win you some bonus swoon points,” she told him, her eyes warm with admiration. He wanted badly to get her into the nearest bed so he could show her just how much he appreciated that look. “As for you two . . . you are so grounded.”

“Gwenhwyfar,” the second mother said sternly, “I will not have you speaking to your mother like that. We are not children.”

“You sure act as irresponsible as kids sometimes,” Gwen said with a sharp edge to her voice that softened when she added, “Regardless of what you may have done—and don’t think we aren’t going to have a little talk later about hiding things from me—we can’t lay the blame for the reclamation woman on your heads. She’s here for me because she thinks I owe her my soul.”

“Don’t give it to her. You’re not done using it,” the first mother said, picking up a bottle from Ethan’s desk and giving it a sniff. “You’re going to have need of it when you marry dear Gregory. Alice, pink roses or yellow for the bouquet?”

Alice eyed Gwen thoughtfully. “White. With pale pink carnations. And perhaps a carpet of matching pink rose petals.”

“You have such a good eye for details like that.”

Gwen gave him a long-suffering look before turning back to her mothers. “That’s enough premature planning. And before you blast me, yes, I will marry Gregory, but we have more important things to do now. We have to find that bird.”

“What bird?” the mothers asked.

She turned to him, nodding again at the two men on the floor, both of whom were now moaning, fainting, and making jerky movements with their arms and legs. “Can you take care of them? And by ‘take care,’ I mean get rid of them in some nonlethal way so that they don’t come back and try to hurt my moms again?”

“Yes. Because I love you.”

She rolled her eyes, then leaned in and bit his lower lip. “You’re adorable when you’re being sexy. My moms and I will tackle the folks around the camp about the bird. Maybe one of them remembers it and knows where it flew off to. Maybe we can find a descendant of it, too.”

“We don’t have any time to go bird-watching,” the first mother said.

“The sooner we find the bird, the sooner we fulfill Aaron’s demands, and the sooner we can get out of Anwyn.”

“Who’s Aaron?”

As he was leaving to find a couple of strong-looking lads to help him truss up the two hit men, he heard Gwen explaining about Aaron and Ethan’s war.

Everything was going to be fine. He’d have to find a way to get rid of Death’s minion, but he had an inkling of how that might be accomplished, and he was never one to back down from a challenge. He’d make sure Gwen was safe from the reclamation agent, get rid of the two hit men, and then deal with the situation regarding her mothers and the Watch . . . and the vendetta that Death evidently held against them.

Yes, it was all going to work out to his satisfaction. Gwen might not want to admit yet that she loved him, but she did. She had to. He really didn’t think he could bear it otherwise.

T
he hunt for the missing bird didn’t go spectacularly well, mostly because my mothers were so excited about the thought of Gregory and me getting married, they couldn’t focus for long on anything else.

Married.

That word kept chiming in my head like the deep note of a large bell. Gregory wanted to get married. He loved me. And what was more, he wanted me to love him.

“Which of our wedding dresses do you think she should wear?” Mom Two asked Mom as we headed to their tent. “Mine was pretty, but I think yours would go with her coloring better.”

Men had said they loved me before, but with Gregory it was different. He wouldn’t say it unless he really felt it. And I had a feeling by the somewhat shocked expression that he had worn, it wasn’t something he’d felt very often.

“Yes, but yours was made of old lace, and that never goes out of style,” Mom told Mom Two.

That thought pleased me. I told myself to stop being idiotic—what Gregory did or felt before I knew him was absolutely none of my business—but all the same, I couldn’t help a smug little sense of pleasure that it was me he loved, rather than anybody from the great herds of women who I was sure had tramped through his life.

“It was my mother’s lace, too,” Mom Two agreed. “Lovely handmade stuff.”

When a squire bumped into me as he tried to get around us, I realized that I was just as guilty as my mothers of wasting valuable time.

“I repeat: the sooner we find the bird, the sooner we can leave Anwyn and I can wear the lace.” I grabbed a passing squire by the arm when he tried to sidle past. “Hi, there. Would you happen to know anything about a bird that Ethan stole several hundred years ago?”

“A bird?” The boy shifted the long mail coat draped over his forearms and scrunched up his nose. “What kind of a bird?”

“Lapwing.”

“Never heard of it,” the lad said, and wresting his arm away from me, he hurried off on his business.

I sighed. “Someone somewhere has to know something about that bird. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what a lapwing looks like. Do either of you know?”

The moms shook their heads. My mother took my arm and tugged me toward the tent. “But we have the books from the woman who used to live here, and they are full of all sorts of historical notes, so perhaps something is there about it.”

“All right, but while I’m looking at her books, I want you two to get packed up.”

Mom stopped dead. “Why should we pack? We aren’t done here. We have a batch of frogspawn potion evaporating down to just the essence, and you know how long that takes.”

“Eleven days exactly,” Mom Two said with a nod.

“I want you both to come with me over to Aaron’s camp. My tent is big enough for all of us, and I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe with me.”

Mom Two bridled. “We’re perfectly safe here! Ethan would never let anything harm us.”

“Yes, indeed!” Mom gave me a stern look and proceeded to their tent. “We’re very happy here, Gwenny. Very happy. Even Mrs. Vanilla—Hello, dear, did you have a nice nap in your chair? Cup of tea? With extra honey?—even dear Mrs. Vanilla here is happy. Aren’t you, dear? Happy here?”

I followed my mothers inside, wearily wondering how on earth I was going to persuade them to come with me. Mrs. Vanilla, who had been dozing in her chair, suddenly perked up and squeaked at us, her hands moving in the quick little way she had when conversing. Or when she was doing what she thought of as conversing. I eyed her critically, wondering if I could use her as a way to get my mothers over to Aaron’s camp, but I had to admit she did look pretty chipper.

She gratefully accepted the cup of tea, liberally laced with honey, that Mom handed her.

“Gwenny?” Mom held up the big cast-iron teakettle from the coal stove that resided in the corner.

“No, thanks. And I’m sorry, but you are not safe here, Mom Two, as that episode with Irv and Frankie demonstrated to a degree that will give me nightmares for years to come.”

“Bah,” Mom Two scoffed. “I wasn’t harmed, and your young man said he would remove them. I have faith in him.”

I stared at her in surprise. Since when did my mothers fall under the spell of a man? Even one as charming as Gregory? “I’m glad you believe he can protect you, but he can’t be everywhere at the same time. And if that bastard lawyer sent two hit men after us, then he might send more. No, it’s not safe for you to be here without someone to watch over you.”

“We’ve been taking care of ourselves for centuries, Gwen,” Mom Two said as she and Mom bustled about, obviously preparing to start a new potion. “No, Mags, the dried lion’s ear, not the fresh.”

Mom handed over a glass jar containing dried ferns. “And besides that, we’re learning ever so much from the trees.”

“You’re what?” I backed up when Mom shooed me out of her way. She tied an apron around her waist and got to work with a couple of small vials of colored liquid.

“I’m so glad the apothecary had a fresh shaved spikenard root. I do so hate to have to make dominator oil with lesser materials. What was that, Gwenny?”

“You said something about learning from trees.” I rubbed my forehead. I could feel a headache starting, and I had a feeling it was going to grow with every second that my mothers fought my reasonable request.

“Yes, we are. We’ve always wanted to learn field magic, and who better to learn it from than trees and shrubs?” Mom Two answered for her.

“Yup, headache definitely getting worse.” I considered just sitting down and giving up, but the thought of remaining in Anwyn forever because we couldn’t find the bird gave me enough of the willies to keep me on my feet. “Are you talking about someone who’s teaching you field lore, or are you going out and learning from the trees themselves? Because if it’s the latter, I’d like to remind you that there are plenty of trees outside of Anwyn to learn from.”

“It’s both, actually,” Mom answered, her finger tracing a line of text in her recipe book. “The trees here in camp have many things to teach us. Especially that spruce. What was his name, dear? Denver?”

“Colorado,” Mom Two answered.

I sat down. It was a moment or two before I could speak. “Are you trying to tell me that Colorado, the warrior who looks like a young Hugh Laurie, is a tree?”

“Yes, of course he is. All of Ethan’s warriors are trees. Alice, oil of hyssop or oil of angelica?”

“For dominator oil? Myrrh and sweet flag.”

“Oh, that’s right, how silly of me. I was thinking of the uncrossing oil. What was that, Gwenny?”

“Nothing.” I stood up again, figuring if I stayed there to find out why Ethan’s warriors were really trees, I’d never get anything done. “Where’s this history book that has a picture of the bird?”

Mrs. Vanilla chirruped in her strange, wordless way and waggled her hands so that the massive spread of crocheted horse jacket wobbled across her lap.

“Hmm? Yes, dear, that’s right, the nice book is next to you, isn’t it? It’s in the chest there, Gwenny. The one to the left of Mrs. Vanilla.”

I smiled at the old lady and, moving a few bound bundles of dried herbs, uncovered a small wooden chest. Inside it were three books, two of which appeared to be grimoires. The bottom one smelled of mildew and long-dead moths. Its binding was wispy, but held together enough for me to leaf through its pages. I have a profound love for old books, and was sorely tempted to sit there and read this one, but other than pausing for a few minutes on a page that had me exclaiming, “Well, I’ll be damned. They
are
trees,” I ignored everything until I turned another page and found myself looking at a tiny sketch of a bird. “Hmm. White and black head, white belly, and greeny-black wings. I can’t say I’ve seen a bird like it around Anwyn, but at least now I know what to look for. Er . . . Mom, is she OK?”

Mrs. Vanilla’s hands had gone into overtime while I knelt next to her, and she continued to make high-pitched squeaky noises that increased in volume until I worried that the old lady was having some sort of fit.

Mom bustled over to us. “Are you all right, dear? Need to use the loo? No? Hungry? Do you want some soup? Are you tired? Nap time?”

I put the books away and stood next to the old woman, feeling helpless. “Should I get her something? Does she take any medicine?”

“I don’t think so. What is it, dear? Can we get you anything?”

The old woman’s hands alternated between plucking at the blanket and making odd little fluttering motions, but after a few minutes she settled back down with her knitting.

“Mom.” I pulled my mother to the other side of the tent. “When you kidnapped Mrs. Vanilla from the nursing home—”

“Rescued her. We rescued her. She begged us to do so. She saw an ad advertising our school, and knew that we were the only people who would be able to rescue her from the mortals.”

“Did she have any medicine in her room? I don’t think she’s . . . right. I mean, that thing with the hands, and making those noises but not actually talking. That’s beyond odd.”

Mom brushed off that thought. “She’s just a bit eccentric, dear. You would be too if you were as old as her.”

I looked across the tent. Mrs. Vanilla’s crumpled little figure was almost swallowed up by the massive coat she was making. “I’m concerned that she needs medicine for a condition that we don’t know about. And if she doesn’t get it, she might get seriously sick. We have to take her back, Mom.”

“Oh, no, dear. She’s quite happy here. Happier than she would be back in the mortal world.”

“She
is
mortal.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course she isn’t. Now, you go look for your bird, and your mother and I will finish up this latest batch of potions while Mrs. Vanilla rests. Alice, dear heart, do you think we should make another potion for Death?”

“No!” I shouted, making all three women look at me with varying expressions of surprise. “No more potions for Death.”

“Very well, dear.”

“I’m off to look for the bird, and then I should check in with my warrior trainer before it’s my shift time. He said something about me learning how to lop off heads today, and I wouldn’t want to miss that, now would I?”

My voice had a tinge of hysteria to it that both my mothers failed to notice.

“When I’m done,” I said loudly at the entrance to their tent, “I expect to find both of you and Mrs. Vanilla ready to move over to my tent.”

I departed hastily, followed by stereo objections and exclamations that I had turned horribly bossy ever since I hit a hundred years, all of which I ignored. I had plenty of reason to worry about my mothers’ well-being, and they were just going to have to accept that.

The next hour or so was spent trying to pin down anyone who’d stand still about the missing lapwing, but no one seemed to know anything about it. It wasn’t until I was ready to give up and go find Master Hamo for my daily lesson that I ran across the apothecary my mothers had raved so much about. I explained that I was looking for information about the bird, fully expecting to get an answer similar to the others I’d had thus far. But I was more than a little surprised to have the middle-aged, bespectacled bald man look up from a wooden crock of dried herbs and say, “Oh, she left quite some time ago. Couldn’t take the separation.”

“Separation . . . from Aaron?” I guessed.

He nodded. “Very devoted pair they were. You’d never see the king without his lapwing. Went everywhere together. Until, of course, the day that she-cat got an eyeful of him.”

“What she-cat?”

“The queen, naturally.” The look he gave me was a mixture of slyness and amusement. “She took one look at the king and decided she fancied being the queen of the Underworld.”

“Are you saying that she got rid of Aaron’s beloved lapwing?”

The man winked and turned back to his task. “I’m not saying that, but I’m not not saying it, if you ken.”

I mulled that over for a few seconds. The implication that Constance might well be behind Ethan’s actions in stealing Aaron’s beloved bird—and dog and deer—was unavoidable. I couldn’t wait to talk about that theory with Gregory, but for now . . . “And you don’t know what happened to the bird after she was . . . er . . . parted from Aaron?”

“Spirited away would be my guess.” He peered at me over the thick lenses of his glasses for a moment. “If you were the queen and you wanted to get rid of the rival for your husband’s love, what would you do?”

“Rival? We’re talking about a bird, right? How can a beloved pet be a rival for the love of a woman?”

“Have you met Lord Aaron?”

“Yes, I . . . oh. Point taken.” Despair filled the pit of my stomach when I considered what an enraged Constance might have done. “She would have wanted that bird to fly away. Far away from her and her cats.”

“That’s a safe line of reasoning.”

I watched the apothecary for a few moments, feeling utterly lost. If the bird had been set free in the mortal world, she could be anywhere now . . . assuming she had survived all the centuries. “Thanks so much for your help.”

He waved a gnarled hand in farewell. A glance at the red and gray sky overhead warned that I had little time to spend trying to round up my mothers, but I was loath to let them stay there unprotected. I just hoped that Gregory had managed to do something with Irv and Frankie . . . and that annoying Death’s minion.

I compromised by warning my mothers to stay in their tent, and then racing across the stream just in time to meet Master Hamo, who looked pointedly at a sundial set near the practice ring.

“Sorry. Was checking on my mothers.” I pulled out my sword. “I hope we’re going to learn a way to take down someone quickly, because I know a couple of guys that I might have to use that on if my boyfriend doesn’t take care of them.”

Master Hamo raised his eyebrows, but simply said, “I don’t believe you are ready for more advanced attacks, but I can show you a couple of simple yet effective moves that have served me well.”

The next hour and a half was spent learning. I had to admire Master Hamo—no matter how many times I ended up in the dirt, he always helped me up and patiently explained what I’d done wrong. By the time my lesson was over, I was bruised but victorious. For the first time I had felt the power in the sword.