The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel (25 page)

“I could get used to this,” I told Seith, who appeared to take away my mail and sword for cleaning.

“Learning from Master Hamo?” he asked with an envious glance toward that man as another warrior entered the training ring.

“Using a sword.” I handed the Nightingale to him. “This one is awesome. It’s almost like it knows what to do without me directing it. I wonder if I could buy it from Ethan?”

Seith shrugged and trotted off to do his squirely duties. I limped to Ethan’s camp, which was bustling as usual. I was careful to peek around corners before I hurried toward my target tent, just in case Gregory hadn’t found Death’s minion.

“I suppose it’s a lost hope to expect that you’ve done as I asked and packed up?” I asked at the entrance to my mothers’ tent. They were, as I had expected, busily preparing some potion or other.

Both of them looked up, surprise on their faces. “Oh, Gwenny, it’s you again. Of course we’re not packed. We have no need to leave, as your mother and I have both told you. And keep your voice down. Mrs. Vanilla is taking a nap. The poor dear was most distraught after you left, and it took three cups of chamomile tea to settle her down.”

I took a deep breath, preparatory to explaining to my mothers yet again why I wasn’t comfortable with them remaining unguarded and at large, but suddenly a horrible clashing, grinding noise rose up over the chatting, barking, and other normal sounds of camp life.

“What the hell?” I spun around to pinpoint the source of the noise. My mothers rushed out with gentler exclamations.

The camp members nearest me froze in the act of attending to their daily business, and all heads swiveled to look across the stream toward Aaron’s camp. For one horrible moment I feared that some new catastrophe had struck us, but when the woman nearest me pointed and screamed, “It’s a mechanical monster! Flee! Flee the monster!” I knew what had really happened.

“It’s Aaron and his Velociphant. He must have gotten it working.”

“A Veloci-what?” Mom asked.

“This I have to see. Stay here!” I ordered my mothers before bolting painfully for the stream and Aaron’s camp.

“We aren’t going to miss something exciting,” Mom Two answered, and just as I knew they would, they trotted after me.

On the far side of Aaron’s camp, several men struggled with large wooden poles, obviously in the process of erecting a tent suitable for a king. To the side of them, the massive iron machine was surrounded by what appeared to be everybody in the entire camp, the warriors and squires and support people all cheering and shouting excitedly.

“Glory of the good green earth, what’s that?” Mom asked, pointing.

“That is Aaron’s answer to the war.” A thought struck me. “I guess, given the fact that Ethan’s people are all really trees in human form, you could say it was a glorified lawn mower. Aaron intends to use it on Ethan’s dudes.”

“This Aaron either is very stupid or has been misinformed,” Mom Two announced. “Lord Ethan’s warriors are magical beings, summoned from the spirits of the forest and field. No mere machine could destroy them.”

“I have to say that I hope so, despite wanting the war to end, because I kind of like Ethan and his wacky bunch. Except maybe that Holly . . . oh! Holly! You think she’s—”

“Of course she is,” Mom Two said, giving me a look that said I should have sussed out Holly’s origins long ago. “Didn’t you notice the green in her hair and her rather painful manner?”

“Yes, but I thought that was just her.”

“Oh, Gwenny.” Mom shook her head. “And we raised you to see all the possibilities . . .”

“Yes, well, I think a little slack can be granted due to the circumstances.” I craned my neck over the shoulder of the knight in front of me, wanting to get a better look at whether or not Constance had accompanied Aaron. If she had, I wanted badly to have a few words with her.

The crowd rippled, and several people gasped, sweeping us backward and to the side in a wave of bodies.

“What’s going on?” Mom said, hopping up and down in order to see over the wall of warriors in front of us. “Gwen, what do you see?”

“Nothing but helms and heads. Stick with me.” I grabbed my mother’s arm, and muttering apologies, pushed my way through the various bodies, finally emerging into the open.

“—and Lord Ethan wants to lodge a formal complaint about it,” Holly was saying to Aaron, who stood in front of the mechanical maw of his beast. “You sent a Traveller to attack us, and that is in clear violation of the agreement of 1717.”

“I did nothing of the kind. I hired a thief to take back what is mine, nothing more.” Aaron, a screwdriver in hand, was fussing with something on the foot of the giant mechanical beast.

Holly didn’t like being more or less ignored; she marched forward and grabbed Aaron by the arm, spinning him around so she could poke him in the chest. “Your so-called thief smote two of our men with lightning. That is against the terms of our agreement, and thus you have forfeited this war and must hand over control of Anwyn to me. Er . . . to Ethan.”

Aaron said a word that had my mothers gasping. I wanted to give him a thumb’s-up, but the sight of Constance strolling into the mix, followed by her cavalcade of white cats, drove that thought from my mind.

“What is going on here? Are we entertaining, husband?” Constance called out.

“Stop calling me that! We are not married. We have not been married since I found out what a devil you really are. The fact you should keep uppermost in your mind at all times is that I divorced you four hundred years ago, and you are only in Anwyn because your blasted herd of felines keeps the rodents under control.”

“Stay here out of trouble’s way,” I warned my mothers. “I want to have a word with the queen.”

“Oh, is that who that cat is?” Mom Two asked, looking with interest as Constance approached.

“Cat lady, you mean? Yes, that’s her.” I took a step forward to intercept Constance, but was suddenly yanked to the side. A short, dark-haired woman in a red wool power suit faced me with flaring nostrils and an extremely irritated expression.

“There you are! I knew you must be close by if that Traveller was trying so hard to get rid of me.”

Oh, great. This was just what I needed. “You must be the soul reclaimer.” I reached for my sword, swearing under my breath when I remembered that Seith had taken it for its cleaning. “Where’s Gregory? If you’ve done anything to him, I will make you the sorriest excuse for a human being as has ever existed.”

“Oh, Alice,” Mom said to Mom Two, “did you hear how she threatened that evil soul-stealing woman? Our Gwenny is in love with that nice young man!”

I was? I hesitated a moment, stunned by the thought that my mother was right. At some point during the last few days, I had stopped being enamored of Gregory and had fallen in love with him. I shook my head at myself. The phrase “in love” seemed to be so inadequate for the emotion I felt. If I could be “in love,” then I could be out of it as well, and I knew without one single shred of doubt that the love I felt for Gregory would never dim. “It’s like . . . he’s part of me now.”

“That’s exactly how I feel,” a deep voice said behind me.

My heart sang with joy as I spun around. The mass of warriors parted again when Gregory walked toward me with long strides that spoke of carefully controlled strength. I hadn’t realized until I saw him in the midst of the other warriors just how much an aura of power surrounded him, but as the lightning streaked across the sky above, I acknowledged that he was the sexiest man alive.

And he was mine.

“I see you found—” He hesitated, frowning at the reclaimer. “What is your name?”

She looked startled for a moment, then said, “Astrid.”

“Ah.” He made a slight bow. “I see you found Astrid, Gwen. And, apparently, everyone else as well. What are they fighting about?”

I glanced at Holly, in Aaron’s face. He was snarling back at her, trying to grab the screwdriver that she had apparently snatched from him. Constance, her cats in tow, was staring in surprise at Ethan’s rogue hand, which was on her breast. I half expected her to slap his face, but instead she covered the alien hand with her own, and smiled a slow, sensual smile.

“Holly and Ethan—although really, one gets the idea that it’s all Holly—are upset because they believe that Aaron sent you over to attack them with your elite Traveller skills. Aaron appears to be annoyed to find Constance here, as well as about the fact that Holly has taken his screwdriver and won’t give it back. I gather from the besotted expression on Constance’s face that she and Diego are hitting it off. Ethan looks less enamored with her, but given his self-obsession, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Thank you for the summation,” he said politely, and pulled me into his arms despite all the people standing around watching.

Mom Two giggled.

“Do you really?”

I looked up at those beautiful eyes, the color of a flawless summer sky, and knew he’d overheard my mother. “I suppose I do. It will make everyone happy, and it’s probably better that I love you if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“This would be touching,” a voice said just as Gregory leaned down to kiss me, “if there was any truth to it, but alas, you will not be spending your lives together because your soul belongs to me. Or rather, to my employer.”

“She has bad timing,” I said against Gregory’s lips.

“Extremely poor. I suppose I shall have to address this issue, however, so that I can take you to your tent and allow you to tell me, in many words and more actions, just how deep is your love for me.”

“You big ham,” I said, biting his lip before turning to face the annoying Astrid. “Look, I don’t know you, but I’ve heard that you’re obsessed with my soul. The fact is that I’m not dead, so you can’t have it.”

She picked a minute bit of fluff from her sleeve. “That’s not how it works. You died. I was sent to fetch your soul and bring it before my employer, who asks you what afterlife you wish to patronize and then sends you to that place. I do not have your soul; therefore you still owe it to me.”

“Yes, but I’m already in Anwyn, which is where I would have gone—” A thought struck me. “Wait a minute. When I was killed a few days ago, I woke up here, in Anwyn. How could I do that if I have to see Death in order to be sent here?”

Astrid inhaled loudly through her nose. “You violated the rules, that’s how! And let me tell you, we reclamation agents take a very dim view of people who just simply up and go to whatever afterlife they like without having the common decency to let us do our job!”

“So Gwen doesn’t have to see your boss before she picks an afterlife?” Gregory asked. I slid a glance his way. He had an air of being up to something. I sure hoped he was—I had no clue how I was going to get out of handing over my soul to this pushy woman, short of physical violence, and I hated to use that. She was, after all, just doing her job.

“The reclamation rules say that—”

“I’m not asking about your rules. I’m asking whether or not she has to give you her soul and see your boss.”

Astrid squared her shoulders, a pugnacious expression on her face. “I would like to point out that my job is not to claim her soul for myself but to escort it to Death, at which point it is reunited with her body and both are sent on to the afterlife of her choice.”

“I think that answers my question.” Gregory wrapped his arm around my waist. “She doesn’t have to do either. She can bypass you and your boss and go straight to the afterlife she’s most comfortable with, which is, in fact, what she did almost a week ago. Therefore, you have no job to perform, and you can leave without bothering her anymore.”

“She owes me her soul, and she’s going to give it to me!” Astrid screamed, and for a second I thought she was going to attack me.

“Seith!” I yelled, looking around frantically. “Seith! Blast the boy, where is he?”

“Aye, my lady?” A head bobbed up at the back of a large stretch of warriors, only to disappear a moment later.

“Get me the Nightingale!” I bellowed.

“A
aron, might I have a word?”

I stuck like glue to Gregory’s side when he, with blithe disregard of Astrid’s fuming stare, walked nonchalantly over to where Aaron was now physically trying to wrest the screwdriver away from Holly. I felt somewhat naked without my sword, and I didn’t trust Astrid not to pull out some trick that would enable her to run away with my soul.

“Give it . . . to . . . me . . .” Aaron panted in his struggle with the wily Holly.

“Not until you hand Anwyn over to me!”

“Never! I’m the king. You are merely a usurper. Now give me my damned screwdriver so I can tighten up the screws around the loose bolt, and then my beloved Piranha shall mow you and all your leafy friends down!”

“He really doesn’t have a clue as to how a proper threat works, does he?” I whispered to Gregory.

“Not really. But he does have an ability that I believe will solve a big problem. Your Majesty, might I have a moment of your valuable time?”

“You!” Aaron said, still struggling. “You’re a thief—get me back my screwdriver.”

“Easy peasy,” I said, and while Holly was distracted by Gregory turning to her, I slipped behind her, kicked her in the back of the leg, and snatched the screwdriver when she staggered forward. I handed it to Aaron with a flourish. “Here you go.”

“Excellent work. Excellent.” He beamed at the screwdriver and was about to turn back to his machine when Gregory stopped him.

“Would you mind banishing that woman from Anwyn?”

Astrid, on the receiving end of Gregory’s pointed finger, gasped. “You can’t do that!”

“Actually, I can. I’m the king and rightful ruler of this realm.” Aaron cast a disparaging glance at Holly, who was getting to her feet with a furious look in her eye, one that was aimed at Gregory and me. “I’m not going to banish you, but I could if I so desired.”

“Why not?” I asked, my sudden hopes dying a cruel death.

“Because I asked him”—he pointed at Gregory—“to do one simple thing, and he has failed to do it.”

“I have the roebuck in my possession,” Gregory said, a little frown pulling his brows together.

I really must be in love,
I thought to myself,
because even his frown looks sexy.

“And I can get you the descendant of the dog that was stolen from you. The dog itself has been dead for centuries, but one of her direct descendants should fulfill that requirement.”

Aaron gestured with the screwdriver. “I suppose it would. She was a damned good bitch, though. But my bird, man—where’s my Vanellus?”

“You call your bird Vanellus?” I couldn’t help but ask.

He gave me an impatient look. “That’s her name.
Vanellus vanellus
, or northern lapwing.”

There was a faint murmur behind me, I half turned, catching my mother’s eye as she mouthed that she’d be right back. She and Mom Two melted into the crowd, leaving me to debate whether or not I should follow them, but I assumed anyone who was a threat would be right here.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t locate the bird,” Gregory was saying when I turned back. “But we will make every effort to find her. I’ll put the full resources of the Watch—assuming I’m still employed by them after they find out about my time here—into finding out what happened to your bird and locating her or her descendants.”

“I don’t want her descendants,” Aaron snarled. “I want my bird.”

At his raised voice, Constance twirled around, one of her hands in the process of stroking Ethan’s head. Holly hissed something quite rude and strode over to them. Constance, her gaze locked on Aaron’s, asked shrilly, “Did you say something about a bird? What bird?”

“My bird, my beloved Vanellus who you drove away, you she-devil!” Aaron stabbed the screwdriver into the air at her and she recoiled and backed up a step, bumping into Holly, who promptly shoved her forward. Ethan bore the look of a man being harangued by a sharp, pointy bit of foliage in human form.

“Aha!” Aaron continued, narrowing his eyes as Constance and her cats tripped lightly forward. “You didn’t know I knew the truth about that, did you? Why do you think I divorced you all those hundreds of years ago?”

Constance’s long, gorgeous hair moved in the breeze, making her appear larger than she was. “We are still married—” she started to say through clenched teeth, but she was interrupted by Aaron shouting at the top of his lungs. “Get out of my sight before I banish you and all of your kinsmen once and for all! I have important work to do, and no one is going to stop me! The Piranha must be fed!”

Several pennies dropped at that moment, enough that it had me staring in stupefaction at Constance, who was hissing and shying away to the side. “She’s a cat?”

Gregory looked nonplussed. “Evidently so. It would explain her perpetual guard of honor.”

“And a lot of other things.” Quickly, in a low voice, I told him about my discussion with the apothecary.

“So Constance got rid of the bird before she was queen,” Gregory said in a thoughtful tone. “Interesting. Do you know, I have an idea about that—”

“Hello, all,” said a voice with a heavy Australian accent. “Am I late for the party? Astrid, luv, mind fetching me a cocktail? I’m as parched as a skin flake in the middle of the Great Victoria Desert. Aaron, you bastard, long time no see. Constance, you’re looking rather rumpled, but still beautiful. Ethan, you great bushranger! How is Diego doing? I can’t say how much I’ve enjoyed your recent Facebook posts about your upcoming book. I do hope you’ve worked out your problem with the angsty teen poetry.”

We all turned to look in surprise at the man who had emerged from the mass of soldiers. He was a bit taller than Gregory, had lovely chocolate brown hair that curled back from his brow and swooped down to his collar and a pair of the blackest eyes I’ve ever seen. He smiled engagingly at me and Gregory.

“Sir!” Astrid bustled toward him, shooting me a smug glance as she passed us. “I’m so glad you got my message. I’m having a bit of difficulty with that job I mentioned, and I thought that you might wish to take charge of the situation yourself.”

“Oh, great,” I said sotto voce. “Death is here. Just what was needed to add one last touch of surreal to what is an already Salvador Dalí sort of day.”

“It’s De Ath, actually,” Death said, taking my hand and brushing his lips across my knuckles.

Beside me Gregory stiffened.

“I find it’s less intimidating that way. Crikey, that’s a look. This sheila yours, then?” Death—or rather, De Ath—asked Gregory.

The latter took my hand and rubbed his thumb over the spot that had been kissed. “Yes.”

“All right, all right, no need to spit the dummy, mate.”

De Ath turned when Aaron, done tightening his screws, noticed him. He didn’t look happy with what he saw. “What are you doing here? Didn’t I banish you?”

“One hundred and fourteen years ago, to be exact, right after I took over the job from the last bloke,” De Ath said with a sunny smile. “I was summoned back by one of my secretaries.”

“Reclamation agent!” Astrid said furiously, smacking him on the arm. “I told you that we are now called reclamation agents!”

“How come he can enter Anwyn if he’s been banished?” I asked Gregory in a whisper. “And why is Death so charming and handsome and nice?”

“I’m not sure, but I suspect that we’ll find out, and do you really think he is handsome?”

“Yes, in a Hugh Jackman sort of way. I think it’s mostly the accent. And the hair. And he has nice—” I stopped when Gregory shot me a mean look, giggling quietly to myself.

“My lady! I have the Nightingale for you.” Seith pushed his way through the crowd, aided, no doubt, by the sword, despite its being sheathed.

“What?” Holly, who was evidently still engaged in chewing out Ethan for something or other, spun around so fast her hair smacked him in the face. He took the opportunity of her being distracted to move quickly over to where De Ath stood, the two men instantly falling into conversation. “You still have that sword? Give it back. You shouldn’t have been given it in the first place.”

I grabbed the sword that Seith held out before she could stomp over to take it. “Ethan said I could use it, so I don’t see that it has anything to do with you.”

“Ethan!” She wasn’t happy to see that he’d moved, her eyes narrowing as she marched over to him. “Tell that woman to give back your mother’s sword.”

“Sir,” Astrid said at the same time, plucking at De Ath’s sleeve. “That’s the woman there, the one who’s been giving me so much trouble. You should take care of her first before you enjoy a reunion with Lord Ethan.”

“I’m busy,” Ethan told Holly in a lofty tone that had her face turning dark red with fury. “Bother me not.”

“That Astrid is nothing but a troublemaker,” I muttered under my breath. “Gregory, what are we going to do about this? The best I can think of is to fight our way out, and I hate to do that with my mothers around. They tend to get into trouble, and as you heard, Death already has it in for them.”

“I believe that was his predecessor, but I agree that I would hesitate to have to fight our way out.” He looked thoughtful for a minute. “I think my original plan is still the best: we will have to convince Aaron to banish Astrid.”

I eyed the chatting De Ath, now giving his minion a look that had her apologizing. “It doesn’t seem to have stopped him from being here.”

“No, but just as the Watch has no power here, I suspect that neither does anyone who has been banished.”

“Assuming that’s so, what good will it do us? I’d be trapped here, never able to leave lest she be waiting for me to set foot in the real world, where she does have power over me.”

“I’d rather have you safe than soulless.”

He had a point, although I hated the thought of being trapped here.

“The first step is to find out if our supposition is correct. Shall we?” Gregory pulled me with him and walked over to Aaron, who was now in consultation with his engineer. “My lord, a question, if you will. The man who has taken on Death’s role over there—am I correct in assuming that his banishment merely limits his powers in Anwyn, and not his physical presence?”

“I don’t know why you care, but that is correct,” Aaron said, peering at something the engineer was pointing out. “No, no, it’s been oiled well enough. It’s the tension in the nether spring that’s too tight. Loosen that up, and the jaws should move again.”

“We would very much appreciate it if you would banish the reclamation agent known as Astrid. She has threatened one of your warriors, the lady Gwen, who has fought valiantly in your honor.”

Aaron stopped fiddling with his machine to glance at me. His gaze fell on the sheathed sword in my hands, causing him to step forward to give it a longer look. “Indeed, she appears to bear the sword of my enemy’s mother.” His lips pursed as he thought for a few minutes. “No,” he finally said, shaking his head. “I can’t do that. You promised to restore my bird, and you shall have no more boons until the time that she is at my side again.”

Despair was once again my companion. I looked mutely at Gregory, wanting him to come up with a brilliant solution to the problem, but knowing it was an unfair expectation. I’d never been one to shirk responsibility, and this problem was as much mine as his.

“We’re just going to have to find that bird, or her descendants,” I told Gregory.

He pressed my hand to his mouth, his lips sending little streaks of electricity jolting down my arm, straight to my belly. “I’m afraid that’s so.”

I ignored my body’s demand that I should wrestle Gregory to the ground and do a little lightning-calling of my own. I hefted my sword. “I guess we’re going to have to take care of this the hard way. What did you do with Irv and Frankie, by the way?”

“Had two of Ethan’s guards haul them to the entrance and toss them through the portal into the mortal world.”

“Think we could do that with Astrid?”

He glanced upward as red and gray clouds gathered overhead, and flexed his fingers. Lightning streaked in a brilliant arc across the roiling sky. “We could try, although she’s not mortal as they were.”

“This ends now!”

“Oooh.” We both watched as Holly, with a firm grip on Diego, hauled Ethan over to us. “Someone has a mad.”

“I’ll deal with you later,” she snapped, piercing me with a look that had me gripping the hilt of my sword tighter. She turned back to Aaron. “You have violated the terms of our agreement. Either hand Anwyn over to Ethan, or prepare for battle. This war will end today, one way or another!”

Aaron stood silent for a moment, his expression grave, but not overly concerned. I figured he’d just tell Holly to get stuffed, or banish her, or whatever a king did when someone lipped off to him, but he did none of those things.

“Very well.” He wiped his hands on a filthy oil rag. “Since you have called for a challenge of the body, you shall have it.”

“Wait!” Ethan almost shrieked, jerking Diego away from Holly in order to clutch his arm tight to his body. “I’m a lover, not a fighter. Well, I
was
a fighter, but that was centuries ago, before Diego took over. I refuse to fight.”

“You do not,” Holly snapped. “You’ll fight and like it! Because if you don’t, I’ll see to it that you will never be able to be called a lover again.”

We all raised our respective eyebrows at her tone. Ethan had evidently had enough of her bossing him around, not to mention obviously threatening him with gelding, because he straightened up and looked down his nose when he said, “You go too far, woman.”

“Strewth, your sheila’s mad as a cut snake,” De Ath said, strolling over to us. “Stop her earbashing, and let’s go have a butcher.”

“Oooh. Australian accents are just so . . .” I stopped when I felt Gregory glare at me. “... not nearly as sexy as slightly middle-European ones.”

“Nice save,” he murmured in my ear. “But you will pay for that later.”

“Promises, promises.”

“I know my rights,” Ethan continued, scowling at Holly. “And they say that I am entitled to elect two champions to fight on my behalf. I shall do so. De Ath?”

“Happy to oblige, mate.”

“Champions, eh?” Aaron’s gaze wandered along the semicircle of warriors who suddenly stood at attention. Doug, who had been on the far side of the Velociphant, moved forward into a flanking position. “As you like. I name the thief and the lady with the sword.”