I returned downstairs to the front gate, and used a side door to exit. I walked out onto an overgrown path, down the hill, and returned to the encampment, where I found nothing but my crates, the weapons still inside.
I stared down at them for a long time.
With certainty, I had been in the middle of a battle. The planning of it had taken days — how had I…?
I knew Zach would call this a time-discrepancy, a time burrito, but there was a little bit of me that wondered if I might be losing my mind.
CHAPTER 26 - KAITLYN
Ipressed my ear to the door. I was so freaking famished. I listened and called, “Hello? Hello? Who’s there?!”
The castle echoed. A wind howled. An echoing, howling castle was a frightening castle. “Hello?!”
While I slept, had the world ceased being a world? The room was so cold. I tried to budge the door. “Hello! Hello! Are you there?”
The echo circled the room and ricocheted down the halls and returned to me, are you there?
I backed up to the bed. “Can you hear me? Hello!!!”
I pulled my knees up and wrapped around them. “Magnus! Magnus, can you hear me? Help me!”
CHAPTER 27 - MAGNUS
Aplea hit me with a cold dread —Help me.
I jumped up. I had tae act, I had tae get tae her.
I began m’first jump.
I went tae Balloch castle in the eighteenth century then returned tae Stirling, I went tae the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century, tae Edinburgh, tae Stirling over and over in different years. I left marks upon a stone, tae note where I was, and when, and I felt as if I lost layers of m’soul in the work of it, an agony from inside m’self that ached me through.
I dinna go back tae the bedroom, tae ken she was alone and scared was maddening enough.
In the eighteenth century the marks on the stone were aged and hard tae read, I rubbed them with cloth tae make them out. In the thirteenth century they were fresh, marked the day afore. It wasna lost on me that I had become a part of the past.
It was the wrong past.
I thought, with every jump, perhaps this time will be the one time.
Perhaps she will be there.
Finally, I rose at Stirling and stared down at the marks upon the stone. M’sight was blurred, my soul weary. I prayed tae God tae help me from this turmoil.
The marks upon the stone would turn intae fifteen afore I finally gave up.
* * *
I woke in the field and found Fraoch, Zach, and Quentin, looking down on me. I blinked at the sky.
“Is she home?”
My voice was barely audible, weary from the exertion, agonizing.
Fraoch said, “Nae, Og Maggy, she inna—”
I wept for a long time, layin’ in the field starin’ up at the sky. Fraoch crouched beside me and put a hand on m’shoulder until I finished cryin’ and made m’self calm.
He stood and outstretched his hand tae help me sit.
