Jeremy politely cleared his throat, and Reikart snapped his focus back to his cousin. “This afternoon,” he said, remembering Jeremy’s question. Reikart stared at the briefcase Jeremy was clutching in his right hand. That briefcase held all the legal papers necessary to make Jeremy head of McCaim Shipping and their father’s guardian since he was incapacitated. It also outlined step by step how and what Jeremy should say to the world about where the McCaim brothers had gone.
“I better be seeing you both again,” Jeremy said, his tone stern, his eyes the only thing that showed his concern and only for the slightest second.
“You know you will.” Reikart winked, giving off his typical carefree attitude. He glanced at Ian when his brother didn’t respond. He looked disheveled and dazed, as if he’d drunk one too many energy drinks and was on the downward slide to crashing.
“Bye, Jeremy,” Reikart said and stepped back to close the eight-foot-high glass door. He turned toward Ian in the deafening silence. “Jeremy’s gone,” he said, half joking and half probing. Was Ian about to lose it?
“I know that, asshole,” Ian said, jerking a hand through his short black hair.
“You didn’t say goodbye,” Reikart pointed out, still prodding Ian’s mental state.
Red crept up Ian’s neck from where his black T-shirt dipped into a vee. “My tongue felt frozen.”
Damn. For his brother to admit that meant some serious shit was about to go down.
“You ready?” Reikart asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be to try a chant that will likely—hopefully?—” Ian’s brow furrowed at his words, showing his own doubt about wanting to actually time-travel “—send us through time to 1286 where we can find Mom, Grey, and Rhys and then return home to Dad.”
“Come on,” Reikart said, waving toward the long hall that led to their dad’s office.
Reikart thought about the handwritten notes they’d found there the night of Dad’s heart attack as Reikart’s and Ian’s footsteps clacked against the shiny marble floor. Over the past four days, Reikart had read through both his parents’ notes so many times that he had them memorized. His mom’s sister, Grace, the healer and friend of the fae, told their mom to hold an ancient silver cross and say a Gaelic chant so that Grace could send her home to Castle Hightower in basically the blink of an eye. That was crazy enough to have read, but what was even crazier was that it had supposedly happened in 1286 at the Scottish court at Kinghorn Castle. It made him feel as if he should call up his old shrink who had tried to fix what Amanda’s death had broken inside him, but since Dr. I Like to Listen to You Talk had not fixed him, he decided not to bother. Every note he had read of his mom’s and dad’s, and the fact that he could no longer deny the truth of time travel, made him feel certifiable, though he knew he wasn’t. The bit where Mom wrote that a man named Yearger and his sister Deirdre likely wanted to kill her made him sick with worry about what his mom might be facing, especially in light of the fact that she had apparently been embroiled in some plot to kill the king.
Reikart paused by an ornate fourteenth-century English antique table as Ian kept walking down the hall, oblivious to the fact that they were no longer in step. His thoughts buzzed in his head, a combination of fear and anticipation of what was to come. What had Mom said about the plot to kill the king? It was important. If they managed to say the chant correctly and time travel, it could be the difference between life and death. And he had every intention of doing it right this time around.
Four nights ago, he’d texted Axtell pictures he’d taken of the chant Mom had written down from the night she’d time-traveled to New Orleans. He’d also sent pictures from a page in an ancient book on Gaelic spells that their dad had recently won at auction from Sotheby’s—for a small fortune, of course. The book contained a chant called the Traveling Chant, and it differed from the one Mom had written down by only one word. Finally, Reikart had snapped a picture of what Rhys had scribbled on a piece of paper the night he’d disappeared. He had simply demanded they all say the chant he’d written down just so they could keep their promise to their dad to try to find Mom.
“Reikart, where the hell are you?” Ian bellowed from the other end of the mansion.
Reikart looked down the long, empty hallway. The French doors to his dad’s office stood open in the distance. Warm light streamed from the room, and even from this far away, Reikart could see the mounds of ancient books, scattered scrolls, and papers that littered both the floor and his dad’s large mahogany desk. Ian was standing in front of one of the maps his dad had pinned to the walls of his office, studying it.
Reikart slowly started that way once more, his mind still turning. Axtell had translated all three Gaelic chants for Reikart, who’d given the man the simple explanation that he was trying to play a prank on Rhys. That had been enough for Axtell. He’d laughed and said that Rhys had spoken fondly of his brothers often. It had made Reikart’s gut ache uncomfortably.
Reikart thought now of what Axtell had told him. The chant that their mom had recalled wasTalamh, èadhar, teine, uisge ga cur dhachaigh.Axtell had said it meant “Earth, air, fire, water, return her home.” The correct Traveling Chant, according to the book his dad had bought, was “Earth, air, fire, water, send her home.” Either Grace had screwed up or his mom had said one wrong word. Finally, the third chant was the one Rhys had written down for them to say, the one that had made him and then Greyson disappear: “Earth, air, fire, water, send him home.”
And it had worked. What Reikart had not known until he spoke to Axtell was why it had only worked for Rhys and then Grey. He was sure he knew now. Axtell had pronounced the words slowly for him and told him not to forget to roll thegh.
“For God’s sake, Reik,” Ian roared. “I’m waiting.”
Reikart hurried his last few steps, pushed through the French doors to the study, and stopped, hit suddenly with the enormity of what was about to happen, what they were about to do. For a moment, he stared down at the plush Persian rug with threads of ruby, gold, emerald, and sapphire blue running through it and could once more see them all standing there that first night, holding that ancient cross. And then he saw only three of them—same ritual, different night—and now it was just him and his baby brother.
He glanced at Ian, who still had his back turned to him as he looked at one of the maps on the wall. Reikart had an urgent need to ensure Ian knew what the hell he was getting himself into. Ian hadn’t studied medieval history like Reikart had. He didn’t speak Gaelic like Rhys did. He didn’t know the barbarity, the turmoil, of the time they were returning to. Christ, he hoped his mom, Grey, and Rhys were okay.
Reikart walked to the bar cart that stood to the right of their dad’s desk, flipped over two shot glasses, and unscrewed the same tequila bottle he and his brothers had taken shots from each night they’d tried the chant. He and Ian weren’t going to say the chant just yet, but still, a shot seemed appropriate when he was about to lay out the harsh realities of medieval life to Ian.
He picked up both shot glasses and strode over to where Ian stood. He seemed to be looking at the map of Perthshire, their mom’s supposed home.
“Do you think we’ll end up there?” Ian asked, finally speaking.
“I don’t know.” Reikart handed Ian the shot of tequila. “I don’t know how it works any more than you do.”
Ian turned to face him, his gaze troubled. “Do you think they’re okay?”
Reikart didn’t need to ask who “they” was. He took his shot and set it on a long, dark table that stood flush against the wall. “I hope so, but in the notes we found, the ones Dad and Mom wrote—” At Ian’s baffled look Reikart paused and clenched his jaw. “You didn’t read the notes after Rhys disappeared?” Rhys had been the one to read the notes before they’d originally all tried the Traveling Chant, but after Rhys had disappeared, Reikart had made a point to read everything Rhys had. Well, everything he could. He couldn’t read the Gaelic stuff.
Of course Ian hadn’t read them. It was just like him to ignore the reality of the situation. That was precisely why Reikart wanted to make damn sure Ian knew what the hell he was getting himself into before they tried the chant again. Reikart took a deep breath to gain some patience. “In the notes, Mom said she feared she would be blamed for the king’s death.”
“Yeah,” Ian nodded.
