Every Never After (30 page)

Piper nodded.

“You
were
. This book … it’s a link. It’s the thread that ties you and me together.”

“You and …
me?
What on earth—”

“Listen. My blood was already on that page. I put it there two thousand years ago. I mean,
will
put it there. Now yours is there, too. Here and now. So I’m going
there
and you’re staying
here
. And it’s going to be up to you to bring me back from there—from
then
—when I need you to.”

“How do I do that?” Piper’s voice was actually warbling with panic now. “How will I know?”

“I … I can’t tell you that.” Clare shrugged helplessly. “I’m not really even sure how it works myself. If Al was here she could maybe explain it to you, but insofar as her lack of hereness is the actual crux of our difficulties, well … all I can say is this: Al told me she just always kind of
knew
when the moment was right. Sensed it. Instinct, I guess. And when it was, she just sort of … willed me back.”

“Sure. That’s great.” Piper crossed her arms, a mutinous look on her face. Her pale ponytails lifted on the breeze like wide white wings and she glared fiercely at Clare through her ruby-lensed goggles. “You and your buddy Al have a bond of friendship stretching back years and years. You just met me. And I’m
reasonably
sure you can’t bloody stand me.”

“Oh, come on.” Clare punched her encouragingly on the shoulder. Admittedly, there was a bit of mustard behind the blow. “You’re the bloody descendant of a bloody arch-druidess and my bloody arch-nemesis. That’s a lot of arch. And blood. Plus, you know what they say—there’s a fine line between love and hate. If that’s true? Then you and me are practically besties.”

“I …”

“You can
do
this, Goggles. I’m counting on you. We all are. Hell … in a way, you’re kind of counting on yourself.”

Beneath them the Tor heaved again, this time feeling like it was about to crack asunder. Milo cried out in what sounded like excruciating pain, and Clare’s head whipped back around to see him spread-eagled on the wind, limbs outstretched as though invisible giants were playing tug-o-war with him. She glanced wildly back at Piper, ready to plead with her. But then Piper nodded once. Decisively. With a flash of sudden steel in her gaze.

Good enough.

It would have to be. Without another word, Clare turned and launched herself in a sprint across the Tor’s summit just as all the rifts were converging on Milo’s position. She had to gauge it exactly right—and so, when she slammed into Milo in the centre of his back, between his shoulder blades, she made sure to shove him in the direction of the rift where Al was still hanging off the neck of the soldier guy. Milo stumbled forward with a grunt of pain, taken by surprise and knocked off balance. Clare wrapped her arms around his waist, and—just as she felt them falling through space and time—saw the bearded-’n’-hatted figure of Nicholas Ashbourne grab the poufed-’n’-tartanned figure of Mark O’Donnell by the shoulders and heave him toward the converging rifts.

So
that’s
what had happened all those years ago.

Somehow Ashbourne/Postumus had known he’d have to send Mark O’Donnell from the eighties back into the first century in order for events to come to pass as they had. And Clare now knew, instinctively, just
how
that “somehow” had occurred. She made a mental note to add it to her list of things to tell Al to tell the Roman commander to remember to do when the moment came upon him … in 1986. Even though Clare still wasn’t sure how he ended up in that time period.

Damn.

Clare felt a sharp stab of guilt at the look of surprise and fear that flashed across the young man’s face just before the darkness of the storm-ridden, gale-lashed time fracture swallowed him whole. Maggie’s fellow student—a poor, unsuspecting
kid
—disappeared into the past without a trace, his parents and friends left to mourn his absence in the present, and it was all her fault. Or all Boudicca’s fault, or all Morholt’s fault … or Mallora’s, or Postumus’s … it didn’t matter. It was done. And she had to make sure that it
got
done. Her gaze lingered on the space in the fragment of the time where he’d been standing only a moment before. Postumus/Ashbourne turned and locked eyes on her for an instant, and then there was nothing more for Clare to see. The fractured sky-rifts winked out, and with her arms wrapped tight around Milo, Clare squeezed her eyes shut as everything flashed fireworks-bright, blinding her utterly.

Next thing she knew, she and Milo were windmilling across the grassy surface of the Tor’s plateau. Limbs tangled, rolling and bouncing, they came to a stop only after they’d taken the legs right out from under Allie … and the dude in the leather skirt she was sucking face with.

Clare lay on her back, gasping painfully for air and making baby seal noises as she gazed up at a sky now uniformly earlyevening blue. Half on top of her, Al struggled to push herself up onto her hands and knees.

“Clare?”
Allie peered down at her through the tangle of her dark hair. “Oh. My. God!”

“Hey, pal,” Clare wheezed. She waggled the fingers of one hand, barely able to contain the smile that split her face at the sight of her best friend. Up close and in person after way,
way
too long. In fact, she thought, she might just burst into actual tears of joy as Al sat back on her haunches, grinning sardonically.

Especially when Al laughed and said, “Damn. You have
crappy
timing.”

21

“I
thought we agreed,” Clare panted. “No punning.”

“What?” Allie blinked at her. “‘Crappy timing’? That wasn’t even wordplay.”

“I just thought ‘
time
-ing’ …”

“It was really more just a statement of fact,” Allie snorted, rolling an eye at her epically tardy best friend while trying to untangle herself from the folds of her borrowed silk palla. Then she threw herself at Clare and hugged her so hard she thought both their heads might pop off. When she stepped back, both girls were grinning from ear to ear. Clare glanced over to where Marcus and Milo were climbing to their feet, and Allie shook her head at the look on her face.

“Seriously,” Allie murmured in a voice low enough that the boys wouldn’t hear. “Did
I
interrupt
you
when you were getting all historically romantic back during the Shenanigan days? Did I?”

“Yes,” Clare answered dryly, equally
sotto voce
. “Yes, you did.”

“Oh. Right.” Allie remembered now: she’d once called Clare back from a shimmer trip only to have her rematerialize with smears of blue paint on her cheek because Connal, the woad-painted Druid Prince of Hotness, had decided it might be fun to kiss a magical girl from the future. “Well …. I guess we’re even now.”

“Even?” Clare spluttered in a half-whisper. “
Even?
I’ve spent the last couple of days worried crazy-
sick
about you and here you are, flouncing around in red-carpet couture—
good
look, by the way—and
getting all cozy with a random Roman! I had flaming arrows! How is that
even
?”

“I’ll see your flaming arrows and raise you a fiery spear,” Allie said. “And he’s not really random. He’s … um. You’re not going to believe this, but he’s Maggie’s lost boy. From that night. His name is Marcus. Mark.”

“Uh?” That knocked Clare right out of murmur mode. She’d known she was bound to encounter Mark O’Donnell in the past because of what Nicholas Ashbourne had told her. She just hadn’t expected him to look like … “
This
guy? This guy is Mr. Poufy?”

“Clare!” Allie tried ineffectively to shush her.

“This is
that
guy? The skinny guy in the plaid pants?”

Marcus ambled over to where the girls stood, smoothing down the leather straps of his legionnaire’s armoured skirt. “I had a late growth spurt,” he said. “Cut my hair. Ditched the pants and started wearing these gnarly leather skirts. You know, the usual. Plus four years of strength training digging fortification ditches and marching with a fifty-pound rucksack on my back. Totally beats the hell out of Jazzercise.”

Clare blinked and Allie laughed at her expression.

“He has a few weirdo eighties pop-culture references you kinda have to overlook,” she explained. “Also a few first-century ones. You get used to it.”

“Ohmigod,” Clare snorted. “Did you tell him about your mom’s karaoke nights?”

Allie felt herself on the verge of blushing again as she thought about dancing to Marcus’s mix tape … “It’s been discussed. Yeah.”

Marcus put out a hand. “Hi. You must be Clare.”

“She really must,” Allie agreed as Clare tentatively shook the handsome young legionnaire’s hand. “She just can’t help herself.”

Milo stepped forward. “Nope. She can’t. Not even a little bit.” He raised a hand in a kind of modified Legion salute that looked only a
little
bit like a Vulcan greeting. “Hi. I’m Milo. That’s my cousin you were making out with.”

“Marcus Donatus.” Marcus nodded. “
Here
, that is. Mark O’Donnell where you lot come from. And my intentions were strictly honourable.”

“Nice to meet you. You’re a terrible liar.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Your cousin’s a total babe.”

Milo eyed Marcus’s Roman tunic and leathers. “Wicked party dress.”

Marcus took in Milo’s spiral Druid markings. “Bitchin’ body paint.”

The two of them nodded, shook hands, and—just like that— seemed to have totally understood each other and already formed the basis for a deep and lifelong brotherhood. Clare and Allie shook their heads at the mysteries of the male of the species.

When that was all taken care of, Allie was surprised to see Clare suddenly round on Milo and smack him right in the middle of a squiggly blue swirl painted on his bare chest. Then Clare glared up at him wordlessly, seemingly on the verge of bursting into tears. Milo just bowed his head a little, opened his arms, and Clare walked into his embrace.

“Dumbass,” she muttered, in the tenderest of tones.

Marcus glanced at Allie, who shrugged in response. After a moment she cleared her throat. “So … uh … now that you guys’re here, how do we get the hell home? ’Cause I assume that’s the plan, right?”

“That’s the thing.” Clare frowned, stepping reluctantly out of the embrace. “It
is
the plan. We’re just not exactly sure how to implement it. Yet. I mean … I’m sure we will be soon. But there’s a couple of things we have to do first. So. Where’s Morholt?”

Allie blinked, but didn’t even bother to ask Clare how she knew Morholt was in the vicinity. She just sort of rolled with that stuff now. “He’s down in a holding tent with a bunch of other Celts who are due to be shipped back to Rome to become slaves. Llassar’s one of them.”

Clare nodded. “I know. Did he have a book with him? Morholt, I mean—a diary kind of thing?”

“Yup. Scribbling in it like a maniac. Well, y’know …” Allie shrugged. “Like the maniac he
is
.”

“Good. I need to get my hands on it.” Clare’s eyes tracked back and forth and Allie could see she was thinking fast and furiously. Even Milo deferred to her in that moment. “So that means
you
,” Clare turned to Marcus, “are going to have to find a way to sneak us into that prisoners’ tent.”

He grimaced. “Easier said than done—”

“Sure, fine, whatever,” Clare said with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll make it happen.”

“You have a great deal of confidence in me, considering we just met.”

“Al is a keen judge of character and she deems you kissable. Therefore, you’re now part of the club. Your super-secret decoder ring is in the mail and Al can give you directions to the tree house. Excelsior!” Clare grinned. “Also? I happen to know that you’ve
already
somehow managed to sneak me into the tent. It’s a done deal.”

Marcus blinked. “It is?”

Allie patted his arm. “It’s a time-monkey thingy.”

“Has slang changed an awful lot then, in my absence?” he murmured, bemused.

Allie stifled a laugh. “Trust me. Trust
her.
” She nodded at Clare.

Suddenly, Marcus glanced at the sky and the shadow of a frown creased his brow. “Speaking of time, I seem to have lost track of it. Whatever we’re going to do, we should hurry,” he said. “There are sometimes demons about after full dark and I’d rather not take any chances.”

“You mean the scathach?” Clare asked. “Those are the scarymonster warrior chicks, right?”

Allie nodded and explained, illustrating with the metaphor she’d already devised for herself: “Think of them like a whole buncha Boudiccas hopped up on mystical Red Bull and steroids, only lacking the politeness factor.”

Clare got the picture immediately. So did Milo.

“Right. And the sun’s already sett— Wait …” Clare held up both hands and pointed in opposite directions. “Doesn’t the sun set in the west?”

“Last time I checked,” Milo said.

“Isn’t
that
west?” She pointed to her left.

“Yeah …” Allie turned to look in that direction. “And, lo, the sun.”

“Okay. But then why does the horizon look like it’s on fire over
there?
” Clare pointed to the right.