Now and for Never (23 page)

“I'm back in Canada?” Allie blinked. “Neat!” In the next breath she murmured, “I hope Milo has a valid passport …”

Marcus glanced at her sideways, but Allie decided not to burden him with logistical worries. Again. She just shook her head, glancing at the neatly arranged boats their Celtic welcome party had dragged up the shingle and stowed in the lee of the cliffs at the far end of the beach.

“I wonder how the Druiddyn found their way over here in the first place,” she mused. “I mean, sure. Whip up a little blood magic and you can conjure some magical mystery time-bendy funtubes, but before that somebody would have had to just plain old sail here. In, like, one of
those
.” She pointed at one of the boats on the beach.

Marcus shrugged. “It's not as far-fetched as you might think. When I was at Cambridge, I remember having to translate a Latin text—an account of the voyage of Saint Brendan to the Blessed Isles. Some think the story is based on earlier Welsh tales of transatlantic voyages. I think this kind of thing happened far more often than historians know.”

Wow. First-century Celts in the Maritimes. My history teacher would look at me like I had two heads if I even suggested such a thing.

But there they were, elegant, proud people moving about the island in pairs or groups, some singing quietly, others conversing in their liquid flowy language, all drifting away, as night fell, to the series of caves that ranged along the shore.

A scattering of perfect circles appeared up and down the beach. Al blinked in surprise, then realized what they were when a raindrop the size of a grape landed with a splat right in her eye. Marcus grabbed her hand and said “Come on!” They scrambled back to their cave as the clouds' dark underbellies split open and poured forth the most furious rainstorm Allie had ever encountered.

Inside the cave, the small, nearly smokeless fire burned brightly.

Marcus looked down at her, panting a bit. “You're soaked.”

She grinned and pushed the dripping hair from her face. “So are you.”

“Yeah, yeah …” Clare appeared out of the cavern shadows. “You'll have to get out of those wet clothes. And enough with the smouldering glances, you're steaming up the place.”

Allie gave Clare a side-eye glance and retrieved a tank top and a pair of leggings that were rolled up tight and stashed in her messenger bag. Having required a change of clothes once in the past, she'd come prepared. With the help of a battery-powered flashlight she commandeered the little back alcove as a change room.

After trying to make her hair do something remotely stylish, she gave up and just pulled it back off her face with an elastic. Marcus, with his full-service legionnaire carryall, had already changed into a fresh linen tunic. Meanwhile Clare had fished the Korg 70,000
BC
walkie talkies out of Allie's bag and, by the light of the fire, was fitting the batteries into the housings. She handed one to Allie.

“Put that back in your bag and keep it with you at all times,” Clare said.

“Okay. Why?”

“You were gone a long time,” she explained. “I was worried. I assumed you'd been devoured by a bear. If you'd had this with you, I could have radioed for confirmation.”

“I wasn't devoured by a bear.”

“Uh-huh.” Clare leaned in close and squinted at Allie's face.

“What?”

“Devoured by something …” She tapped Allie's chin with one finger, whispering, “Got a little stubble burn going on there, champ.”

Allie snorted and slapped her hand away, willing herself not to blush again. She slung her messenger bag over her head and paused, a faint frown shadowing her brow. “You know …” She dug out the vial of blood Clare had given her to
carry and held it up. “By that logic, if we do get separated— not that we will—then you should probably keep this with you. You're the one who has the Boudicca blood link already established.”

“Ew …” Clare grimaced. But that was as far as her argument went. With the very tips of two fingers, she plucked the glass tube from Allie's grasp. And then shoved the thing way out of sight, into the very deepest corner of her bag.

THE RAIN OUTSIDE
came down in waterfall sheets, curtaining the mouth of the cave, but the cheery little fire and richly woven rugs and furs that Comorra had spread out made it seem as if they were at a rustic ski lodge. The Iceni princess and her handsome Druid had gone to visit Mallora and had yet to return. Clare figured the deluge meant they'd keep Comorra's aunt company throughout the night. But with a decent supply of fuel for the fire, and Marcus having already proven himself overly competent with sharp objects, Clare wasn't all that worried.

In fact, she even started to relax a bit and enjoy the adventure. But when Al told her Marcus's theory about their whereabouts, she tensed right up again.

“What?!” she squawked, sitting bolt upright. “But … but …”

But what? Think about it. It makes sense.

She thought about it. And it did. But just on principle, she put up a decent show of disbelief. After that the trio resigned themselves to having somehow wound up on the wrong side of the ocean. Clare even made up another canvas sign:

You're not going to believe this, but …
Look for us ACROSS THE POND!
(er—not sure where, exactly …)

As she wrote it, she remembered how Milo had joked with her that, in his eagerness to see her again after the summer ended, he might just make it to North America before she did.

Ha,
she thought.
Got ya beat.

But not by much, she hoped. As a sudden wave of longing swept over her she was struck by how much she missed Milo. She popped the cap of the Sharpie back off and, in the bottom corner of the scrap of canvas, drew a little heart and wrote the initials CR + MM inside. Then stoically ignored Al's snickering as she posed with the message for another picture.

“Right. So … where's the Snettisham Torc now?” Clare asked, tucking the camera back into her bag. “'Cause … that's kind of the temporal lynchpin to this whole caper.”

“Paulinus has it.” Marcus's lip lifted in an expression of distaste. “It's the one piece he wouldn't let into the treasure bags destined for the emperor. For, I suppose, obvious reasons.”

“Huh …” Clare frowned, reaching for a handful of roasted pinenuts from a little woven bowl Comorra had left out. “Well. We're just gonna have to get that back from him so we can return it to Snettisham.”

“Not just the torc,” Al said. “I've been thinking about another bit of history that's going to get all twisty if we don't do something about Paulinus himself. And his band of not-so-merry men. I mean, I'm pretty sure there's more to him historically than just vanishing off the face of the map.”

“Ha!” Marcus threw back his head and barked a laugh. “I know exactly what happened to him. Good job, ladies! You got that rotten sod fired from his cushy job!”

“What?” Clare said.

Marcus nodded. “I just remembered something I'd read in one of the histories before I wound up stuck back here … Suetonius Paulinus was relieved of his duties as governor of Britain sometime not long after his defeat of Boudicca.”

“Wait,” Al said. “That hasn't happened yet. The relieving of duty, I mean.”

“No, it hasn't. If I remember correctly, his removal was suspected to be politically motivated. Which is hardly surprising—I don't think he's the type to make deep, lasting friendships.”

“No kidding,” Clare muttered. “Guy has all the charm of a honey badger.”

“Right. And someone in Rome decided to get rid of him. But—and here's the interesting part—the histories said that the excuse the emperor gave was that Paulinus had
lost some ships
.”

“Oooh …” Clare sat back, thinking about the implications. “So we don't just have to get the torc back to Jolly Really Olde, we have to get
him
back, too.”

“
Sans
ships.” Al was frowning faintly.

“Right. Or we risk messing up the timeline anyway.”

“Right.”

Clare sighed in frustration. “And then there's Llassar, too, to think about. He's still got the coin—the one he turned into the shimmer trigger—and
that's
supposed to wind up in the hole in the ground in Snettisham, too. Along with the torc and the rest of that hoard.”

Al nodded. “Yup.”

“And here's what's giving me the biggest brain cramp of all,” Clare said. “The coin was found in Snettisham, along with the torc—stuck in its coils in fact. But
we
found it at Glastonbury. I mean, the pompous grad students found it there, but still. How the hell, y'know?”

Al chewed on her bottom lip. “I have a theory,” she said after a moment. “The Grad Squad found the coin
after
Morholt got trapped in the past with the torc but
before
we decided to come back and set things right. I think … for those few
weeks …
everything
was up in the air. The torc has been roaming free.”

“Like a kind of … temporal wild card?” Clare asked.

“Exactly!”

“I see where you're going with this,” Marcus said, excitement in his voice.

He was gazing at Al with something approaching adoration, and Clare probably would have giggled if she thought it wouldn't break Al's train of thought. As it was, Al's train wasn't about to be derailed.

“I've been thinking about this a
lot
,” she said. “And I figure it this way. As much as it pains me to admit it, I was wrong before with my closed-loop temporal theory. The timeline
isn't
just a circle. It's more like … a spiral. Every time we circle back around to the same place, it isn't quite the same. See, the Snettisham coin wasn't ever supposed to wind up in the Glastonbury find. Not after the moment here, in this past, when we freed Llassar from imprisonment and you told him to go back to Norfolk and bury the coin with the torc.”

“But … we haven't done any of that.”

“No, but we will!” Marcus exclaimed. “Somehow. Allie's right. She's a genius.”

“Pff. No …” Al looked like she was trying not to blush. “Anyway, I think that's how it's supposed to happen. And if you could somehow go back to the moment when the grad students found the coin hoard on
this
go-around,
after
you do that I'd bet modern-day money that the coin—the Snettisham coin—wouldn't be there. Because it no longer
needs
to be.”

“I hope you're right,” Clare said, feeling a time-thinky migraine coming on.

“I am.” Al's eyes gleamed in the darkness as she leaned in and let Clare in on a little secret she'd been keeping to herself—probably for the sake of Clare's peace of mind. “In
all the years I've known my cousin—and that is all his life— Milo has
never
worn an earring. Until you.” She glanced at the mouth of the cave where the rain still fell in torrents. “And him. Connal.”

Clare thought about sitting beside the Druid prince as they ate dinner, noticing how the firelight glinted off the tiny gold hoop in his ear. She frowned. “But … that would mean …”

“Yeah. Don't think about that one too hard,” Al said. “You already look like you're getting a headache.”

“I am.” Clare sighed. “Al … Did we break the universe?”

“No!” Al shook her head adamantly. “For one thing, the earring looks good on Milo. It suits him. And he suits you.”

“And if you hadn't done what you did, I never would have met Allie,” Marcus said with a grin. “So I, at least, am damned glad of your meddling, Clare.”

“So … we're … fixing the universe?” Clare asked hopefully.

“With chewing gum and a paperclip, yeah, maybe.” Al laughed. “But I think it'll all be okay now.”

“That's if we get home again.”

“You'll get home, Clare,” Al said. “You'll get
all
of us home. Even his worship Governor Paulinus and his pals.”

“Except I have no idea how I'm going to do that.” Clare sighed, wondering how on earth she'd braid all the fraying time strands back together again, especially when both Mallora and Connal were magic-depleted.

“On
this
end of the timeline, Connal might not be firing on all cylinders,” Al mused, “but on the
other,
you have a certain super-brain mapmaker who already has a mystical link to that Druid prince and who, because of that link, managed to tear open the fabric of the continuum once already. And? We have the blood of good old barking-mad Boudicca in a vial, and so does Milo, and that has to be useful for something, right?”

Clare hesitated.

“She's got a point, Clare,” Marcus said, a ring of certainty in his voice. “You seem to have all the instruments. You just need to step up to the podium and conduct the orchestra.”

Her musician parents would appreciate the analogy, Clare thought.

So she smiled, nodded, and didn't bother pointing out that she had a tin ear.

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