Now and for Never (26 page)

Clare dozed, Marcus paced, and Morholt finally returned.

Shorn of beard and with his hair combed free of twigs and dirt (and likely a nesting possum or two), he very nearly resembled the man Clare had first met when he'd held a (fake—hey! How was she to know?) gun to her head. To her great surprise, Clare realized that she'd actually kind of missed that guy. At least it looked as if some of his sanity had returned. He went to return her comb but she held up a hand.

“Er … keep it,” she said.

He shrugged and then sank down by the fire.

“Storm's lifting,” Marcus said, an edge of anticipation in his voice.

Clare walked over to stand beside him. The rain curtain was definitely letting up; morning might not be too far off. When two shadowy shapes suddenly loomed up before them, Clare yelped and Marcus took a step in front of her, his sword appearing in his hand as if by magic.

“Whoa!” She lunged and grabbed his arm as he lifted the weapon. “Friendlies!”

Marcus pulled the blade back and Connal and Comorra, shrouded in hooded cloaks, stepped out of the rain, their wraithlike outlines suddenly solid. Comorra threw her cloak back over her shoulders and greeted Clare with a warm hug. Connal pushed back his own hood and wiped the rain from his face.

“It is a night for beasts,” he said, “not men.”

When Clare made a distressed bleat, he frowned and put a hand on her shoulder.

“What?” he said. His glance flicked from her to Marcus to Morholt—eyes narrowing at the sight—and then through the rest of the cave, where Al clearly wasn't. He glanced back down at Clare. “What has happened?”

She blurted out the details—insofar as she could make sense of them—of the “beasts, not men” attack and Al's abduction. But judging from their shared glances, Connal and Comorra didn't seem exactly bowled over with shock.

Marcus stepped up beside Clare and, his hand tightening on his sword hilt, spoke directly to Connal. “If you know where Allie is,” he said evenly, “you're going to take me there. Now.”

Connal was unfazed by the implied threat.

“I do not know where the others have taken your friend,” he said calmly, locking eyes with the young man dressed in the uniform of his people's enemy. “I know only that they are still on this island.”

“Why?” Clare asked. “Because the storm won't let them leave?”

Connal shook his head. “Because they don't leave,” he said. “This is where they exist, when they are in this world.”

Clare and Marcus exchanged a perplexed glance. “But … I thought you told me no one lives on this island.”

“I did not say they live here,” Connal clarified unhelpfully. “I said they
exist
here.”

Clare blinked at him. Then she remembered what Comorra had told her about the “others,”and the penny dropped.

“Don't worry, Clare,”
she'd said.
“Like the scathach, they appear only when called upon. If you don't call them, they don't come.”

Well, it seemed someone
had
called them. The others. The skraeling.

“Tell me about these skinwalkers again,” she said to Marcus. “What can they do, exactly?”

“According to legend,” he said grimly, “they could take the shape of any animal they wanted. All they needed was something
from
the animal. A tooth, a claw, pelt … feathers …”

“Wait.” Clare held up a hand. “Feathers?”

Marcus's lips disappeared in a thin line. “Mallora's cloak. It probably marks Al as kindred.”

“She knew.” Clare swore under her breath. “Mallora
knew
something like this would happen …”

Marcus told them about the enormous ravens that had perched on the cargo ship when he'd transferred the gold aboard. How they'd been scathach warriors in the guise of birds of prey. Clare suddenly remembered what Morholt had told Al about the Druidess—and what Mallora herself had said about her gifts of prophecy. She'd seen danger approaching and had thrown Al right into its path. A place where she hoped Al could muster some manifestation of the scathach.

“
That's
what she wants Al to summon?” Marcus asked. “
Air support?
For what purpose?”

“Let's go find out,” Clare muttered grimly.

She turned and stalked out of the cave, ignoring Connal's call for her to wait.

Marcus was hot on her heels as Clare made her way up the beach toward the cave where the Druid priestess and her scathach bunked. When Clare ducked inside, she saw Mallora sitting cross-legged inside a circle drawn in the sand of the cave floor, her eyes open and staring at nothing in the firelit gloom. The scathach crouched on their haunches in a loose semicircle behind her, heads tilted, black eyes glittering as they watched Clare approach. They shifted and shuffled like a nervous flock, as if readying to spring to their mistress's defence should the need arise. It didn't. As angry as Clare was, she just wanted answers.

A long, tense moment passed and then Clare heard the hiss of metal as Marcus unsheathed his sword behind her. Mallora's eyes flicked in his direction. Clare put a hand up and shot Marcus a warning glare before turning back to the Druidess.

“Why?” she asked without preamble.

Mallora's eyes drifted closed and then slowly opened again, focusing on Clare's face. “I have … seen this …” she said, her voice slurry.

“Yeah.” Clare's voice was sharp. “That's what you said on the boat. I hadn't known you were talking about Al's abduction, or I would have expressed just how uncool I am with that.”

“What the hell is going on?” Marcus asked, his voice a low growl.

Clare didn't take her eyes off the Druidess and her warrior women. “The skraeling. Comorra said they only come when they're called. I'm guessing you're the one who dialed them up.”

Mallora nodded groggily. “We will need them to keep this place safe—”

“You told us you couldn't summon anymore!” Clare snapped. “That you were too weak from the journey. You lied.”

“I did not. I was. I am …” Mallora tried to stand but her legs crumpled beneath her and she sank back down. “Too drained of my own magic to call forth the guardians on my own. Only a handful heard my cry.”

“Yeah?” Clare crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, your handful was enough to successfully abscond with my best friend. And if she is in any way hurt—”

“That is what I was trying to avoid. I realized it would be asking too much … of her … Allie …” Mallora's head drooped and her voice dipped to a raw whisper as her eyes rolled back in her head. “I thought I could work the magic. But it was too soon to make the attempt. I should have waited. They will have need of her now because of me,” she said. “To call more
guardians to this place. You will have need of her.
That,
I now know, is the truth of what I saw.”

“What are they?” Marcus asked quietly.

“Ancient,” Mallora said, reverence in her voice. “Like the scathach. Since the beginning of time, they have used the magic of bird and beast to protect these lands.”

Magic of bird and beast,
Clare thought.
Marcus was right. Those guys were freaking werewolves. Werebears. Werecats …

Behind her, Marcus stirred restlessly and Clare saw the firelight reflect off the edge of his blade as it shifted. But even chock full of righteous Al-saving fury, he was still outnumbered by the scathach. And getting himself dismembered by spectral warrioresses was hardly a viable way to find Al.

“So. You saw this coming. Did you see how it turns out?”

Mallora shook her head. “Not yet. But she is safe. That I know. They will not harm her. They need her.”

Clare turned to leave, but stopped. “If you're wrong about this … I'll be back.”

“And I will be here. I can hardly be elsewhere now,” Mallora said. And then her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled sideways in a faint.

Well, that's worrying,
Clare thought as half the scathach surrounded their mistress and the other half silently, menacingly escorted Clare and Marcus from the cave. Although perhaps less worrying than it would have been if Clare hadn't known that Mallora would, ultimately, be fine. Fine enough to become the start-up matriarch of a long line of Piper Gimble's ancestors, at least.

Knowing something of how the future unfolded
did
have its perks.

Back in their own cave, Marcus ignored Connal and Comorra and began rifling through his gear, pulling various items out of the satchel and setting them down. One looked
like a small rectangular box, carefully wrapped in cloth. By the light of the fire, Clare caught a glimpse of bright yellow plastic and her heart caught in her throat. Marcus's Walkman. The one Al had told her about. The one he'd used to play music for her when they'd danced on top of Glastonbury Tor.

“Hey,” she said gently. “Al's tough and she's smart. She'll be okay.”

“I know she will.” There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “She has to be.”

Well,
Clare thought,
can't argue with that logic.

She saw his fingers close on the cassette player's angular shape for a moment. Then he kept digging around in the pack, eventually finding what he was looking for. After re-stowing his stuff, he settled down with a whetstone and went about methodically sharpening his weapons' already razor-keen blades.

Clare left him to it and turned to her Iceni friends. Connal was heading to the alcove at the back of the cave, saying he had to prepare for something that Mallora, with her seer's ability, had instructed him to do. Something that in Clare's brain translated as “the scrying.” Which meant it didn't translate at all. Also? Under the circumstances, Clare was particularly wary of anything Mallora had “seen.”

With Marcus's rhythmic, hissing ring of stone grinding against steel echoing through the cave, Clare drew Comorra aside.

“Hey, Comorra? Whatever happens, however this whole crazy situation turns out in the end, I just wanted to say I'm really glad to see you again. And I'm really glad things ended up okay for you and Connal. I mean, I wish the reunion circumstances had been a bit less, y'know, Roman and all …”

Comorra grinned. “I could apply that sentiment to a great deal of my life, Clare.” She shook her head, her grin fading a little. “Truthfully, I always feared the Legions might one day
find these lands. My people did. It's not surprising they could as well.”

“Actually it
is
a little surprising,” Clare said. “Because, you see … they didn't. Not according to history, anyway. The Romans are kind of archaeological litterbugs. They leave their hobnailed sandal prints all over everything. And nothing like that has ever been found. And if we're successful, we can keep it that way.”

“I hope you're right, Clare,” Comorra sighed. After a moment she shook her head and smiled, her blue eyes shining. “No. I
know
you're right. Andrasta watches over you and guides you.”

I hope so,
Clare thought, doing her best to return the smile.
Me and Al both. We're gonna need all the help we can get.

And more information wouldn't hurt. At Clare's urging, Comorra tried to describe what “scrying” was: a common form of magic, like looking into a crystal ball or gazing into a mirror à la Snow White's nasty stepmom. Any reflective surface, it seemed, could be used to varying success, and within the ranks of the Druiddyn, it was most often a bowl full of still water. Apparently that was how Mallora had gleaned most of
her
insights into the future.

“She told us there is someone in your time,” Comorra said. “Someone who shares a connection with Connal.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Clare bit her lip. “Milo. He's …” She wasn't sure how to explain. “Milo was part of the spell that sent me travelling the first time around,” she hedged. “Another part of that spell was your and Connal not remembering some of the things that happened while I was, er, travelling. Because for you those things never really happened. But the whole thing left a link between Connal and Milo. Does that make any sense at all?”

“It does for me,” Connal said, reappearing from the alcove, the bare skin of his chest and arms painted with the nowfamiliar fluid patterns of Druid symbols. A strange expression
washed over his face and shadows moved in the depth of his forest-green gaze. “I … have dreams. Vivid ones—as if they were memories—of places I've never been. Things I've never done. Other things”—he glanced over at Comorra—“that never happened.” His gaze shifted to Clare. “And … feelings. Feelings I shouldn't have.”

“Oh. Um.”

Clare knew exactly what Connal was talking about, even if he didn't. In the timeline that existed for him now—the one that had continued forward after Clare's …
minor
alterations— Comorra had never died. Connal hadn't lost his mind because of that, and Clare hadn't had to pull his spirit forward into the present, whereupon he would inhabit Milo's consciousness/refuse to vacate those mental premises after Boudicca was vanquished/savagely and with crazy kissing declare passion-fevered intentions toward Clare/attempt to annihilate Milo from the inside.

Clare had already forgiven Connal for all that. There were mitigating circumstances after all, and anyway
this
Connal hadn't done any of it. It was probably just the residual traces of that blood magic that had left the shadows of another reality in his mind. Clare watched those shadows chasing through his gaze, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around him in a comforting hug.

Yeah … that would be a bad idea
. Even though it made her breath catch in her throat. But it wasn't really about Connal, and besides, Comorra was standing right there, and—hello— Milo? Right. Even if Milo was somewhere in the future making googly eyes at Goggles and—