by Devon Monk
“To find you. To save you. They had already found me anyway. And Neds were spies too.”
“Neds?”
That’s right, they hadn’t met. “Farmhand I hired when you went missing so long. What were you doing? Why were you gone so long?”
“I was looking for a way to change the world. To save Mom and Dad.”
I stopped, not because I was out of breath—I’d lugged crocboar that were heavier than Abraham—but because Quinten was making no sense.
“Mom and Dad are dead.”
“I know,” he said. “But there is an event. A loop in time that according to my calculations will hit in four days. Well,” he added, “less than that now.”
“The date in your message?”
“You got that?”
“Yes.”
“Wings of Mercury. It’s a . . . break in time triggered three hundred years ago by our grandfather several generations removed. Dr. Alveré Case. His experiment created a . . . think of it as he shattered a moment in time. One piece of time broke away and is now boomeranging back to that break point. Those who survived the ground-zero blast of time breaking became the galvanized. Immortal.”
“Wings of Mercury.”
He nodded. “Exactly. I was looking for a journal—it belonged to our grandmother—that contains vital information. The key to controlling the experimental machine. The key to controlling time.”
“Grandma doesn’t keep a journal.”
“They took it, along with the rest of Dad’s research.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.”
“So, what’s going to happen in less than four days?”
“Nothing if we get home before then.”
“Quinten,” I said in my not-one-more-step voice. “What’s going to happen?”
“The galvanized are living on borrowed time. Quite literally. And when time mends, when that broken piece snaps back into place, the galvanized will die.”
“All of us?”
“All.” His eyes were dark with a sorrow and guilt I could not bear to see. He had saved me years ago when he’d put me in this stitched body. And now I had only a few days left to live.
It was hard to take in all at once.
“Gold,” I said, because I had no other words in me.
“I think I can fix it,” he said. “I might have enough information to be able to change it. We just have to get home. As quickly as we can.”
I glanced back at the stadium.
Getting home was not going to be easy. Already waves of people were pouring onto the streets. A good deal of them wore Black, Defense. They knew this city a lot better than we did. They probably had weapons. They were probably looking for us.
But none of them were running for their lives.
“Do you have your breath?” he asked.
“Yes. Go.”
We bolted down several more streets, putting a solid mile between us and the stadium, but there were cameras everywhere. It was only a matter of time before they caught us.
We ducked into a pocket of shadow and I crouched there, catching my breath. Abraham needed medical attention, and soon. He might not be able to die, but his life stitches were pulling looser and looser. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be enough of him in one piece to carry anywhere.
And, yes, that horrified me.
“We’ll wait until dark,” Quinten said quietly. “Let me see his injuries.”
I set him down as carefully as I could, then leaned my head back against the dirty alley wall, running through our options. Our farm was a continent away. We couldn’t trust House Brown, or any other House for that matter. We had no vehicle, no money, no weapons, and no time.
“Matilda?” a familiar voice called out softly.
Quinten pivoted where he was crouched to look out at the mouth of the alley.
“I know you’re there,” Right Ned said. “And I know we’re not square. But I brought you this.”
Something soft fell into the middle of the alley. My duffel.
“I have a car and I can take you back to the farm. You and Quinten if he’s with you.”
“Who are you working for this time, Neds Harris?”
“You,” he said. “Only you. And you have my word on that, not that it holds much worth anymore.”
I didn’t say anything. He had probably brought House Black with him, or Silver or Orange or whoever he was working with now.
“Do you want to know what I see when I touch you?” Left Ned asked as they walked up to the mouth of the alley and looked right at me.
There was no use hiding anymore.
I moved out into the light. “What do you see?”
“I see this,” Right Ned said. “Always this one moment. I ask you to trust me. I tell you I’m going to take you home with your brother and Abraham. I tell your brother I know what’s in that journal because whenever I’ve touched your grandma, I’ve seen the things rattling in that old head of hers. The time loop. The Wings of Mercury project, how she knits up time with those ridiculous little sheep. I know we have only a couple days to get you all back home.”
“And what do I say?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Right Ned said.
Left Ned was silent, but he wasn’t scowling. If anything, he looked worried, just like Right Ned looked worried.
I’d known those boys for some time now. They’d lied to me. But right here, right now, they were not lying.
“You know about the time loop?”
“I know what your grandmother knows,” Right Ned said. “Most of it anyway.”
“Did you tell anyone? Helen Eleventh? Your boss at House Silver?”
“No,” Left Ned answered. “I was spying on you at the start, Matilda. Then when I got to know you, well . . . neither of us have said a word about this to anyone. Time isn’t something we think the Houses should rule.”
“I’d be a fool to trust you,” I said. “Again.”
“We know,” Right Ned said.
“Maybe I should have sent you packing when you first showed up on my land,” I said.
“Always told you strangers weren’t nothing but trouble,” Left Ned said.
“Strangers, maybe,” I said. “But not you, Neds Harris.”
They waited.
“Her trust was broken, and now it’s mended,” Quinten said as he stepped out of the shadows. “Can we settle this while we’re running for our lives? You did say you had a car?”
“Yes,” Left Ned said. “You must be Quinten?”
“I am. Help me with Abraham.” He and Neds got to work carrying Abraham, and I picked up my duffel, glanced through it—everything was there, including my handgun and Quinten’s watch.
“You decided I trusted him?” I said to Quinten.
“You would have gotten there eventually.” He flashed me a smile as he and Neds carefully deposited Abraham into the backseat of a car with just enough room for him to lie in.
“Best if you drive, Mr. Harris,” Quinten said ducking in the back. “Since you don’t have a price on your head. Either of them.”
Neds got into the front, and I got in next to Quinten.
“He’s not going to make it,” Quinten said as Neds drove the car down the alley, toward another street and the airport. “His stitches are dissolving.”
“Here,” I said. “Try this.” I dug a jar of scale jelly out of my duffel and handed it to my brother.
He grinned. “You are such a clever girl, Matilda. Have I told you that lately?” He unscrewed the lid and applied jelly to Abraham’s stitches.
“You haven’t told me anything lately. You left me and disappeared, remember?”
“Not my intention—you know that. This seems to be helping. Did you happen to pack a needle and thread?”
“That’s my girl. Never misses a step.” He grinned and climbed back next to Abraham then methodically stripped him down.
There was an awful lot of blood, but Quinten didn’t seem worried as he applied the scale jelly, and started in on stitching Abraham back together.
“We’ll be at the plane in five minutes,” Right Ned said. “I have a friend who will take us out without records.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harris,” Quinten said, as if Ned was a personal chauffeur.
“Just Ned,” Right Ned said, taking us down streets at speed.
“Tell me everything that’s happened since I left,” Quinten said.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“Other than my life has fallen apart and you and I are wanted criminals?”
“Tell me the things I don’t know.”
So I told him. Everything that had happened in the three years since he’d been gone, and especially everything that had happened since Abraham had showed up bleeding on our kitchen doorstep.
Neds stopped the car.
“This isn’t the airport,” I said, looking out the windows.
“We don’t want the airport,” Right Ned said. “Give me a second. I’ll be back with help to move him.”
Quinten tied off the last knot at Abraham’s neck and sat back a bit to consider his handiwork. “Satisfactory,” he declared.
I wanted to touch Abraham, to comfort him, but I couldn’t even do that much.
The back of the car opened and Neds stood there next to a woman and a man. Even in the dark of night, I could see the woman had an extra arm on one side, which was currently holding a medical stretcher, and the man next to her was built to mammoth proportions.
“Sadie, Corb,” Right Ned said, “This is Matilda Case and her brother, Quinten. The stitch is Abraham Seventh.”
“Pleased to be of help,” Corb said in a low but pleasing voice.
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll repay you in kind.”
“No need,” Corb offered his huge hand to help Quinten exit the car. “Any friend of a Harris is a friend of ours.”
“We’ll want to hurry, though,” Sadie said. “I’ll warm the engines.”
I gathered up my duffel and got out through the passenger’s door.
In that short time, Corb and Neds had helped Quinten settle Abraham on the stretcher, and then they carried him at a jog off toward a floating dock.
That was when I realized where we were.
“We’re going out by seaplane?”
“Not a bad idea,” Quinten said, walking quickly beside me and already out of breath. “Less regulated. All the smugglers do it.”
We had made it to the door of the little plane, and Corb somehow folded down into the thing. He helped first Quinten, then me onto the plane and into our seats. Neds and Corb were sitting in the cargo area just behind us, strapping Abraham in securely.
Corb reached over and locked the hatch. “Take us up, Sadie,” he called.
She gave a thumbs-up from the pilot’s seat and eased the little craft out across the water. The engine grew louder; the night whisked past the windows. The little plane bobbled slightly, straining for her wings. Then she lifted into the air, heading for the distant sky.
“Is Abraham going to be all right?” I asked Quinten.
“He’ll need blood,” he said. “And a chemical wash to try to neutralize the Shelley dust. It won’t kill him not to have it, but he won’t be conscious until he does.”
“Blood,” I said. “Sure. I’ll just put it on my to-do list.” I rubbed my fingers through my hair, only to find the pins and jewels there. I began plucking them out and dropping them into my duffel. I hoped they were real. We could use the money.
Quinten shook his head and smiled. “Don’t worry, little sister. We’ll get through this.”
“Because we’re House Brown and so terribly resourceful?” I asked.
“No,” Quinten said, settling back in his seat and closing his eyes. “Because we are Cases. And we are going to change the world.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Devon Monk has one husband, two sons, and a dog named Mojo. She writes the Allie Beckstrom and Broken Magic urban fantasy series and the Age of Steam steampunk series, knits silly things, and lives in Oregon. To find out more about her novels or short stories, visit her online.
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Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next book in the House Immortal series by Devon Monk,
INFINITY BELL
Coming in March 2015 from Roc.
Abraham was sitting, covered in sweat, his hair finger-combed off his forehead. He had on pants and boots. Quinten was just tying off a knot in a bandage he’d wrapped over both Abraham’s shoulders and around his chest and stomach.
Gloria looked up from where she was putting things away onto a shelf.
“We’ve been made,” Left Ned said. “In the shop. Domek. Assassin. Run. Now. You want to get out of here quick, Gloria. He’s armed.”
“Domek?” Abraham said. “Are you sure?”
“More than.”
“How long until he can get back here?” Quinten asked as he quickly shoved medical supplies into a duffel Gloria had tossed to him.
“Can’t get in from the front,” Gloria said. “Did he come into the shop?”
“Yes.” Neds glanced around the room and stuffed his pockets with a couple jars of pills.
“He’ll realize there’s no access in five minutes or less,” she said. “How quickly he gets in here depends on how much firepower he’s packing.”
I jogged over to Abraham and helped him into a shirt, flannel, and jacket.
His hands were trembling. He was kicking off an awful lot of heat even though he was shivering.
Fever.
“Can you stand?” I asked as I helped him up off the table. “Can you run?”
His eyes tightened, and he hissed air between his teeth. “I’m fine,” he gasped, one arm pressed against his stomach. “Let’s move.”
“Any other doors in here besides the one to the parking lot?” Right Ned asked.
“Basement,” Gloria said, pulling a coat off a shelf and pulling into it. “This way.” She ran off toward the hall Neds and I had just come in from.
“Hurry,” Quinten said, throwing the duffel over his shoulder and following Gloria.
Abraham took one step, then another. From the way his body stiffened against each movement, it looked like it hurt like hell.
If he was already feeling everything, then I didn’t see how my touching him could make it worse. “Here,” I said, sliding my arm around his back and drawing his arm over my shoulder. “Lean if you need it.”
He leaned.
I helped him take the next few steps and wanted to scream for how slow we were moving. But with each step, his body seemed to come back to itself, seemed to remember how to move as one whole.
And then it remembered how to move smoothly and quickly, until we were moving at a fairly fast pace.
“Faster, faster,” Left Ned chanted behind us.
Gloria and Quinten were dragging a heavy cabinet away from the end of the hall and shoving it up against one wall. Gloria crouched down and pressed a button in the floorboards. A hatch popped up, and she pushed it to one side where it slid seamlessly into the floor itself.
“Watch your step.” She started down a ladder, Quinten hurrying after her.
I looked up at Abraham. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
He scowled at the ladder. “Go,” he said, pulling his arm away from me.
“I won’t leave you,” I said.
“Down. I’ll be right behind you.”
I didn’t waste any more time arguing. I sat and slipped my boots down to the first rung, then scurried down as fast as I could.
Not a lot of light at the bottom of the ladder, but it smelled of damp and mold and rot.
“What’s taking them so long?” Quinten whispered from somewhere in the shadows to my right.
Abraham’s boot—first one, then the other—pressed against the ladder rungs. He climbed down methodically, but not nearly as slowly as I’d expected, which was good.
Neds scrambled down almost on top of him.
As soon as Neds’ heads cleared the floor above us, the hatch closed, snicking into place, then sealing with a thud of metal sucking down vacuum tight.
The darkness was complete now.
“This way,” Gloria said. She shook something and a soft yellow glow appeared in her palm.
I heard Quinten shake something too, and then the little packet strapped to the back of his hand glowed.
“Do you need assistance?” he asked Abraham.
Abraham was leaning against the ladder and breathing hard. Sweat caught in small droplets at the ends of his hair over his eyes, and his clothes were soaked with it. He looked like he’d just run a marathon, not walked down a simple ladder.
“We’ll catch up,” I said.
Abraham pushed away from the ladder. “We’ll keep up,” he said.
Neds swore softly, probably Left Ned. He stood next to Abraham and wrapped an arm around him.
I came up on the other side and did the same. I’d expected Abraham to argue, but from how much he was leaning on us both, I didn’t think he had the air for it.
“Don’t like ladders?” I asked.
Abraham breathed for a bit, as if just trying to keep his lungs and feet moving at the same time was taking all his concentration.
“Most. Repairs,” he said, one word on each exhale. “Days. To recover. Coordination. Difficult.”
“It’s coming back to you pretty quickly,” I said.
“Wouldn’t hurt to step it up a bit,” Left Ned said.
The glow of Quinten’s and Gloria’s lights was moving ahead of us faster than we were keeping up.
