Tempting Fate (The Immortal Descendants)

by April White

  Once we were all inside, Olivia closed the window behind us, then shrugged at the question on my face. “It’s England. It rains.”

  The room we entered was smallish, and the light was dim from the fading daylight coming in through dirty windows. “Are we going to have to leave the same way we came in?” Adam said what I’d been thinking. It’s not generally a good idea to go climbing around the outsides of tall buildings in the dark.

  Olivia nodded. “I found a laundry chute, but I haven’t had the guts to try it.”

  “Right. Then we’re out of here in fifteen, otherwise we get caught in the dark.” I pulled my mini Maglite out of my back pocket and flicked it on. The warm yellow glow was comforting in all the gray light of the room.

  “The good rooms are this way.” Olivia led us down the silent hall and across to an unlocked door. “The relics in here look kind of Victorian.”

  There were big wardrobes lining the walls, and I opened one to reveal some fairly musty-smelling day dresses. I wrinkled my nose. “Lots of wool in here. Smells like a wet dog.”

  Olivia was already pawing through the clothes packed away in the wardrobes. She pulled out something pale and held it up under her chin. The dress was fairly simple, but had really pretty embroidery all around the bodice that looked like flowering vines. “What do you think?”

  “It’s gorgeous. You would have fit right in wearing that.”

  Adam shot me a look over Olivia’s head. I forgot that she wasn’t officially clued in on my time traveling abilities, because even though she probably was a Pixie in real life, and her family had been working for my ancestors forever, it wasn’t something we’d ever talked about. So, I took a deep breath and a calculated shot.

  “These would have been really good to know about when I went back to 1888.” I held up a man’s frock coat. There was a plain white shirt hung beneath it, and because I’m 5’10” tall, it looked like it would fit me. Olivia regarded it critically for a long moment, but said nothing. It was Adam who looked a little shocked.

  “You went back dressed as a man?”

  “Well, yeah. Women couldn’t go anywhere alone then. And besides, I’m too tall for their dresses.” The image of the stunning midnight blue brocade gown that Archer had made for me flashed through my brain, and it was one of those memories wrapped up in guilt and tied with a pain bow. I firmly shoved it away and watched Olivia for her reaction.

  “I think it’s too early. Like, a lot too early. I think this jacket would have worked better for 1888.” She held up a dark grey wool jacket that looked much less formal than the one I was holding. “The other one might have gotten you arrested for stealing wardrobe from a rich old man.”

  I laughed out loud. “So you knew?”

  “That you’re a Clocker?” She looked at Adam. “And you’re a Seer? And Connor’s a Shifter. Yes, I knew.”

  “When? I mean, when I first got here you talked about ‘weird nicknames’ that certain kids had for each other, and I just figured … you know.”

  Olivia hung the man’s coat back in the wardrobe and continued searching the dresses for things her size. “I’ve always known about blood magic. I just didn’t know exactly who was what until I asked my mum at Christmas.”

  “Blood magic?” Adam’s look was drawn with a skeptic pen. “The Descendants don’t do magic.”

  “I didn’t say you did.” Olivia fixed Adam with one of her famous glares, and I grinned. Finally.

  “Then what’s blood magic?” Adam didn’t seem affected by the glare.

  “Inherited traits that science hasn’t fully explained yet.”

  Adam was about to protest but I cut him off. “I like it. Do Pixies have it too?”

  “A little. Ours is more in tune with nature I guess.”

  Adam looked back, and forth between us with growing astonishment. “You’re not just saying ‘Pixie’ because she’s small, are you?”

  The glare was back and Olivia turned its full force on the Seer. “My family is descended from the Picts. We’ve always been small and smart and very capable, not to mention fierce and dangerous when we’re crossed.”

  “And apparently bipolar.” Adam glared back at Olivia just as fiercely, and I thought flames were going to shoot out of her eyes. Until she smiled.

  “Maybe a little of that too.”

  I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. I hate it when words fail me and eye-rolling is the last option, so I took a deep breath instead. “Guys, as fearsome and entertaining as you both are, we’re running out of daylight.”

  “What? Shopping for vintage clothes isn’t your thing?”

  “Not even a little bit.” Okay, I lied. I was definitely more than a little bit drawn to the beautiful fabrics and gorgeous colors of the clothes, but for a girl who lives in combat boots and runs with a pack of guys, I had an image to uphold. I think I’d do damage if I ever showed up in a dress around them. “Are there any books or art or anything else not-clothes?”

  “I saw some stuff covered in sheets a couple rooms down.”

  We shut the wardrobe doors and slunk down the hall. I tried a door at random. The handle turned and I peeked inside. More wardrobes. I pulled it shut and followed Olivia and Adam into a room near the end of the hall. At first I thought it was empty, but then I realized there were sheets draped over something against one wall. I lifted a sheet and shone my Maglite down on a stack of paintings propped on the floor, their ornate frames gleaming dully in the yellow light. The first couple were just random landscapes painted by a mediocre artist with no sense of scale. The last painting was the biggest and best of the lot. In fact, it was so much better than the ones in front of it that I must have gasped, because Adam came over and crouched next to me to look.

  “That’s St. Brigid’s.” He was close, and I could smell the clean combo of sweat and soap that came off his skin. It was unsettling.

  “It’s Doran’s work.”

  “Who’s Doran?”

  “Some long lost cousin or something. He randomly drops in and hands out nuggets of wisdom like the frickin’ candyman.”

  “Drops in? Like present tense?”

  “Yeah.”

  Adam studied the painting more closely. “This was painted a long time ago.”

  Olivia joined us, crouching down in front of the St. Brigid’s painting. “How do you know?”

  “Well, first of all, there’s no tree.” Adam pointed to a spot on the canvas I knew well. It was a blank spot where the very tall tree I’d climbed to get in the second story of St. Brigid’s my first night at school should have been. It was the kind of very tall tree that took several hundred years to grow.

  Olivia shrugged. “So maybe he went back a couple hundred years to paint it.”

  I shook my head. “Not just a couple hundred. This is a Renaissance style painting, same as the one he did of the Immortals that hangs at Elian Manor.”

  “How do you know it’s Doran’s?” Adam sounded skeptical. I stood to lift it out of its stack.

  “Help me. It’s heavy.” The ornate frame was massive, carved wood, and painted with gold leaf and Adam had to hold it by himself so I could push the painting out. I showed them the signature on the edge of the stretched canvas, just where Doran had signed the Immortals. “See? Doran.”

  “And you’ve met him.” Adam’s tone was disbelieving.

  “Yup.”

  We propped the painting back up against the wall, and Adam looked at me. Oddly. “The Renaissance was, like, five hundred years ago.”

  “More or less.”

  “Is this guy from then, or does he just randomly pop around in history, painting landscapes whenever the mood strikes?”

  I rubbed my eyes tiredly. “I don’t know. I barely know him. Like I said, he’s dropped in on me a couple of times and randomly dispensed little wisdom tidbits about being a Clocker. I’m usually mad at him for not telling me enough, and I’m lucky to get in two or three questions before he Clocks out again.”

&
nbsp; “Sounds like a charmer.”

  “You have no idea.”

  I studied the painting more closely. Something was odd about the stones in one of the towers, but I couldn’t see it until I shined the Maglite directly on it. And then I knew. “Crap.”

  “What?” Adam tried to see what I was staring at.

  “Part of a spiral. See here, where the bricks make a pattern?” I pointed to it, careful not to touch the canvas. I was afraid the painting was a portal, just like the London Bridge painting in the Clocker Tower.

  “It’s not complete. It doesn’t look like the one in your tower.”

  He was right, it was the outside edge of one spiral, like the other four were around the corner of the tower. “But it is the Clocker Tower, isn’t it?” I touched the painted spiral tentatively, waiting for the tingle that I got when I hit a live portal. I held my breath and pushed my finger around the first turn. Nothing. I traced all the lines of the spiral with growing confidence. Still nothing. “Whew. It isn’t live.”

  “So why’s it there?” Adam studied my face.

  I cringed. “I don’t suppose there were any Renaissance clothes in those wardrobes, were there?”

  Adam looked sternly at me. “Just because there’s a spiral doesn’t mean you have to go.”

  I sighed. “Try telling that to Doran.”

  “Guys, we should probably head out before it gets dark.” Olivia was looking out the window at the graying light. She was right, and I was actually relieved. I didn’t really want to think about why there was a spiral painted in a five hundred-year-old landscape of the school, and I had the horrible feeling I was going to find out. Adam helped me to my feet, and we covered the stack of paintings with the sheet again and closed the door behind us.

  I was glad it hadn’t rained in the time we were exploring the attics, because stones and roof tiles get slick when they’re wet. But all three of us were competent climbers, and even with my injured shoulder we made it back down to the second floor in less than ten minutes. Olivia took off to check on Connor before dinner, and I ditched Adam to go to the kitchen garden and help Mrs. Taylor. I’d gotten pretty good at pretending Adam didn’t put me on edge, but I didn’t like noticing things like the scent of his skin. And it was getting harder to ignore the longer Archer was gone.

  I was in the walled garden picking mint and thyme for dinner when my mom slipped inside and closed the door behind her. I smiled at her expression of total exhaustion.

  “Hiding out?”

  She pushed her hair back from her face and sighed. “I have immense respect for teachers who know what they’re doing. I feel like I’m just winging it most of the time, and a pack of wild twelve-year-olds will see my weakness and tear me to shreds.”

  I laughed. “They love listening to you, and you’re just fishing for compliments.”

  She smiled. “You’re a very good daughter when you’re not stealing my art supplies. What’s Mrs. Taylor making in the kitchen tonight?”

  “I think she’s doing shepherd’s pie and minty peas.”

  “Mmm. Here, let me help.” Working next to her in the garden reminded me of times when things weren’t so complicated, when the only thing that could suck was her disappearing, and then moving us every couple of years. Maybe we had stopped changing residences now that my Clocker heritage was out in the open, but our relationship was still finding its footing, and navigating the mother/daughter thing was far from simple.

  “Mom, when you had to go, you know, back all those times, why’d you leave me?”

  She closed her eyes like she’d been waiting for the question. And dreading it.

  “I shouldn’t have. No matter how responsible and capable you were when you were twelve, I never should have left like I did.”

  “I understand why you had to go, I guess I just wonder why I was alone.”

  She stared at me. “Saira, you weren’t alone when you were twelve. Our neighbor, Mrs. Shack, she took you in.”

  Now it was my turn to stare. “No, she didn’t. She came by and dropped food off for me, but I was on my own.”

  A choked sound came from my mom and her face was pale. “Saira …”

  “You didn’t know? How could you not know that, Mom?”

  “You never said …” She took a breath to calm herself. There were tears in her eyes. “I never asked, did I?”

  I shook my head, and she wrapped her arms around me. Something broke loose in my chest. Knowing that she hadn’t intended to leave me alone mattered somehow. I took a deep breath, and realized I could do this.

  “I want to go to London to find Archer.”

  “No.” She pulled back to look at me, and my eyes narrowed at her abrupt answer.

  “I’m almost eighteen. I’m not really asking your permission.”

  She sighed, and I could feel her try to soften the edges. “Sometimes a little space isn’t a terrible thing.”

  “Sure. When it’s not messed up by a fight.”

  “I think your relationship is complicated by many things, Saira. Time apart can sometimes bring perspective. And with everything going on in Family politics, I don’t want you to leave St. Brigid’s. You’re safe here.”

  Except from Weres and little Monger bullies. I hadn’t lost my bitterness, because that incident had exposed more than just my own weakness. There was a fault line in my relationship with Archer that got put into perspective too, and time apart was the last thing it needed. I’d been doing way too much of that already. My silence stretched to fill the space, and she put her arms around me, apparently deciding I’d given in.

  “I wish I could dump the full contents of my experience into your head so you didn’t have to learn your own lessons.”

  I crushed some mint leaves between my fingers, letting the minty smell ground me. My mom was lost in her own thoughts though, and couldn’t read the turmoil in my heart.

  “But that wouldn’t work either. You should never have to feel my pain of losing the love of my life.”

  “But if I had your experiences, I’d have actually known my father.”

  Her voice had the weight of the world behind it. “And then he’d be your lost love too.”

  London

  About a month before the thing with the Were in the woods, Archer had shown me something he found on a brick wall just inside his part of the school cellar. Behind a bookcase was a piece of plaster that must have covered the entire wall at one time. Most of it was gone now, but the piece Archer found had part of a Clocker spiral carved into it.

  It was the first spiral we’d found that was actually part of the building, but because most of it was missing it couldn’t be used as a portal. He told me I could repair it, but I hadn’t been anxious to then. The spiral was inside his lair. If someone besides me ever Clocked into his space while he was in it, he’d be totally vulnerable.

  Since Archer had gone, the instinct to finish that spiral burned in me. It was something to connect me to him. A way I could find him from anywhere.

  I had decided to finish the old plaster spiral in white chalk, which would show up well on the exposed brick. The familiar tingling began almost as soon as the first spiral laid down. I took extra care with the five spiral design, giving special attention to symmetry and adding just a little flair. I wanted it to be beautiful, and I also wanted Archer to notice it.

  It had been tough to feel completely confident in my own strength standing next to a man like him. A man, not a boy. Not even a twenty-three year old man like he looked, but one who had lived almost a hundred and fifty years. I was putting my time travel skill in plain sight for him to see I wasn’t just a kid who needed his protection.

  But I also knew that finishing the spiral in Archer’s lair was a sign of ultimate trust. He had given me total access to him, even when it meant making himself vulnerable.

  The buzzing started, and I pictured the cellar of the War Museum that used to be Bedlam, but I made sure to use specific details from modern times so I
didn’t accidentally send myself backwards again, a charming thought that was lost in the pulling and stretching feeling that consumed my body as I Clocked.

  I had a moment of panic when I landed because the room was much brighter than either the War Museum or the Bedlam cellar had ever been. But then I realized there were electric work lights strung across the ceiling, and they were blazing. So at least I hadn’t gone back to Victorian times.

  A noise startled me, and I spun around to face whatever was coming. Bishop Cleary’s expression was equally shocked at the sight of me, and then his face split into a smile and he rushed forward to sweep me into a big hug. “It’s so good to see you, Saira.”

  I grinned into his soft sweater. I had felt immediately comfortable with the jeans-wearing, silver-maned bishop, and his was the hug of a favorite uncle. He held me at arm’s length and studied me. “You look fit and strong. Archer said you’ve been training the young men in Parkour?”

  I grimaced slightly, and Bishop Cleary smiled. “A source of discord between you? It’s not as discordant as it may seem, Saira. For all of his Victorian upbringing he’s coming round to the realities of loving a modern young woman of remarkable strength and courage … with only a little kicking and screaming.”

  I kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  He beamed and gave me another squeeze before leading me toward the small records storage room in the back of the cellar. “Come and see what we’ve been up to.”

  The storage room had been transformed into an office, with a big work table at one end and files stacked on every available surface. “I’ve managed to secure permission from the War Museum to work here, so at least I’m not getting attacked by my guilty conscience every time we use the tunnel.”

  “What have you told them you’re doing?”

  “A version of the truth. The genealogy was stolen while in my care, and the history of its commissioning might give us a clue to its importance. The hunt for the book itself has taken your friend to every building Seth Walters is associated with, but so far, there’s been nothing. And since I’m staying out of the breaking and entering business, I’ve spearheaded the effort to locate Bishop Wilder in history.”