EMBER
Am I dead? I feel like I’m floating. The white light is all around me, but it’s not warm like I expect. It’s cold. Cold enough to for me to realize something is off. I take a breath and shiver. It’s like breathing in ice water. Blinking, I see that it isn’t light from the explosion behind my eyes. It’s sunlight. Raising my hand, I shield my eyes, and then close one eye and squint. The sun is mid-sky. How is that possible? It was just after midnight a few seconds ago. I jolt upright, looking around.
Next to me, Stein groans. I lean over and give her a shake. She rolls onto her side in the grass, pressing her face against the ground. I can see angry red burns crisscrossing her exposed skin. She’s breathing hard, probably trying to get a grip on the pain. A chunk of her hair is melted into a glob just below her chin, but otherwise, she looks all right. A flash goes off and I jump, covering my eyes.
A little old woman in a tan skirt, with her white hair tucked under a pink scarf, holds up a camera and snaps a picture. The flash goes off again. From the steps of the building behind us, an old man yells to her in Russian. She snaps one more picture and wobbles away. A young man is on his cell phone, speaking urgently to someone on the other end. He’s calling the police, I realize. He’s trying to get us some help. Whatever happened, our landing here in midday must have caused quite a ruckus for these people.
Lex crawls between us, propping himself up on his knees. “You two okay?”
I look down at myself. No major parts missing. Beyond that, I can’t tell. I ache everywhere. My ankle might be sprained, and the lump on the back of my head is pounding. The pain in my chest tells me I’ve probably cracked a rib or two. “Ethan,” I say, scanning the area. I don’t see him anywhere. “Ethan?”
“Over here,” he says with a wave as he stumbles into sight. He’s holding one arm at an odd angle, but he’s smiling. I struggle to my feet despite the pain and limp over to him. Careful of his injured arm, I hug him, pressing my face into the nape of his neck.
“Where are we?” he asks as Lex and Stein join us.
I nod to the massive building behind him. The elderly woman is talking to a small group of people, one of whom looks like a priest. She’s pointing at us and chatting away in Russian.
I walk over to the man on the phone. “Excuse me, sir. My friend and I are lost. Can you tell me where we are?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy, but he lowers the phone. “Yekaterinburg. The Church on the Blood.” He pauses. “Where did you come from? You just appeared out of nowhere. And you’re hurt. I have called for help.”
I mutter a thank you and walk back over to my friends.
“This is bad. We need to go, like now. Before a whole lot of people start asking a whole lot of questions we can’t answer.”
Ethan nods. “Let’s get out of sight so we can rift out.”
Together, we walk around to the back of the church. There’s no one around.
“So, where to?” Ethan asks, ready to punch the numbers into the Tether.
“We should get Stein back to Nobel so he can take a look at her,” Lex chimes in.
She waves him off. “I’m fine. Just sore. And starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”
As if agreeing, my stomach rumbles. Ethan laughs. “Someone must have said the magic word.”
I slap him playfully, and he winces.
“Ow.”
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I could eat.”
“Me, too. Tacos?” Lex asks, taking Stein by the hand. “I know a little place in Mexico City—”
Ethan cuts him off. “Shouldn’t we make sure everything is, I dunno, fixed?”
I look around. “No hover cars or ancient Greek armies. No massive, soul-sucking tornadoes. Not even any tiny soul-sucking tornadoes. I think it’s safe to say everything is fine.”
“And even if it’s not, Lex needs a shower. Seriously,” Stein says.
I laugh. It hurts, so I clutch my chest.
“Maybe we should go get cleaned up and bandaged first?” Ethan says, pointing to my foot, which I’m holding up gingerly. “Besides, Stein is pushing the no shirt, no shoes, no service policy.”
I look over and see that he’s right. Her shirt is mostly shredded. Somehow, it still manages to look good on her.
“Just take me somewhere with room service, and I’ll be fine,” I say, turning to Lex. “Seriously, though. No tacos. How about hot dogs? Just a quick stop on the way home?”
Lex looks at Stein, who shrugs. “Chicago?”
“Why not?” I say. “How about 1965? It was a great year.”
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