“Where are we?” Sophie’s nose was pressed to the glass of the window beside her. “I caught a glimpse of the ocean a second ago. Is this medieval Wales?”
“I don’t think this is Wales. I don’t know where we are.” Anna glanced back to where Elisa and Ted were sitting together, hands clasped tightly, though Anna had the sense Elisa’s wide-eyed look was due to horror and Ted’s to excitement. Anna refused to feel guilt, though that might come later depending on what happened next.
Fortunately, Andre had remained focused on the task before him. “I don’t care what it is. It’s close enough to an airstrip not to matter. Buckle up again.” He nosed the plane down towards what had to be a road, though Anna had rarely seen such a good one in the Middle Ages. The Romans had built many, some still in good repair, but none that looked like this as far as she knew. Andre was right, however, that the only important thing was that it was wide enough for two carts to pass and was built up above the surrounding terrain.
She returned to her seat and hastily buckled her seat belt. The engines roared, louder than before, but when the plane approached the ground, it settled onto the road as light as a feather.
Sophie turned in her seat, recovered enough to talk up the airplane again. “The landing is much better than takeoff, as you can see.”
Anna found laughter welling up in her chest, and she put the back of her hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking.
Ted was bent forward to look out the window, but he turned to look at her. “Are you okay?”
Anna struggled to sober. “I’m fine. More importantly, how are you?”
“I told you I wanted to come with you,” he said. “No doubt theory and reality are two very different things.”
“I did warn you.” She spread her hands wide. “Are you all okay? George?” Regardless of what they’d stated—and done, truth be told—she couldn’t help but think that George, Sophie, and Andre had been coerced into accepting this assignment.
“We’re fine,” Sophie said in a tone that brooked no argument. The somewhat sticky sweetness of their first encounter was long gone. “Even if I wasn’t, would there be anything you could do about it?”
Anna hesitated and then said straightforwardly. “No. Not right away.” There was no point in sugar-coating the obvious truth.
“I assume I will stick out like a sore thumb,” Andre said.
“You will,” Anna said. “There’s no way around that. You can ask Darren how it’s been for him.”
“Who’s Darren?”
Mark answered for Anna. “He worked for Callum. He came on the bus a few years ago and stayed.”
There was a sourness to Mark’s tone that Anna didn’t like, but she didn’t respond to it. Mark was going to have to come to terms with being back here against his will, but it wasn’t going to happen through anything Anna herself said.
Lastly Anna went to Elen and crouched in front of her. “What about you?”
“School sucks,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m glad not to have to go back there ever again.”
“We have schools here,” Anna said.
“Yeah, but I bet they aren’t anything like mine.”
Anna gave a low laugh. “You’re probably right.”
Elen looked hopefully at Anna. “Maybe Christopher is here.”
“Only one way to find out.” Mark rose from his seat and looked at Anna. “You’re a princess of Wales. I think it’s down to you now to see this through.”
Anna took in the faces looking back at her. All of them had turned eager, and she saw no point in diminishing their enthusiasm with cold reality right away. They would find out soon enough what this world was like and if their decision to ride with her had been a mistake.
“Give me a second.” Anna grabbed her pack from the storage compartment and pulled out her medieval clothing, which Mark had stuffed into the top back at Callum’s apartment. “I think it would be better if I looked a little more the part when we open that door.”
It was a delay that could be a bad thing if the people out there were hostile, but Anna didn’t see that they had any great alternatives. In the back of the plane, with Elisa’s help, since Anna still had the broken wrist, she pulled off her modern shirt and pants and exchanged them for wool leggings, underdress, and overdress. It took close to ten minutes, but still she hesitated before pulling back the curtain and reentering the main cabin. She’d put on the uniform. Now she had to act the part.
Then she found Aunt Elisa’s hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you for giving us this chance.”
Closing her eyes, Anna took in a deep breath and let it out. Once again, she’d arrived back where she belonged and where she did make a difference every day. It wasn’t everything, but it was enough to be going on with. She flung back the curtain. “Let’s get that door open.”
The order had come out before she thought about it. In Avalon, every one of the people here but Elen outranked her in every way. Anna hadn’t even graduated from high school. Uncle Ted was the CFO of a huge corporation, Andre was a pilot, and Sophie and George had depths they hadn’t yet plumbed. But here, her brother sat atop the medieval food chain.
And she was a princess again—in her own right.
The plane had settled in the middle of the road, and the wings had folded themselves back so they were out of the way, much like a bird when it came to rest.
Sophie opened the door, and Anna stuck out her head … somehow, of all the crazy things that had happened today, seeing her brother looking at her from the back of a white horse was the least of them. They’d arrived in Ireland, not Scotland, but it would do. “Hey.”
“Hey to you!”
She and David stared at each other for a second, and then his eyes went to her arm. “Is that a cast?”
“It’s a long story.” Then Anna looked at Christopher, who was mounted behind David. “Your family is here. Come on in.”
David maneuvered his horse closer to the side of the plane, and Anna got out of the way so a tearful Uncle Ted could hold out his hand to his son. Christopher reached up and half-leapt, half-clambered into the plane, ultimately flopping on his stomach in the doorway. Then he scrambled to his feet, and a second later was enveloped in his father’s arms. Elisa, naturally, started crying.
Christopher wrapped his arms around his mother’s waist and lifted her six inches off the ground. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Aunt Elisa’s words were slightly muffled by Christopher’s cloak. “I was at fault.”
Then Ted wrapped his arms around both of them. “It’s nobody’s fault and everybody’s. How about we leave it at that. I’m just so glad we’re all together again.”
“Me too!” Elen hugged her brother from behind.
Christopher laughed. Having put down his mother, he reached out an arm to Elen in order to bring her into their circle.
Tears tracked down Anna’s cheeks to see them so joyful, and she found herself accepting her role in reuniting them. It wasn’t her job to keep them apart or make their decisions for them. Then, as she’d come to expect from her cousin’s family, all of them started talking at once, still too excited to have a thought for anyone else. Anna edged past them to sit in the doorway with her legs dangling outside the plane.
David had walked his horse to the front of the plane and back to calm it, and now he gazed up at her with a big grin on his face. Since she’d wiped away her tears, her smile was probably just as big.
“Do you want to come down here?” he asked.
“Not yet. I don’t dare leave everyone. You’ll be thrilled to learn I brought more people to acclimate.”
“Me among them.” Mark poked his nose through the doorway above Anna’s head.
“Oh. Wow.” David hesitated, clearly not knowing what to say. “You came.”
“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He met Mark’s gaze. “I’m guessing I have you to t
hank for keeping Anna safe in Avalon, broken arm aside.”
Mark actually blushed a little. “That happened on the way in.” Then he shrugged. “To tell you the truth, she did just fine all by herself.”
“It was chaos,” Anna said flatly.
“I figured. Are you going to tell me how you got here? Or more importantly, why?”
“You want that now? Because the details don’t matter just this second.” Anna’s eyes went to the top of his head, finally realizing she didn’t recognize the crown he wore. “Where’d you get that?”
David touched his temple. “I’ve just been crowned High King of Ireland.”
Anna laughed. “Of course you have.”
“It was to avoid outright civil war. We fought in a terrible battle yesterday.”
Anna sobered immediately. “I’m sorry. Are Mom and Papa okay?”
“Yes. They’re coming.”
Anna bit her lip. “Were Scots involved?”
“Yes.” He stared at her, not at all happy with her dead-on guess.
She nodded. “We do have a lot to talk about.”
They left the plane where Andre had parked it, for lack of a better place to put it. Although its arrival came a little too close to making David look like a god, the end result was as spectacular a crowning as was possible to imagine, including if the Stone of Destiny had, in fact, roared.
Once Mom and Papa showed up, and everyone had been hugged sufficiently, or in Christopher’s case, enough for now, they headed back to the Hill of Tara. Even though David had his hands full with the Irish, on the ride back to his pavilion he demanded to hear about Scotland.
Riding pillion behind him, Anna obliged, concluding, “I’m just sorry I couldn’t bring you an immediate solution to all this.”
David laughed, at first under his breath, and then more fully such that Anna could feel his stomach clenching, since her arms were cinched around his waist.
“What’s so funny?” She had expected a cloud of disapproval, not laughter.
“And people say I take too much on myself.” He put his hand over hers. “Just the fact that you’re here is a miracle. You went to the right place at the right time. You made hard decisions. You talked Mark into coming home. And you, apparently, haven’t seen the cargo hold.”
“Sophie mentioned that Chad had filled it.”
“I had a quick look around in between being hugged. Sophie wasn’t kidding.” David paused. “I don’t know if I could have done what you did. For starters, I have a feeling I would have handled the cop all wrong and either gotten shot or ended up in jail.”
“So you don’t hate that I agreed to work with Chad?”
David lifted his chin, his eyes, as hers were, on the Hill of Tara ahead. “I do hate it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision—and certainly it was your decision to make. What I hate most is that you were put in a situation where a decision had to be made.”
“You say that I did enough, but even so, I’m hoping for more.”
“What are you thinking?” Despite the fact that he had thirty barons waiting for him in his pavilion, she could hear real interest in his voice.
“Chad wasn’t wrong to think that it’s time we did things differently. What we need more than anything when we go to Avalon is a position to bargain from.”
David nodded. “An alliance with Chad might give us one.” Then he paused. “The very fact that I’m alive is due to the efforts of an army of people who have been loyal to me even though they didn’t have to be. I intend to thank every one of them in due course, and to honor them, but I want you to know that above all, I’m grateful to you for everything you’ve been to me and done for me. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, but even before you showed up with an airplane, I couldn’t have managed half of what I’ve been able to do if you hadn’t been beside me.”
Anna swallowed down the rush of tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks again. “Thank you.” She patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk later. Right now, you’re High King of Ireland.” She found herself laughing just to say the words. “It’s utterly typical of you to come to Ireland to divest yourself of your authority—and end up with even more than you started with.”
“I’m instituting a more equitable Parliament.”
“Yeah.” Anna half-scoffed and half-laughed. “Hope springs eternal.”
Just because Anna found humor in David’s new status didn’t mean that Ireland’s needs were any less pressing, however. On one hand, the people of Ireland knew already the King of Scots was up to no good, since he’d sent Red Comyn to fight against them. On the other hand, nobody had thought David would need to leave Ireland quite so soon. He had huge qualms about departing immediately for Wales, but he didn’t believe he had a choice in the matter either, not now that he knew of rebellion not only in Scotland but England too.
So he spent a long day with his new constituents, while the twenty-firsters attempted to come to grips with their new reality. Only Papa and Callum stayed beside him as his closest advisers. Mom would have, but she had to catch up with her sister and hug Anna approximately ninety-seven times.
Once the sun set, the barons departed to their tents, exhausted. All and sundry would need to get an early start in the morning, most to scatter throughout Ireland to spread the news of the victory and David’s crowning, take stock of the families and lands they were left, and begin to discover what a united Ireland really meant. David had sworn to return within three months, by the summer solstice, a promise he intended to keep.
“We’ll take the plane, of course,” Anna said, her words cutting across the general chatter of the late evening meal in David’s private pavilion.
That got everyone’s attention. Only twenty-firsters were among them. Sophie, George, and Andre were family now whether they were ready for it or not. For all that Chad Treadman was both a nut and a genius, which could either be a good combination or turn out to make him as dangerous an ally as MI-5 had been, he’d certainly chosen his staff well. If they were willing, they could transform Earth Two, a name even David was starting to call it.
For Anna, the better word for this world was home.
“How much fuel is left in the plane?” David said.
“It has a five thousand mile range. We came a few hundred, and that’s including if we expended fuel getting from Wales to Ireland.” Andre paused, his expression troubled.
“You probably didn’t,” Callum said, an old hand when it came to time travel.
“Anyway,” Sophie said, “the gauge still reads essentially full.”
“So we could use it,” David said. “It’s hugely tempting, for more than just this one trip.”
“Take-off and landing use the most fuel and are the hardest on the plane,” Andre said. “Longer flights are better than shorter ones.”
As Andre had spoken, Mom’s eyes had gone to him. “So you’re a pilot in addition to a security expert. What else?”
“My degree was in agriculture.” Andre gestured to Sophie. “Hers is mechanical engineering, like Mr. Treadman—and of course she can fly the plane too.”
“Oh thank goodness. We surely need you,” Mom said. “I’ve regretted sending all those twenty-firsters back almost from the moment we did it.”
“I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.” George had both elbows on the table and was behaving as if he’d had a bit more wine than he was used to, or maybe the wine here was more potent than what they were currently drinking in Avalon. Regardless, the words came out in a drawl he hadn’t exhibited before. “That’s how I started, tinkering in my dad’s garage.”
“Again, we surely can use you,” Anna said.
“I know I’m not useful, but I’m staying anyway.” Elen folded her arms across her chest.
“I don’t know about that,” David said. “I haven’t yet given you permission.”
Anna laughed. David had spoken pompously, like the worst caricature of an overbearing school princi
pal, a play on the conversation they’d had at Rachel’s father’s house fifteen months earlier.
He grinned at her, but nobody else laughed, and most looked back at him with expressions of genuine concern.
His face fell, and Anna reached for his arm, as disconcerted as he was. She’d had a front row seat to the way his power had grown over the years, but it was a sad day when even his family didn’t know when he was joking.
So now she looked around the table, standing up for him like she’d been doing from the beginning, whether she’d realized it or not. “You’re all looking at David as if he was about to behead Elen. You know that was a joke, right?”
There was uneasy laughter around the table, and Uncle Ted said, “Oh yeah, right.”
Anna smiled gently. “He’s still David.”
“It’s just—” Elisa shook her head. “Things have been a little intense lately.”
Anna found herself easing back in her chair. Elisa wasn’t wrong, and not only about what was going on tonight at the table. “I am sorry you—all of you—were caught up in this again. I never intended for anyone to come here unless by choice.”
Mark wet his lips, but when he spoke, his expression was lighter than earlier in the plane. “It isn’t all bad. If I were back home, I’d be in a cell in the bowels of Five.”
Anna wasn’t sure that made her feel any better. “Mark—”
He put out a hand before she could say more. “Hey—there are worse things—a lot worse things, than being here among friends. How many people have a chance to make a difference to an entire world the way I have? Just … do your thing. All of you. I’m along for the ride to wherever the ride takes me.” He gestured to the newcomers, all three of whom were nodding. “Maybe we can get started on some serious R & D.”
“The research lab in Llangollen is always open to you.” Anna said.
Then she looked at David, who’d eased back in his seat too, to see how he was taking the conversation. The sadness had left his eyes, and then suddenly they brightened further. “That reminds me of a real bone I have to pick with you.” He stabbed his finger in Christopher’s direction. “Traitor.”
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