The Time Weaver d-5

by Shana Abe

  No. He'd wait here. She'd come back here. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did.

  He perched a hip along the balustrade and watched the storm devour the curve of the horizon, all prospect of the sea and sky erasing into blank gray.

  It looked, to his eye, just exactly like an impending obliteration.

  The Weave sucked me back. I stood immobile for a moment to adjust to it; the first seconds were always the most disorienting.

  I was in my bell tower, with the wind gusting. I was looking inland, at the long, low roof of the row of shops next door: a watchmaker, a haberdasher, a mercer. A clutch of women stood in front of one of the windows below, chattering brightly in Spanish about a hat one of them had bought, the quality of its plumes.

  I whirled about. Alexandru was there, sooty clouds looming beyond him. He had balanced atop the railing with one foot up, his back against a pillar; his head had slumped forward and his eyes were closed. That's all I had time to take in before the headache hit me.

  I went to my knees. Through the vicious pain I saw my blood splattering the floor, great big circles of red that splashed back up to fleck my legs.

  I don't know if I made any sound. I couldn't hear.

  But the world tilted suddenly, a nauseating slur of color and light. I glimpsed the clouds again, the inner bowl of the tower ceiling. The cracked wooden beam that had once supported a bell.

  My body clenched, another bout of agony ripping through me. My breasts felt warm and wet, warmer than the rest of me, and I realized it was because the blood from my nose now ran down my front.

  I was held. I was being carried. More awful shifting light—my head limp against a cool, firm surface. Sandu's chest.

  I didn't hear his heartbeat but I felt it. It pounded through him and into me, its rhythm carving into me like a path, a deep steady drumbeat that led to merciful darkness.

  I followed it so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain a moment longer.

  There was blood everywhere. It soaked the shirt she wore, and her hair, and his stomach and breeches, slipping slick between them. It was an appalling amount, and at first he thought she'd been shot or stabbed, but a frantic quick search of her body showed him no wounds.

  It was all a nosebleed. But by the stars, he'd never seen a person lose so much blood from such a thing.

  Sandu kicked open the door at the base of the stairs; the hinges failed and the wormy wood crumbled apart. He ducked through the threshold with her, dribbling a trail of crimson through the fresh dust.

  Before he'd gone more than ten feet, the Roma emerged from their unknown places to surround him, to touch her sleeves and face, to prattle in their staccato, unknown language and try to pull her from him.

  He ignored them, walking more briskly. He made his way to her chamber and laid her carefully atop her bed.

  "Aigua," he commanded, but they were already there with basins and towels.

  The bleeding slowed a few minutes later, then stopped, although Honor didn't wake. Her body was boneless as a doll's as he lifted her and removed the shirt, mopped the blood from her chest and stomach, careful, so careful with the towel around her face.

  From the corner of his eye he spotted the boy pretending to be invisible by the armoire, thin and avid. When he noticed Sandu's impending snarl, he ducked swiftly back into the hall.

  The women found a chemise for Honor, snapped fresh sheets beneath her while rinsing out her hair, for all the world like they'd done this countless times before. One of them had lifted Honor's arm, was rubbing a damp cloth up and down it to clean the last of the blood when she made a surprised exclamation.

  Honor's hands had fisted with her faint. It was more than a faint, he imagined, it was nearer to a seizure, but now her fingers relaxed enough to show that she was holding something.

  It was made of gold. He heard the metal, didn't see it, until the Roma scowled at it closely and then held it out to Sandu.

  A pair of golden rings. A crumpled piece of paper with writing, speckled red on one side. He didn't know the rings, but he knew that handwriting anywhere. She'd been to see him, after all.

  Alexandru blew a breath through his teeth, his gaze drawn back to the bone-white mask of her face. Lips of lavender ice.

  What the hell had he done to her?

  Worth it.

  Two words circling me, repeating themselves, and I didn't know what they meant but there they were, blooming and circling, persistent in the dark empty stage of my mind.

  Worth it.

  What was? I wondered groggily. Had I purchased something? Done something? I couldn't quite recall.

  But I was cold. I realized that. So cold I wanted to shiver, but for some reason could not. A whisper began to reach me beyond those words, which were fading now in any case, distant, like they no longer mattered. The whisper grew louder, became a rushing patter of water striking rock and ... glass? Rainfall. On walls. On windows.

  I opened my eyes. Everything was gray. Even the man seated beside me.

  "That," said this younger, somewhat harder-looking version of Prince Alexandru, "was bloody frightening. Forgive the pun."

  I was in my own bed at the cathedral, and the rain was stinging down hard. Sandu had taken a chair from the corner and pulled it close by. He was wearing Roma clothing and looked extremely fine in it, a tight shirt and wool breeches and a kerchief tied around his neck. In both posture and demeanor he presented a portrait of a rogue at his leisure: eased back in my paisley-striped chair with one leg crossed casually over the other, his hands folded over his stomach. But for the paleness of his skin and the truly inhuman beauty of his face, he might indeed have been one of the Gypsies, those lanky, freeborn men made of sinew and laughter and dark polished glances.

  When Sandu turned his head to regard me more directly, however, his expression was far from laughing. It was frozen and fierce.

  I lifted a hand to my face, my fingers finding my cheek, my lips and nose, all still there. "Was it very bad?" I asked, unsurprised at how hoarse I sounded.

  "Very," he said. "Ridiculously bad. I had no idea someone so small could bleed so copiously. I've seen stuck boars bleed less. Are you vampir, perhaps?"

  My lips twisted into something I hoped resembled a smile. "Not quite. I've turned out to be a fiend of a different sort."

  "Honor," he said, and paused. He seemed to be searching for words. "Did I . do that to you? In the future?"

  "What? The nosebleed? No, my prince. That's what happens every time."

  "Great God," he said faintly.

  "Although this one did seem rather worse than normal." I touched my face again; all the pain was really gone. "It didn't used to be so extreme, but as I've aged—do you mind? There are blankets in that chest over there. I can't seem to get warm."

  "As you've aged," he prompted, moving at once with his lithe grace to the Spanish chest. It was pushed beneath one of the windows, and the gray light fell softly pearled across his hair and the breadth of his shoulders.

  "The ... physical consequences of the Weaves have grown noticeably more severe. It's one of the reasons why I try to save them up. When the Gift first took me, I could flit here and there without even a suggestion of a headache. But now ..." I had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. A shiver wracked me, my body finally waking to the fact of the chilled room and the wet September air.

  "Yes, now," Sandu said curtly, shaking out a fleece blanket above me, letting it float down to my body. He tucked in the corners with brisk efficiency, as impartial as a nurse to an ailing child.

  I watched him through my lashes. By moonlight and rainlight, the same man, the same lips and eyebrows and tone of voice. The same hands that pushed a fold of fleece beneath my shoulder now, just last night stroking me to heaven, to vibrant, ecstatic life.

  Last night. Months ahead.

  I'd long since become accustomed to thinking of time as being malleable, and all of us within it as unfixed as toy boats bobbing in the sea. But
it was disconcerting, even for me, to know that one day, a year from now, this frozen and savagely handsome male was going to meet me in a forest meadow and feed me paella and kiss me until I melted.

  "The rings," I exclaimed, remembering. "Oh—did they make it? The rings and your note?"

  "Yes," he said. I shivered again, and he folded one of my hands in both of his, looking restlessly back toward the door. "There's no hearth in here. I want to get a brazier. I think I saw one below."

  "No, I'll be better soon. I heal quickly, I promise. What did the note say?"

  He gazed down at our hands, that odd, frozen aspect of him intensifying. "Would you like to see it?" he asked slowly.

  "Yes. You said I could, in fact. In the future."

  He'd kept it in a shirt pocket. The paper had obviously been crushed and then smoothed flat; it resembled a battered leaf. He turned my hand over in his—last night, his palms to mine, our fingers interlocked—and laid the note against my fingers.

  I raised it close to my face. Without candles or lamps, the chapel was very dim.

  A single sentence, and some unsettling blots of what could only be my blood. But my eyes went straight to that bold, slanted line:True hearts never lie.

  A surge of heat took me, nothing at all to do with the blanket.

  "What the devil is that supposed to mean?"

  I was annoyed. I'd been expecting something along the lines of You Are Destined to Love Her, or She is the One, something grand and romantic. Not this, this enigmatic and frustratingly impersonal remark.

  "Shall I tell you what it actually says?" asked the prince quietly, reclaiming my hand.

  "Ah! Is it a code, then? Yes. Do tell me."

  "It's not a code, Honor."

  "Then .?"

  "Listen, river-girl. Clearly you don't know everything about me yet. I'll tell you what it says, and you will tell me what occurred when you left me this morning. When you went ahead in time. Have we a deal?"

  I had learned during my brief night with Future Alexandru. Every second, every movement and sensation had seared into my memory. So when I brought our joined hands up to brush my mouth, it was deliberate.

  Without taking my eyes from his, I kissed his fingers, one by one, and watched his gaze begin to silver.

  "I like it when you call me that," I murmured. "Deal."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hell of Versailles, Zane judged, wasn't just that Lia wasn't there with him to laugh and gasp at this feverish fantasia of a royal abode—although, all things considered, that was probably the worst of it. But the other hell, the constant, day-to-day ordinary hell that nipped at his heels here like a mangy, friendless dog was simply the food.

  All the lovely, lovely food.

  The residence of the king and queen of France seemed to be the center of the universe of flaky, buttery, savory, sauce-dripping grande cuisine .

  The fact that he was meeting the leader of a sadistically murderous gang at one of most bedazzling locations on earth did not make the grounds any less spectacular, or the absinthe in his glass less heady with licorice, or the pate de foie gras on the plate set before him less enticingly creamy.

  Murderers, as Zane knew very well, enjoyed a fine meal just the same as kings.

  Certainly Versailles was a most elegant place to meet a killer, just as it was a most elegant prison for all the preening lords and ladies forced to dwell here. None of them looked too terribly miserable about it, despite the heat of the day and the fact that they were all seated outside in the Grand Garden awaiting the leisure of His Majesty, who was, naturally, late returning from yet another hunt. No one could dine before Louis, not even the queen, whom Zane had heard whispered was sequestered at her make-believe peasant village anyway, playing at being a shepherdess.

  The notion of it gave him no little secret amusement. Marie Antoinette shedding her diamonds and satin to mingle with sheep, and Zane the thief donning the same to mingle with her courtiers.

  None of whom, at the moment, were allowed to eat or even walk away from the banquet table because the king. Would . Arrive.

  So the thirty-two roasted suckling pigs remained uncarved. The forty mauve-and-white iced cakes with their garlands of sugar roses and violets gleamed pristine. All the cheese platters were sweating. Seven of the fifty-five asparagus-and-truffle salads that he could see were beginning to attract flies, but royal pages in turbans had been stationed over them, fanning the insects away as best they could with giant ostrich feathers.

  There was nothing to be done, however, about the ice sculptures. The one nearest Zane resembled a thinning, listing heart more than the pair of swans it had been an hour past.

  He imagined that somewhere back in the kitchens of the palace was a gaggle of chefs near to weeping with fury.

  It was a blinding autumn day, one of those days that had been so rare back in dear old London-town, with a sky like crisp blue linen, white clouds that never amounted to more than a few coy wisps. A company of acrobats was tumbling on the grass before the vast stretch of the table, the gilded horses of the Fountain of Apollo shining so brightly behind them the gold seemed to melt into the water.

  At least alcohol was being poured. The trapped nobles surrounding him seemed content enough with that. And surely at least some of them realized how much safer they were here, at this feast they were not yet permitted to touch, than anywhere else in France these days.

  Zane, who had been placed near the western end of it all, was pretending to be just as content. He was very good at pretending.

  It was doubtful anyone but the murderer would have noticed how he never truly relaxed in his seat, how his eyes never ceased to take in his surroundings. How he'd refused wine entirely, or how the absinthe he'd accepted in its stead remained practically untouched.

  As far as the lumbering machinery of Versailles was concerned, the closed-lipped gentleman in the second-to-last chair was a visiting Hungarian vicomte , wealthy enough to dine at the table of the king, unknown enough to be seated nowhere near his fat royal arse.

  It suited him well. He'd been stewing here two months already, establishing his persona. Anticipating this day.

  The marquise to Zane's right had spilled her claret twice so far. She was giggling about it, red-cheeked, the stuffed canaries decorating her enormous wig trembling in an alarming fashion. The dandy on her other side kept up a constant patter of droll wit, which made the lady laugh harder, which forced the birds to quake more. She hardly seemed to notice how the fellow was running an envious finger up and down the strand of rubies resting upon her ample bosom.

  They were top-notch, Zane had to admit. Under other circumstances, he'd give the dandy a run for it, and win.

  But the chair to Zane's left, the very last chair of the king's majestic table, remained empty, and that was what occupied most of his thoughts.

  He was very much looking forward to discovering who would fill it.

  This morning, the sixty-sixth morning of awakening in the cramped little cell he'd been assigned at Versailles, had at last delivered to him what he'd been trawling for. A discreet note slipped under his doorway, anonymous, informing the vicomte that He Whom He Most Desired to Greet would be awaiting the vicomte 's pleasure at the king's Garden Luncheon this afternoon. And to kindly wear the new lemon-satin garments the vicomte had commissioned in Paris three months past.

  Merci beaucoup.

  Zane was not astonished that they knew about the new clothes. He was not astonished by much in general, or by the sanf inimicus in particular. He'd spent too many years learning their ways, and he had, after all, gone to some rather extreme lengths to be noticed.

  So he was wearing the lemon-satin rig. He did not mind the wig of expensive human hair that curled down to his shoulders, although it itched. He didn't mind the rouge on his cheeks and lips, or the kohl he'd applied with a practiced hand around his eyes—in fact, he rather liked the kohl. It sent his amber irises to yellow; he fancied it made him look a bit more
exotically unhinged, just the sort of chap who would arrange a meeting like the one that was—surely—about to begin.

  He didn't mind the heavy damask coat and waistcoat embroidered with so much silver thread he positively glittered, or the high Italian heels that pinched his feet, or the ridiculously ornamental grip of the rapier slung to his hip, which of course he'd made certain was as lethal as a plain one.

  He didn't even mind the waiting.

  He minded the damned food.

  All his years he'd been starving. He'd been born into starvation, he'd nursed from its teat, and the constant, dull ache in his stomach was such an eternal companion to him now it was more friend than not. It reminded him that no matter what else, he was alive, when so many others he'd bumped shoulders with were not.

  Aye, hunger was good. Hunger kept him keen.

  He ignored the foie gras with a mixture of envy and disdain, and sipped instead the sugary green absinthe, which he despised so it never got him drunk.

  The empty chair at his side remained that way, its tapestry cushions showing every knot and tuft of silk under the unrelenting sun.

  He'd previously observed the head of the sanf inimicus only once. It had been in Lyons, years past, and the fellow had been hooded and cloaked and surrounded by his minions. He'd been leaving a tavern, stepping up into a carriage before heading off to God knew where next. He'd never noticed Zane. Yet just that single encounter had been enough to chill Zane's blood.

  He was not a superstitious man. He could not afford to be. But he would've sworn there was an air of what he could only describe asmalevolence about that hooded figure, even without seeing his face.

  Zane toyed with the stem of his absinthe glass, watching the acrobats through slitted eyes.

  It had taken him years to reach this table, this moment. The sanf weren't a group known precisely for either their cohesion or their sense of trust. He'd been a loyal crony, had wormed his way in and in with absolute patience, and every time he wished to slam his fist through the face of one of these unwashed Frenchmen who thought they knew the secret heart of dragons, who thought they were so extraordinary because they believed in the myth, they believed they'd been chosen by God or the devil or some ruddy peasant out in the provinces casting runes and mumbling over chicken guts—every time he reached that point of smiling and unleashing his fury and blowing it all to hell, Zane thought of Amalia.