by Erica Ridley
“You can have it.”
He went back to rummaging through his supplies. No ideas struck him. His sword and scabbard were unlikely to succeed where the flame swords had failed. His quiver of arrows was likewise useless. Like the grappling hooks, the night-vision goggles would only be useful outside the castle. And his smartphone was out of battery, which meant he couldn’t even spend his last moments fighting level sixty-two.
He supposed he could ask Marigold to beat it for him, as she’d done the day before, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit defeat. Not even in Candy Crush.
Not even at ten ’til midnight.
“Lance,” she cried suddenly, jabbing a finger in the middle of Bartlett’s Compendium. “I— I— Read that!”
He took the book from her shaking hands. There, in the middle of a thousand other quotes and curses, was:
* * *
CASTLE CAVANAUGH
* * *
Unbound to man or sands of time
the golden bloom in darkness lies.
Forever caged in ice and snow,
until held fast while letting go.
* * *
“’Tis me.” She reached over him to jab her finger at the page some more. “Castle Cavanaugh! Golden bloom! Me!”
Holy shit. It was her. Lance read the stanza again. No brilliant solutions occurred to him. “But what does it mean?”
Her hand stopped jabbing at the verse and fell back into her lap. “I’ve no idea.”
He stared at the words some more. “The first part is obvious. You belong to no one, and you’re unaffected by time. That’s what gave rise to the mythical Golden Bloom of Eternal Youth. ‘Forever caged in ice and snow’ is the rest of the curse. The last line must be the clue.”
“How is it a clue?” She slammed her fists in her lap in frustration. “Holding fast and letting go are opposites. Besides, I’ve nothing to hold on to. I can’t touch my parents without flying across the chamber, and anything I do during the course of the day becomes undone upon the morrow. If I cannot let go of an innocent sparrow, how in Zeus’s name am I to—”
The clock struck twelve.
Marigold paled and clapped a hand over her mouth as if she might vomit.
Lance felt exactly the same. He struggled to his feet anyway.
The second bell rang out.
“Lance, I… I…” Eyes glassy, she glanced away, refusing to meet his gaze.
He was glad. He didn’t want his last memory to be of her tears.
The third bell rang.
To his horror, the figurines upon the tree began to glow.
He picked up the book of quotations and threw it across the room.
The fourth bell rang.
“There’s not much time,” she blurted out. “The castle resets between first bell and twelfth bell, and I wish for you to know that—”
Something clicked inside his brain. He dropped to his knees and began scrounging through his scattered belongings.
The fifth bell rang.
He leapt to his feet, flame sword in hand, and aimed for the wall of ice behind the tree.
“Lance? What are you doing?”
The sixth bell rang.
He depressed the trigger.
An unearthly boom echoed through the cavernous chamber as a brain-deadening flash of blinding light enveloped the room.
The seventh bell rang.
He blinked his eyes back into focus.
An icy breeze enveloped them from a spherical hole punched in the middle of the exterior wall.
The eighth bell rang.
“Come on!” He grabbed Marigold by the arm and dragged her toward the three-foot hole.
The ninth bell rang.
“Wait! It could be a trap!” She scooped a loaf of bread up off the blanket and hurled it out into the snow.
The tenth bell rang.
The sphere was already shrinking, the hole much too small now to fit a grown man, much less both of them.
The eleventh bell rang.
The figurines upon the tree stopped glowing. The wall of ice was solid. His fingers still clasped with Marigold’s.
The twelfth bell rang.
Lance’s heart rattled as stillness resumed. Speechless, he turned to Marigold. They stared at each other in wonder. He was still alive.
He was still alive.
Chapter 10
No matter how hard Lance tried to sleep, dreams eluded him. He was too wound up from the events of the evening. The trepidation, the adrenaline, the flood of relief… And what they’d learned! The curse was not invincible. Granted, the flame sword’s damage had only lasted for a second, but if they used them in tandem and took nothing else with them, there should be time and space for the both of them to leap through to the other side.
Twenty-four hours. They need only wait twenty-four more hours—No! By now there were less than twenty—until they would both be set free. How was he supposed to sleep before a day like that?
At the first rays of sunlight, he shot out of bed. Well, off of the dais. He’d forced Marigold to return to her bedroom so she could get some sleep, since all he was going to be doing was tossing and turning all night. Once they were outta here, that would be the time to start thinking about how they intended to spend future nights. If he managed to pay off his bounty in time.
He cleaned up in a basin of soap and water, then fished his smartphone out of his pocket. Seventy percent battery life. Everything had reset exactly on schedule. In nineteen hours, he and Marigold would Jedi their way out of the castle and into the sunset.
Well, not sunset. It would be midnight and freezing cold, so the plan wasn’t one hundred percent foolproof. But still! He’d far rather battle the elements than a medieval curse. He was an adventurer. He was prepared for elements.
He exited the sitting room and almost crashed into Marigold in the hallway. Barely five o’clock, and she was up, dressed, and fresh as a daisy. Or as a marigold.
He offered her his arm. “Sleep well?”
“Are you jesting?”
He laughed exultantly. “Tonight, baby! I told you I’d get us out of here! Make a special note. Lance is always right.”
“You promised it would be the previous night,” she pointed out. “You’re two days late.”
“After six hundred years, you’re going to nitpick a few measly hours? It’s called ‘beach time,’ Princess. Once you’ve had a few umbrella drinks, you’ll stop caring about the clock. Or pretty much anything. Tequila has a special way about it.”
He led her into the kitchen. Despite having eaten the night before, he’d been starving for hours—which he belatedly realized was because he had been hungry when he crossed the battlement two days earlier. The castle had reset him to his precise arrival condition.
“I don’t mind eating bread and soup all day today, now that I know it’s the last time it’ll be on the menu for the rest of our lives.” He held the kitchen door open for her. “Starting tomorrow, it’s nothing but pancakes and fried eggs and—”
Marigold came to a sudden halt just inside the door. Alarmed, he leapt around her to ward back whatever danger she had sensed. It took several long seconds before he found the source of her anxiety.
“We’re missing some bread?” he asked.
She nodded, wide-eyed. “’Tis impossible.”
They turned and ran.
Feet skidding on the stones, they raced through the corridors to the crystalline wall on the far side of the solar and peered through the solid ice.
There, in the snow, was the missing loaf of bread.
She latched onto his arm. “A robin is eating it. A robin!”
A wave of relief washed over him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d feared they would escape the castle but not the curse, until he saw the bread still lying there in the snow. Marigold must have had the same fear.
The wool blanket was gone—likely returned to the same spot where he’d found it—as were all the other foodstuffs
he’d brought for his makeshift picnic.
His ninja-suit arsenal was still strewn upon the floor. He knelt down on the cold stones to gather the various items and replace them in their correct hooks and pockets. He frowned. Something was wrong. He froze, then checked again.
His stomach soured.
One of the flame swords was definitely lighter than the other.
“What?” Marigold’s voice trembled. “What is it?”
He lifted the heavier one to his nose and sniffed. It smelled vaguely of incense, the sort Sancho always burned at the Pawn & Potion. He lifted the lighter cylinder to his nose, but he didn’t even have to sniff. The stench of burned plastic was already searing his nostrils. His skin went cold.
The flame sword hadn’t reset.
“What is it?” Marigold demanded again, her voice higher this time.
He rose to his feet. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but this was definitely cause for concern. And utter despondency.
“Flame swords,” he said, “are single use.”
She frowned. “So are candy bars. At least, until midnight.”
“Not this time.” He held out the worthless cylinder.
She leapt back as if it were venomous. “It cannot be spent.”
“Like drachma at a strip club, baby.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” He dropped the cylinder back onto the pile. “Only one of us is getting out of here.”
She paled. He probably did, too.
It would have to be her, he realized immediately. There could be no other choice. After all, she was the treasure.
“Go,” she said, her expression resolute. “’Tis my curse, not yours. Thus, ’tis my cross to bear.”
“Well, that’s a bunch of crap. It’s my curse now, too. For whatever reason, it hasn’t been able to zap me onto the tree, and—” His voice cut off as he realized what must have caused the glitch.
The necklace. The stupid string-of-bones necklace.
It had bound him to the thing he loved most, after all. Which turned out not to be his smartphone, or pirate ship, or even his freedom. It was life. He had always viewed each new day as one more chance for adventure, and hadn’t his experience in Castle Cavanaugh been exactly that?
He reached up behind his nape to untie the necklace. “Here. I want you to wear this when you leave. Never, ever take it off.”
She pushed his hand away before he could tie it around her neck. “That’s not yours. It belongs to Sancho.”
“Possession is nine tenths of the law. I want you to put this on. Right now.”
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not going anywhere. If only one of us escapes, then we haven’t broken the curse. You deserve your freedom.”
“I won’t have any freedom. There’s a price on my head, remember? That’s why you’re the best candidate for Operation Lightsaber. Nobody’s waiting on the other side to kill you.”
Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady. “Take an illuminated manuscript. You said they were priceless. I have hundreds of them.”
“I’m not going to pawn one of your priceless manuscripts. The library is your only escape. You love those books, and—” He broke off as he recognized the ironic reversal of his last conversation with his best friend, when Sancho had refused to sell the triptych.
Lance swallowed. This was really it. He was about to make the strongest commitment of his life. By sending Marigold through the looking glass, he was effectively consigning himself to his worst vision of hell for the rest of all eternity. Yet he couldn’t live with himself if he chose any other path.
If he left, he could go back to the Pawn & Potion for reinforcements and an entire duffel bag of flame swords, but what if he couldn’t get back into the castle? It was too great a risk to take. He would never forgive himself if he had it within his power to save her, and he chose to save himself instead.
“You have to go,” he said softly. “Six hundred years is long enough. I can’t keep you caged.”
Marigold’s voice rose hotly. “You think I can walk away carefree, knowing what future awaits you betwixt these walls? What kind of woman do you believe me to be? Cavanaughs are warriors. And warriors stay and fight. I am no coward, who leaves another man behind to die. If we cannot leave together, I shall not leave at all.”
“I won’t die,” he pointed out. “And I won’t be completely bored. You’ve got a big library, and I’m a slow reader. Who knows? I might even learn to paint.”
Her cheeks flushed and her knuckles went white. “Knave, if you think for a moment—”
“Check this out. I have a plan.” He brandished his smartphone. “Believe it or not, this thing can do more than music and gaming. It even can make phone calls. Do you know what phone calls are?”
She nodded hesitantly. “Chaz of New Brunswick had just gotten a cordless one. And a microwave.”
“They’ve changed a wee bit since then.” He unlocked the screen. “See the little phone icon? Obviously not, since you don’t know what a phone looks like. It’s this one right here in the corner. Watch what happens when I touch it. See what comes up? It’s a list of ‘Favorites.’”
“It’s not a list. It just says ‘Sancho.’”
“When you get a cell phone, I’ll add your number. Now, pay attention. You just unlock the phone—which you already know how to do—and tap this button. When you see Sancho’s name, touch it once and wait for the ringing. He always answers within the first few seconds.”
She frowned. “And then what?”
“And then you tell him that you’re standing outside of Castle Cavanaugh and he needs to come get you.” He pushed the phone into her hands. They trembled.
“Why would he heed the bidding of a total stranger?” Her eyes held the tiniest glint of hope.
“Because he’s a big old softie.” Lance’s gut twisted at the thought of never seeing Sancho again. “Tell him you’re my girlfriend. The curiosity alone will get him up the cliffs. Oh, and explain which one we’re on. He knows Castle Cavanaugh is somewhere on this mountain range, but he’s crap without a GPS and I don’t want him getting lost and freezing to death before he rescues you. When I first caught sight of the battlements, I actually meant to call him right then and explain the lay of the land, but this far away from the city, there’s no hope of—”
He broke off. A crushing sense of defeat settled over him.
Marigold touched his shoulder. “This far away, there’s no hope of what?”
“Cell service. There’s no hope of getting a signal.” He dropped his head into his hands and breathed deeply. After a moment, he jerked his gaze back up to hers. “Have you ever used a grappling hook? Or kernmantle rope?”
She shook her head.
Desperation set in. He had to save her. “Have you ever climbed… well, anything?”
“No.” Her eyes dulled with understanding. “You’re saying I wouldn’t be able to call Sancho.”
He swallowed. “Not until you’d reached the bottom of the cliffs. And then there’s some rapids, and a couple caves with jumping pit vipers and the like, but as soon as you can make out the windows of the skyscrapers, cell service should come back in.”
They stared at each other in silence, neither of them willing to speak the obvious truth:
Even if Marigold escaped, there was no way in hell she’d make it back to civilization alive.
Chapter 11
The silence lasted until well past the dinner hour. Neither of them wished to let the other out of their sight, nor had either of them been pricked with a need for conversation. Marigold was so frustrated, so torn, so furious… This curse had crushed her hopes for six hundred long years. She was weary of the agony. And she could not stand to subject Lance to an eternity of the same.
An hour ago, he’d asked her if she’d like to join him for stargazing. They’d dragged up the cushions from the sitting-room dais to lie hand in hand beneath the stars. Just when she thoug
ht he might have drifted to sleep, he spoke.
“Have you ever been tempted to end it?” His voice was quiet, but his words pierced like arrows.
She jerked up onto her elbow and stared at him in surprise. “Never. Are you—”
“No, but it’s just day three. Check with me around year three hundred.”
His tone indicated he was jesting, but her heart would not be still. It raced faster than it ever had before.
She had never wished for him to give up his life, figuratively or literally. In sooth, she ought to be spending every breath convincing him to go. But she knew he would not willingly abandon her. And a tiny part of her was very, very glad to have him stay.
Not a tiny part, she chastised herself as she stared up at the night sky. A huge part. He made her heart expand wider than the heavens. Eternity might just be bearable with him at her side.
He shot upright, startling her. “I have an idea.”
“You do?” She struggled upright. “To set us both free?”
“No. It can’t be done.” He rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. “But we can do the next best thing.”
“Swiving?” she asked hopefully.
“What the hell is—” He burst into laughter at her illustrative hand gestures. “Turns out, I love swiving. You talked me into it. But before we get naked, let’s pay one last midnight visit to the solar.”
Mystified, she followed him down two flights of stairs and across the keep. The solar was quiet and uninviting. The tree was where it always was, the ornaments maddeningly rearranged in another unsettling new pattern.
In the minutes it took her to greet all her lost sheep, Lance was busily upending his quiver onto the stone floor. Arrows, various pouches, strange netted circles, a candy bar… She snatched up the chocolate. Less than an hour until midnight. ’Twould be a crime not to consume it before it reset.
As she savored the sweet confection, he turned an empty quiver around and donned it backward, wearing the narrow sleeve in the front rather than upon his back. From the floor, he picked up a smaller pouch that had fallen out along with the arrows and other items. He shook a blanket made of strange material from the pouch and arranged it over his hands as if he didn’t have a perfectly serviceable pair of leather gauntlets, pre-shaped for his fingers.
