Heavy booted footsteps snapped Penelope back to wakefulness. Her mind felt like it’d been pushed through a meat grinder and a wave of loss swept over her. Atsa…
The Sheriff walked into the room.
He was short and wiry like a mustang. Golden hair with a touch of gray, a well-kempt mustache and beard. The star on his chest was not silver, but a strange metal, almost black. His shirt and pants were brown, and his hat white. A perfectly ordinary looking man, though Penelope could feel something coiled within him. Some sort of energy that was not entirely human.
“Thanks for meetin’ with me, ladies,” he said, dragging over a chair and taking a seat opposite them.
“I wasn’t under the impression we had a choice,” Willow said, her eyes on his. “Is this normal treatment for visitors to this town?”
Penelope shifted in her seat, bumping her knee lightly into Willow’s. She hoped the message was clear.
The Sheriff smiled and ignored the question. “What brings you to this area?”
“Just passing through,” Penelope said quickly, before Willow could chime in again. “We hadn’t found much of a meal in the past couple of days, so we figured we’d stop in. We were planning on heading out first thing in the morning.”
“There’s plenty of game in these parts,” the man said. “You do know how to hunt? I would assume so, just two ladies traveling alone.”
Willow leaned forward in her chair, an insult perched on her lips, no doubt. “Just bad luck, I suppose,” Penelope said, setting a hand on Willow’s knee. “Again, we’ll be happy to be on our way now that we’ve had a warm meal.”
“Where are you passing through to?” the Sheriff asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
Penelope could see Willow gritting her teeth, the muscles of her jaw rolling. “I have a friend who’s gotten in a bit of trouble,” Penelope said. “We’re riding to his aid.” It was the truth. Helping Atsa was the end goal, after all.
The Sheriff leaned back in his chair, appraising them with his gray eyes. Penelope felt once again the stir of something within him, and the hairs at the back of her neck prickled.
“I see,” he finally said. “Well, you should be on your way, then. These are strange times, so I won’t make things more difficult for ya.”
Penelope blinked. Just like that?
He rose from his chair. “A word of warning, however.” His gaze flicked back over them. “The forest north of here is the heart of our timber operations. We don’t allow outsiders there. It can be… dangerous. All the equipment and such. There’ve been some nasty accidents. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to two ladies such as yourselves.”
It was a threat with the thinnest of veils. Penelope nodded. “We understand.”
“I’ll escort you to the border of our territory,” the Sheriff said. “Just to be safe.”
Next to her, Willow tensed, and Penelope could feel such a wash of heat coming off her, she almost thought she had her magic back.
“Your kindness is appreciated,” Penelope said.
The Sheriff led them out the front of the building, and Penelope noticed that the deputy who’d brought them there, as well as another they hadn’t seen before, fell in behind them. They took them back to the boarding house and waited while they retrieved Domino and Bullet, then fell in around them, the Sheriff in the lead and the other two behind as they rode back the way they’d come in.
As they left the town, Penelope and Willow exchanged a glance. What were they going to do now? It was clear the Sheriff and his men were protecting the forest, and within it, the key they sought. Which, without their magic, made it practically impossible to complete their mission.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dynah
The guards had them surrounded. They were close enough that she could see the hatred glimmering in their eyes, the hard set of their lips, the glint of their spears. She could hear them repeating the same words over and over again, their eyes resting most heavily on Felicity.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” she whispered to Zachariah.
Zachariah’s expression was calm, even now, other than a wrinkle of tension across his brow. “They think Felicity is a priestess who escaped from the temple. The priestesses are not allowed to leave the building.”
She cursed inwardly. If only Felicity—Sekhmet—hadn’t insisted on such a flashy outfit. Her eyes darted over to her companion, who was gazing at the guards like a hawk upon mice, a small smile on her lips. Dynah knew they weren’t far from the gateway back to the Fallen’s temple. They just needed a distraction.
Taking a deep breath, she called to the stars in the sky, her elemental magic. A heat rose in her chest as they moved toward her, like she’d swallowed them, channeled their energy. They rushed toward her, moving at her bidding…
It was at that moment that Sekhmet attacked.
Three flashes of light, so quick that Dynah could barely track the movement. But it was easy to see the results: a smoldering pile of ash where each guard had been. She’d decimated them in an instant, with barely the flick of her wrist. Dynah felt a wave of horror and awe wash over her. The remaining guards stepped back, a look on their faces that she was sure was mirrored in her own.
“Bow before me!” Felicity called. Her voice was thunder and steel mixed, a rolling, velvety darkness that swept over the crowd.
With it came a push of power so intense that Dynah fell to her knees. The remaining guards did not have to be coerced, however. They dropped to the ground and prostrated themselves before her. They trembled where they lay, and one even emitted a terrible wailing sound, a panicked babble that sounded like a wounded animal. Felicity raised her hand again and the noisy guard turned to ash a moment later.
“How dare you treat your goddess thus?” Felicity hissed. She stalked back and forth, the red dress swishing around her ankles. “Have your priests taught you nothing? A lesson is clearly in order.”
Another flash, and a fifth guard vanished.
“Felicity,” Dynah said in a low voice. She couldn’t keep it from shaking. “You’ve proven your point. Let’s go.”
“Felicity?” Her friend, or at least, the body of her friend, turned to look at her. “Let’s not play games, Death. We both know Famine is no longer with us.”
Dynah’s eyes widened. “What have you done with her?”
“She’s not gone entirely. I need her,” Sekhmet said. “I need all of you. As I told you when you broke into my temple, I will have my revenge. At first my plan was simple: torture and death. But then something better came to mind.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. But for now, I think we need to get rid of the distractions, don’t you think?”
Power pulsed out from Felicity’s body and the rest of the guards dissolved into ash. Dynah bit her lip, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes.
“Why does it bother you?” Sekhmet asked, a smile curling her lips. “This is but a copy of time and space. These are not even real people. Not to mention they would have killed you without a moment’s hesitation.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Dynah said through clenched teeth.
“You know, for a horsewoman of the Apocalypse, you certainly are squeamish.”
Dynah squeezed her eyes shut. Sekhmet thought that it was the death of the guards that upset her. And while, yes, that was shocking, what caused her pain was seeing her friend used as a puppet. The twisted smile on her lips. Her slender hands raining death and destruction. Felicity was kind and gentle, and it made what was happening all the worse.
“I could do this all day,” Sekhmet said. “Destroy the people of this place one by one. Bring the city down around me. But I have something larger in my plans.”
A flash, and they were standing in the Fallen’s temple. Beside her, Zachariah breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’ll have to come back to this temple,” Sekhmet said, looking ar
ound her. “A place where you can jump back in time and play with entire cities that then reset the next day? Exquisite.”
“What do you plan to do now?” Dynah asked, trying to stop her heart from beating so crazily in her chest.
“I’ve been saying it this whole time,” Sekhmet said. “The next transformation of the Riders. We have the items needed for the spell. Now it’s just a matter of performing it.”
“We won’t go along with it,” Dynah said, her fists clenching into tight knots at her sides.
“You say that as if you have a choice.” The smile on Felicity’s face was hideous, and Dynah felt a wave of nausea. “You were the one to fight me off first, at my temple. When I broke the fifth seal and the song of the Apocalypse washed over you.” The smile widened, as if it would devour her. “But I wasn’t even trying then, dearest Death. If I were to focus—” and Dynah felt a searing push of magic against her— “you wouldn’t—” Dynah’s knees buckled, and her vision went black— “stand a chance.”
Dynah fell to the ground at Sekhmet’s feet and the goddess stared down at her, her features—Felicity’s features—awash in triumph.
“It hurts you, doesn’t it? To see me wearing this one?” A cruel laugh issued from her lips. “You have feelings for this one. Feelings I dare say you don’t have for the other two.”
There was a flutter of wings, and Dynah realized that Zachariah had vanished. Left her on her own with Sekhmet. She shouldn’t have been disappointed—after all, he’d clearly loathed them and his task watching over them—but it still felt like a kick when she was down.
“Don’t worry about him,” Sekhmet said. “I will be back to the Fallen’s realm. But first, we’re going back to the Earth realm.”
Dynah’s eyes widened.
“That’s right, girl. Child. We’re going to find the other half of your foursome.” Her smile was blades and darkness. “And then it truly begins.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Willow
As they approached the magical border, Willow realized she could feel it. Or rather, could feel the magic on the other side of it. Even Bullet seemed to sense it, prancing in place beneath her. If the lawmen would follow them past the barrier, she could use her chaos magic to distract them while they went back inside.
She rode past the border, feeling the momentary zap of cold once again, but the Sheriff and his deputies stopped inches away from it. Damn and blast!
Willow tipped her hat to them and moved Bullet into a gallop until they disappeared over one of the rolling hills. Once they were out of sight, she sat back and Bullet slid to a stop. Penelope and Domino came up next to them.
“I was hoping they would follow us over the border,” she growled.
Penelope raised her brows. “They’re not dumb.”
Willow shrugged. “A girl can hope.”
Silence fell between them for several long moments as they both looked back the way they had come. It was infuriating to have been so close. She’d seen the forest past the Sheriff’s office. Just another mile or so.
“Well, what now?” Penelope asked. “We’ve got no magic inside those borders.”
“This time we have to use stealth,” Willow said.
“So, circle the perimeter, approach from the other side?”
Willow nodded. “I can’t think of anything better at the moment. At least out here, we can fly. We don’t have much daylight left, so let’s do a quick loop, see if the forest is closer on any particular side, then pick our entry point before we lose the sun.”
Penelope nodded and they launched for the clouds. Bullet seemed eager to take to the skies again, as if she hadn’t liked being deprived of magic, either. Willow guided her so that they skimmed along the bottom of the clouds, close enough to provide cover while maintaining their line of sight.
They did a circle around the border, sensing the icy edge of it to guide them as they flew. From this vantage point, Willow could see the forest far in the distance, a dot of darkness amidst the gold-green of the hills. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Of course it had to be smack-dab in the middle of the magical barrier. There didn’t appear to be any particular place where the distance between the border and the forest was any shorter. Not to mention, they still had to find a key inside a forest once they got there. A needle in a haystack times a hundred.
The only good bit of news was that the Sheriff’s town seemed to be the only settlement in the place. Which meant that they could at least enter the territory from the opposite side. Cross the border, gallop their asses off, and pray they weren’t seen.
She steered Bullet to a landing spot close to the chosen entry point. Domino and Penelope touched down behind them a moment later.
“Do you think this will work?” Penelope asked.
“Hope so,” Willow said. “If the Sheriff doesn’t know we possess magic—”
“Or at least, what kind of magic we possess,” Penelope interjected.
“Then they won’t know that we reached this side of the border so quickly. It would take a horse and rider traveling at a normal pace at least half a day to travel around the perimeter to this point.” Willow shrugged. “It’s our only advantage.”
Penelope snorted. “A thin one.”
“Well, it’s the best we’ve got. I’m out of ideas.”
“I am, too.” Penelope frowned. “So then, hard gallop to the forest, take it as it comes from there?”
Willow nodded. “I’ll race you.”
And with that she took off across the grass.
They had raced so many times before. Hearts pounding, wind crushing, clouds passing above. When they were different. When the world was different. Not so heavy as it now was, with the knowledge they possessed. Before they always raced as a declaration of freedom. To grasp what they could in a small town that suppressed them at every opportunity. Now they raced for an entirely different kind of freedom. A freedom not just for themselves, but for all that was. An end to the Apocalypse.
The forest had just come into view a few minutes later when Willow heard the wolf howl. It was a sound she’d heard a hundred times before, but this time it sent a shiver up her spine. There was something… unearthly about the sound. Something slightly off. A sensation that registered within her because she, too, was no longer entirely of this earth.
She cast a look over her shoulder at Penelope, who locked eyes with her. Willow could tell by the wideness of them that her friend sensed it, too. She leaned even lower across Bullet’s neck, spoke in the mare’s ears to urge her on even faster. Another howl rose behind them, and then a third. As they approached the dark fringe of the forest, she glanced over her shoulder again and saw five dark spots coming up fast behind them. They looked far too large to be wolves. Her heart beat in time with Bullet’s hoofbeats, pounding inside her chest.
An evergreen branch nearly unseated her as she turned her gaze forward again. It whipped past her face, needles lashing her skin, along with a blast of wintry air. Bullet slowed to navigate through the trees, and Willow saw her breath coming out in white puffs. She felt a prickle of magic over her skin. Magic and snowflakes. Summer turned to winter in the matter of a dozen yards, grass disappearing beneath snow, green branches crystallized in ice.
Which meant they were getting closer.
Willow sat back in the saddle as they plunged on. She could hear the growls of the wolves now, the snapping of their jaws. She didn’t dare look back this time. Her eyes whipped back and forth, looking for something, anything, to indicate the hiding place of the key. The whites of Bullet’s eyes showed as the sounds of pursuit grew louder. The snow was really coming down, practically a blizzard, obstructing her vision. It pelted and pricked against her skin, icy hot. The snow was up to the horses’ chests now, slowing their forward movement nearly to walk.
Snarls and growls right on their heels, and a howl loud enough to shatter the ice around them…
And then she saw it.
A gleam of go
ld through the snow.
Willow squinted through the swirling white and saw a clock. A clock that hung in midair. And then she saw another and another and another. All different sizes and shapes. Dozens upon dozens of them, replacing the trees. They looked organic, as if they were trees of a sort.
The Forest of Time.
She could feel the breath of the wolves on their back and pushed Bullet for a final burst of speed. The mare leapt between two clocks, Domino at her shoulder. And then, just like that, the snarling of their pursuers cut off and silence fell. Golden light from the clocks glowed around them. The snow had stopped short as if blocked by an invisible wall, the ground beneath them solid earth once again. A barrier within a barrier.
Willow realized that it wasn’t actually completely quiet, for she could hear the soft ticking of the time pieces. Penelope’s eyes were huge as she turned and scanned the forest. Looking back the way they had come, Willow could see only a wall of swirling snow, with the vague impressions of shadows. She wasn’t sure if they were trees or wolves.
“The Forest of Time. Quite literal,” Penelope breathed.
“Yeah.” Willow blinked. Her heart was still hammering in her chest. “What do you think those things were?”
“Not ordinary wolves, that’s for sure,” Penelope said. “I’m not sure how we’re going to get out past them.”
“One problem at a time,” Willow said. “Let’s find this key.”
They urged the horses forward, slowly this time. After the hazy blur of the snowstorm, Willow’s eyes had to adjust to the bright golden light around them. It seemed more than just the gleaming off the metal, the air itself was permeated with gold. Thick and heavy and warm. She could smell metal and clock oil and, strangely, honey.
Willow realized something else as they walked. She realized that her magic had returned. And it wasn’t a normal level of magic. It vibrated in the air, as if all the magic kept out of the Sheriff’s territory had been compressed inside this tiny barrier at its heart. The metal within the clocks sung to her, asking to do her bidding. With a flick of her wrist, she could turn all of them upside down, or break them in two, or send them all together into one melting pot of a ticking heart, like the heart of the world. Her pulse quickened and she reveled in the magic spiking through her veins.
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