Timebound(128)

Kiernan stared at me for a long moment and then leaned over, kissing me gently on the corner of the mouth. “But you have to try, right? Slán go fóill, a stór mo chroí.”

I didn’t have the slightest idea what the words meant, but it was clearly a farewell. He squeezed my hand one last time, and then I looked down at the key and closed my eyes.





24





I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a computer monitor a second before Connor even realized I’d arrived, so I fully understood his look of shock. The entire right side of my neck was bandaged. There were two red patches just above the hairline. Several other red marks dotted my shoulders and there were even a few holes in the petticoat.

Connor stared at me for a moment and then his lower lip began to quiver. I couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or cry and I’m not sure that he could tell, either.

“We simply can’t send you out to play in nice clothes, can we, Kate?” he said finally. “What on earth happened to you? Are you—”

Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by a crazed volley of barking from downstairs, followed by the sound of the doorbell.

“You,” he said, pointing. “Do not move.”

I knew it was Katherine before Connor reached the door. That wasn’t Daphne’s stranger bark. It was her welcome-home bark, the one with a little “I missed you” whimper in the middle.

Katherine’s voice drifted up the stairs. “How did I end up in the yard without a CHRONOS key, Connor? Or a house key, for that matter?”

I lay back on the floor and closed my eyes.

The next thing I remember was waking up in my bed. The floral arrangement Trey had sent to Katherine was on my dresser. It seemed an eternity ago, and yet the flowers looked as fresh as when they’d first arrived. Daphne was curled up on the rug next to my bed and Katherine was sitting on the sofa near the window, reading what appeared to be a historical romance—the sort my mom sometimes referred to as a bodice-ripper or lusty-busty. It was the first time I’d seen Katherine reading anything that wasn’t on a computer screen or inside a CHRONOS diary.

She glanced over after a few minutes. “Oh, Kate. I’m glad to see you’re awake, dear. I was beginning to worry.”

“The little blue pills,” I said, my head still quite fuzzy. “In my bag. They’re… nice.”

“I see,” Katherine replied, a hint of a smile touching the edges of her mouth as she sat on the side of my bed. “And where did you get the nice little blue pills? Connor filled me in on the day before you left. I’ve told him what I now remember from our adventure at the Expo. But neither of us know what happened to you after I climbed out that window.”

My lips were very dry and I asked for a glass of water first. After a few sips, I put the glass back on the nightstand. “Kiernan,” I said. “He gave me the medicine. He got me out of the hotel.”

“But how?” she said. “He was a very bright little boy, but I don’t see how that hotel could possibly have been standing when he got back. All of the historical accounts that I read—”

“He was a remarkable little boy,” I interrupted. “And he’s a remarkable young man.”

I gave her a brief synopsis to fill in the missing pieces, having to pause repeatedly to keep my brain on track. It felt like I was reaching through fog to find phrases to string together, and they never came out quite the way I’d planned. I must have dozed off for a few minutes at some point, because when I opened my eyes, Katherine had returned to the couch and was again reading her book.

“Where was I?” I asked.

“You were explaining Kiernan’s plan—or was it your plan?—for repossessing CHRONOS keys, when you drifted off between words,” she said, setting the book aside on the sofa. “After what you’ve been through the past few days, I was a bit afraid you might decide that you were done with us. You’ve got your life back for the most part and Prudence seems to have given you at least a limited degree of—immunity, I guess. You could walk away, you know.”

The thought hadn’t really occurred to me, but now that she’d spoken the words aloud, I was surprised that it hadn’t. I could return to my life before Katherine showed up with the medallion. Mom was back, Dad was Dad again—

“Charlayne?” I asked.

Katherine looked confused for a moment and then shook her head. “I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure nothing has changed for her.”

I asked her to bring me the computer, and after a brief search I pulled up the same wedding photo, the Cyrist emblem clear and distinct against Charlayne’s dark skin. Saving Katherine had fixed my life, but whatever happened with Charlayne’s family was entirely separate.