Chapter 36

Ren woke to a sharp kick. The room was dark. The right side of her head felt like it had been slammed into stone. She let out an involuntary groan as her eyes tried to adjust. There were shapes, shadows. A voice speaking her name.

"Ren?"

"Theo? Where's Cora?"

"I'm here."

There was a rattle of chains. Ren tried to sit up and finally realized how tightly she'd been bound. The inability to move more than a few inches had her chest heaving. She did not like tight spaces. She didn't like being bound. She didn't like anything that was outside of her control.

"Ren. Calm down. We're here."

But Ren's mind felt as trapped as her body. Her thoughts were sluggish. Her wand and her bracelet were missing. Thinking of a spell to free herself didn't matter, because for the first time in five years, she had no way to use the magic she'd dedicated herself to learning.

Theo's voice cut her thoughts. "Ren. It's going to be okay. Cora has a plan."

Ren pulled again. Her chains rattled. She could feel the metal digging into her wrists and neck. Something feral guttered up her throat. Her entire body felt like it was falling through the earth. She barely heard Cora's voice.

"I've got a devorium."

There were very few words that could have broken through Ren's mental barriers. "Devorium" was one of them. She could see that word highlighted in a textbook. The definition floating in the darkness before her. A devorium is a mass of concentrated time, gathered by illicit means into a singular vessel. The one-time use of this object allows its wielder to travel back as far as two hours, depending on the potency of the time stolen by the object's creator. Ren read that definition, glowing in the dark air in front of her, over and over. Her breathing finally settled. The cramps in her legs faded. She wanted to believe Cora's claim, but it didn't seem possible.

"How?"

A deep breath. "I made one. For my final exam. Just in case."

There could be no more shocking admission. Ren could hear Cora's guilt written into every syllable. Bringing contraband into a final was the kind of thing that could end someone's career before it ever started, but possessing a devorium? That was infinitely worse.

"They're on the list of unforgivable contraband," Ren said. "Possessing one is a step short of murder in our judicial system. How did you even learn how to make it?"

"It doesn't matter now. I couldn't risk messing up my practical. I worked too hard. There was no way I was going to accidentally slit an artery and lose my place. The exam went well, though, and I didn't have to use it. That's why it was still in my bag."

At least she could understand Cora's reasoning. She'd demanded perfection from herself at Balmerick because even the slightest mistake felt like it might be enough to end her chances. Still, the lengths to which Cora had gone were beyond even her own imagination. Ren knew that devoriums worked on stolen time. And time could only be stolen from other beings who understood their temporal existence. It was a notoriously difficult process, unless you had express permission from the victim. Ren was still too unsettled to piece the riddle together. She focused on what she'd already learned about Cora instead.

"The amber orb," she said. "You hid it with your foot when we were all sorting through what we should bring with us. I wondered what it was, but I didn't want to embarrass you."

"I knew you saw it, but I wasn't sure if you recognized what it was. Devoriums can be stored in a lot of different ways. It's activated—"

"By the gem in your eye piercing. I know. I saw they matched."

She heard Theo sigh. "How do I not notice any of this?"

Because you've never had to really pay attention.It didn't take much for Ren's thoughts to wade into darker currents. She wanted to focus on what they should do next. Make a plan. But another obvious truth was blooming out of the first revelation, like a flower with hidden thorns. Ren gritted her teeth in the dark but couldn't fend off the anger rising in her chest.

"You could have saved Timmons," she said. "Or Avy. All of it, Cora. You could have taken us back to Balmerick when we first got lost out here.…"

Those words were met with silence. Her eyes were pinned to the shadow she knew was Cora. She saw the way the girl's head bowed under the weight of all that guilt. Ren had noticed how distracted she'd been after each incident. She'd assumed it was simply because of the horror of what they'd witnessed.

Cora finally answered. "You can't activate a devorium to access the waxways. They are two separate, powerful items that use different temporal theories to power what they do. The results of such an attempt would be catastrophic. Besides, it's not like… I wasn't trying to advertise what I had with me. I didn't know how lost we were yet, and I had no personal connection to Clyde Winters. No offense, Theo."

The other shadow shook its head. Ren still wasn't satisfied.

"What about Avy and Timmons?"

Cora's voice was a whisper. "When Avy died, we were still running. There was a lot of adrenaline and panic. I forgot what I had until we stopped. Until it was too late. If I'd used it then, I'd have risked wasting it and still not saving him. I felt horrible. If only I'd remembered in time, I could have stopped Clyde.… Avy would be alive. Trust me, it's all I've thought about since it happened."

Ren recalled the girl scratching her eyebrow. After both deaths.

"Which means you chose not to save Timmons."

A looming silence, and then: "Yes. I could have saved her. The truth is that I was keeping it for myself. I didn't know what we'd face in the mountains. I was afraid to die."

The darkness spared Ren from having to hide her emotions. The thought of Timmons, brought back to life by magic in their possession, was too much. If she'd known, she would have forced Cora to use the devorium. But she also knew that if it had been her secret, she'd have at least considered holding on to the device as well. A fail-safe as they crossed into the dangerous mountain passes. Balmerick had taught them that lesson. They knew what it meant to be chosen, and once they were up in those sunlit heights, surviving was the only instinct that could take root. That didn't mean she would forget this confession. Cora would answer for what she'd done eventually.

For now Ren needed to focus. It was the only way forward.

"How far back will it take you?"

"An hour," Cora answered. "But my methods for creating it were likely far from perfect. I have no idea how much time it will actually give us."

"What are you waiting for, then?" Ren asked. "Every second counts."

She imagined Cora traveling back through time to when they'd been standing on the path, looking at the farm from a distance. It would be easy to escape if she could go that far.

"The orb is out of range."

Ren felt the hope in her chest die a second death. Fear crept over its corpse. The chains around her wrists felt like they were getting tighter. Theo's voice barely managed to break through.

"Vega is hunting for the bag," he said. "If she can fly it closer to us, Cora can activate the orb. When she does, we'll all go back in time. Only Cora will know what happened. She's going to do her best to—"

The door opened with a groan of rusted metal. Della was there, framed by the night sky. Her eyes traced the room, flicking from face to face, before settling on Ren.

"Take her first."

The Mackie brothers lumbered forward. Theo tried to kick them. Cora was shouting for them to stop. Ren felt a quiet relief as the chains fell from her wrists, as they stood her up and marched her out into open air. Her skin drank in that coolness before she realized they were guiding her toward another shed. There was a single lantern dangling. It cast shadows across a wall of glinting tools.

"No, wait, please, no…"

A bolt of magic struck her neck. It ran down her spine until she couldn't move at all. Ren felt that same panic heaving back to life in her mind. She was going to die out here.

"Set her on the table."

The Mackie brothers laid her down and flipped her over, like they would to prepare any other animal for slaughter. The spell locking Ren in place unraveled a second too late. Her wrists were already bound to the table. The lantern swayed somewhere behind her.

Please, Cora. Please help me. Please.

She heard the sound of a knife sharpening against a whetstone. Her eyes were drawn in that direction. It was the old man from dinner. The one with the smashed nose. He sat in a chair, toothpick rolling along his lips as he worked. "Welcome to my humble dwelling."

The place was just short of decay. Roots shot through cracks in the walls. There was an abandoned cot in one corner with the book she'd seen him reading earlier. The binding and cover had all but unraveled. Della waited in the doorway as the Mackie brothers ghosted back outside. The old man tapped his knife on something metal. The sound echoed.

"Did you hear me? I welcomed you. Are you a rude guest? I've no patience for rude guests."

"I'm not a guest," Ren snapped. "Why are you doing this?"

Please, Cora. Please, please, please.

"You are my guest," the man replied. "Until we get the answers we want. Which means that so long as you're on this table in my cabin, I am your host. You can call me that. Call me Host."

He looked over at Della. She was leaning casually against the doorframe.

"We will start the interrogation with easy questions," Della said. "Who sent you?"

Ren licked her lips. "We got lost. I'm telling you. We took a portal.…"

Della shook her head. Host put down his whetstone and started across the room. He pulled a chair over that Ren hadn't seen, dragging it across the stone floor so that he could sit comfortably at her side. A small smile played across his face as he started flattening her immobilized left hand, stretching the fingers out. A part of Ren's mind fractured from the rest. She was nothing but the panic. Her words sputtered out.

"I'm telling you the truth. We're students at Balmerick. We were taking the waxways.…"

Host glanced to Della. The woman asked again, "Who sent you?"

"No one sent us! It was an accident!"

She signaled. Host brought his knife down with a flash. The blade caught the extended tip of Ren's middle finger, searing through flesh and spurting out blood. Ren clenched her teeth to stop from crying out. Breath pushed angrily through her nostrils.

"Our guest will answer the questions," Host said, examining his work. "Every time one of us finds your responses are lacking, the fingers get shorter."

Della tried again. "Tell me. Where do you think you are?"

Ren answered through gritted teeth. "A farm."

The knife slashed down. Ren gasped at the pain that shot up her entire right side. Della clicked her tongue. "Specific answers. I know you're smart. Clearly the leader of the group. Where are we?"

"A drug farm."

Della nodded. "Yeah? How'd you know? If you weren't sent here looking for us."

Ren saw a chance to prove her side of the story. The words came rushing out. "Holt steered us away from your eastern field. He had a story about every other crop and building. But not that one? Felt strange. Then there was the scent in the kitchen. Like dying flowers. My friend used the breath at school. The final product didn't smell exactly like that, but it was close."

Della looked impressed. Ren was doing everything she could to ignore the blood.

"What else?"

"Lev's burns. On his neck and knuckles. You were wearing gloves when we first met, but I spotted a burn on your wrist at dinner. Chemical reactions. That kind of thing happens when you're working with noxious fumes. I also saw the exhaust smoke when I used the outhouse. Smoke doesn't usually take on color. Unless it's rising from the corpse of a dragon."

Della signaled. The knife slashed again. This time her entire world briefly reeled. Spots of black. Something sharp and pungent was shoved in her face before she could slip away. Ren's eyes whipped back open as the world, the little details of the room, grew vivid again.

"Can't have our guest passing out," Host said. "Too easy, that. Off into the world of unfeeling. No, no, no. We've far too much to discuss."

Ren's words were mostly spittle. "I answered… I answered the question."

"It was a clever answer," Della admitted. "Pretending to simply be an observant girl. The whole bit about being students. That's a nice front. But it doesn't matter how nice your shoes are when you walk through a cow pasture. They're still going to smell like dung. When three ‘students' appear at our door without gear or food or anything, I'm going to harbor suspicions."

She nodded to Host again.

"Pain is a road to the truth. Who sent you?"

An odd numbness was spreading through Ren's entire body. She wasn't sure if it was the pain or the fear, or if death itself was coming for her. She felt as if she'd slipped out of her physical body and were watching the scene as an observer. When the Ren on the table didn't answer their question, Host set down the smaller blade. She watched, utterly helpless, as he picked up a massive butcher's sword. It looked crude, effective. She stared as her own blood ran over the table's edge, coloring the dusty floor, and then the entire room went colorless.…

"… good seats or you'll catch elbows from the Mackie brothers."

Inside, the kitchen was the clear centerpiece of their home. It sprawled around a great wooden table that appeared to be two farmhouse doors fashioned and bolted into one longer piece. Finely crafted chairs ran down both sides, and Ren guessed they were handmade. Hooks had been hammered straight into the walls. Any number of cast-iron implements hung like war prizes. Ren thought the room looked oddly familiar. She tried to remember if there was a restaurant down by the wharf that had similar decorations. It was a strange sort of echo.

Della set out a plate of melted goat cheese on the table. Ren could barely keep the drool from running down her chin. "Start in," their host…

… host… host… Host grinned down at her, blade in hand. Everything was lightless.…

…their host turned to prepare another dish.

"The Mackies will eat it all if you don't grab a few bites now."

Ren felt that strange flicker of repetition in her mind. What was happening to her? Some image had knifed briefly through her senses. It had her grinding her teeth. Was Clyde nearby? She tried to focus on what Della was saying as Holt took his seat. There was an old-flower scent hidden beneath the smoked cheeses and meats. It reminded Ren of the stores her mother used to frequent when she was a child. Something that, in larger doses, would make her feel a little nauseous.

She was reaching for some bread when movement caught her eye. Cora leaned over and whispered in Theo's ear. Ren frowned, thinking it was a fairly rude and obvious gesture to perform right at the table. Theo blanched at whatever she was saying. That had Ren curious. Holt as well. He was eyeing the two of them and started to ask a question when Cora bolted to her feet.

Aim, whisper, magic.

A punch of force hit the chandelier overhead.

Ren could only watch as it came crashing down.