Page 6 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

“No!”

“It is time for your journey to begin.”

“No. Wait!”

“My sweet Maximillian. I love you so. You know that, oui?”

“Kavia—”

But she has already left, swinging the heavy cabinet doors on me. Her tear-tracked cheeks and tremulous smile are my last sight before the thick darkness takes over. And the crushing heat. And the terrible solitude. Most exceptionally that.

“You love me?” I thrust my frantic fear into each bellowed syllable. “This has nothing to do with love, Kavia!”

“Oh, Max.” Her voice is drenched in a muffled sob. She is still standing so close, I can nearly feel her breath through the fruitwood doors. “This has everything to do with love.”

“Damn you. Damn you!”

“She is waiting for you, Maximillian.”

“She…who? Wh-What is happening?”

“You will learn soon enough. But before that, there is one thing more. The most important thing.”

“Which you have waited until now to tell me?”

“So you will not forget. You must not forget.”

She drives in that importance by pounding her side of the door, and I press my fingers to the wood, savoring the strangely comforting vibrations from it. “I will not forget,” I vow with tender sincerity. “I promise.”

“She is waiting for you, Maximillian,” Kavia states. “I know it with every strand of my being.”

“Who?” I charge. “Damn it, of whom are you speaking, Kavia?”

“But once you reach her, the potency of the portal will start to weaken.”

“The portal?” I shout. “To where?”

“I can only give you one cycle of the moon, Max. Only one cycle to completely win her.”

“Win her? How? In what way? Using what—”

But time barges in on us—and so does the horde. Their clogs pound the parquetry floor. They are inside the château at last.

“Maximillian! Tell me you understand this. One cycle of the moon. Twenty-eight days. Before it is done, she must declare her love for you aloud, before witnesses, or the enchantment will be broken and the portal will collapse.”

“Enchantment…broken. Portal…collapses.” Once again, I understand the words but comprehend none of their meaning. “And what happens if it does?”

An audible sob again escapes her. “Then you are broken.”

“What does that mean?”

Silence answers my demand.

“Kavia?”

Thicker stillness.

No.