Page 100 of No Place in Time

“Did it go back?” Cecily’s stomach tightened at the thought. “To where—when—we came from?”

“It must have,” Finn said. His jaw was tight. “But why? It’s always stayed with us.”

He stopped. Stared at the empty space where the machine had been.

“This is bad,” he said quietly.

“How bad?”

“If the machine went back to 1301, that means… that means Benedict and Julian might have it. He was right there when we jumped. He saw what I did. If the machine returned to that exact spot, the same time…”

The thought turned her cold. Benedict and Julian. With the machine.

“But if we’re here,” Cecily reasoned, grabbing his arm, “then Julian and Benedict can’t have the machine. They don’t exist anymore.”

“But the future we left,” Finn countered, his gaze haunted, “what if it still exists until we stop it?”

Cecily pushed to her feet, the thought making her sick. “Lady Veyron, my other self, could still be there. Alive. Suffering. We have to get to my grandfather. Anton understands the machine. He has to know what happened, how to stop them.”

Finn stopped pacing. “Yes. We need to go to Graston first to see Anton, before home. We need to—”

Voices drifted across the courtyard, distant, but getting closer. Servants called to each other about evening chores. Footsteps crunched on the gravel.

Finn grabbed Cecily’s arm and pulled her behind a large rain barrel tucked against the courtyard wall. They pressed themselves into the shadows, breathing as quietly as they could.

Two men walked past, deep in conversation about feed for the horses. They didn’t even glance toward the rain barrel. Their voices faded as they headed toward the stables.

Cecily’s heart was hammering so hard she was sure it could be heard across the courtyard. She waited until the men were completely gone before she dared to whisper.

“We need to leave. Now,” she said.

“Wait.” Finn’s hand found hers in the shadows, his fingers lacing through hers. The memory of his lips on hers, of his voice as the world fell apart around them.

Oh, that kiss.

And now they were here, in 1239, and everything was different, and terrifying, and she didn’t know what to do next.

But they were together. They were alive.

“I meant it,” he said quietly, his voice tight with emotion. “What I said before.”

“I know.”

He kissed her then, a slow, desperate affirmation in the shadows. A promise of a future, even as their own hung by a thread.

“I love you,” he breathed. A faint, weary smile touched his lips. “Even when you called me Sir Know-It-All.”

Cecily managed a smile in return. “I meant that, too.”

The light-hearted moment was a small anchor in a sea of fear. They held each other, the shared warmth a shield against the danger just beyond the barrel.

Finn’s smile faded. “We need to figure this out. Where we are. When we are, exactly. How much time has passed here since we left.”

Cecily peered around the edge of the barrel. The courtyard looked empty for the moment, but she could still hear voices from somewhere nearby. “How can we tell?”

“Look at the fields,” Finn said, gesturing toward the land beyond the stable yard. “The crops are just coming up. It’s still early summer. Just like when we left.”

“So we haven’t been gone long?” Cecily felt a rush of relief.