Page 94 of Entangled With You

I said vaguely, “I guess, we didn’t really talk about that. We need to go to Gainesville sometime and get his truck.” I jokingly waved my hand. “Add that to a list.” I lay back on the couch and acted overwhelmed, although I actually was pretty overwhelmed. I just knew that I had people around me now to help. “My really long list of things that are left undone. Right under the list of people who are probably trying to kill me.”

“Speaking of, where’s Lady Mairead?”

“She’s in the future. I think she was captured at the same time as me and Magnus. She’s probably negotiated her way out of it by now. Which is fine by me, as long as she also negotiates Magnus’s freedom too.”

Zach leaned forward. “So what do you think is happening?”

“Magnus was going to fight for his throne. There are a lot of rules apparently about how that works, but then it all went kablooie and he was captured and — I don’t know. I hope he survives.”

Hayley asked, “Are you going to spiral again?”

“Not really. At least not yet. The thing is he can come back, now, to Florida. If he lives through what he’s doing, then I should see him by tonight. So ask me tomorrow if he’s not here.” I looked around at all their faces. “He’ll be here if they let him fight. I know it. Because I told him to. And to get home he has to win and that’s his goal.”

Zach said, “So that’s Katie’s story, how about you Quentin, how was your time in the 18th century?”

“Every day was just a bit of warm mush to eat, a bunch of disgusting men, so disgusting, the smell, ugh, we just played with our weapons. And I’m not kidding about that. I learned to ride a horse. That was cool. The food, when it happened, was awful. It was kind of like being a part of an army, but without any kind of logical leader or purpose beyond maybe we should go fight those people. Or like being in a gang without any danger of being thrown in jail. But literally anyone could kill you at any time and barely anyone would blink about it and I was at the bottom of the pack. No one would have noticed if I just disappeared.”

Zach said, “How the hell did you survive?”

Quentin joked, “I slept like this,” He leaned back in the chair and mimed sleeping with one eye open looking around terrified. “And when I was awake. I was like this...” He stood and with his hand on a pretend sword he startled and did a 360, “What are you doin’? What do you want? Why are you sneaking up on me?” He laughed. “I’ll probably be a better security guard now because I’m jumpy and I can’t sleep longer than 15-minute intervals.” He grinned. “That being said, it was also awesome. I’d go back in a second if there were showers. And better food. Magnus’s family was mostly pretty great. They treated me well. Plus I’ve got a girl there, Beaty. I’d like to see her again.”

I joked, “Oh, that’s really great. Two of us with someone we love stuck in another time.”

There was a long pause. My eyes flitted to the screen, I watched the radar, Florida. The entire state looked clear.

“I’ve got one thing. Can we look up the website for Lizbeth’s history?”

Zach said, “Sure. Wait, crap, my laptop is dead. I’ll charge it and since it’s past lunch, I’ll run for food since I haven’t shopped. Then we can look it up after and finish the day with naps and waiting for Magnus. Everyone hungry?”

60 - KAITLYN

Zach had bookmarked the website. He turned the laptop around on the dining room table and I sat beside him, Hayley sat beside me. Emma stood rocking Ben in her arms watching over our shoulders. Quentin, freshly showered, stood right behind me.

Zach cracked his knuckles. “Here goes — something.” He clicked the link and we all watched the slowest page in the world load on the screen. Using his cursor he scrolled down and to the side on a very long family tree. Down some more, down even more. Back up. “There it is, oh my god!”

Elizabeth Campbell

1676 - 1723

Tears welled up. “Oh my god, she lived for twenty more years. Oh my god.” My friends were patting me on the shoulders and hugging each other and squealing and congratulating me and us and...

I just stared at the screen with tears streaming down my cheeks.

It had said 1703 and now it was different. As sure as I was sitting here. I had freaking changed time.

I had saved her life and oh my god — Lizbeth lived. Her son, too, Ainsley Campbell, he lived to be — I counted on my fingers — thirty-two years old. He had children, grandchildren, there was a whole branch of a family tree that I saved.

I cried so many tears, streaming down my face, occasionally laughing because this kind of happiness was fraught with emotion.

Zach said, “You did good.” He put an arm around me. “Wish Magnus was here to share it, but he will be, soon.”

I nodded into his shoulder.

“Yeah, any minute now.”

The day was almost done.

And Magnus wasn’t here.