“Something’s watching.” She shivered even as she dismounted. “Something cold.”
“There’s nothing here but us.” But when he jumped down from his horse, Larkin laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.
“It sees.” There were voices in her head, whispers and murmurs. As if in a trance, she took her bag from the saddle. “Take what you need. Come with me.”
“You’re acting considerably strange, Moira.” With a sigh, Larkin took his own bag, tossing it over his shoulder as he caught up with her.
“She can’t enter here. Never. No matter what her power, she can never enter this circle, never touch these stones. If she tries she’ll burn. She knows, she hates.”
“Moira…your eyes.”
She turned them on him. They were nearly black, and they were depthless. And when she opened her hand, there was a wand of crystal in it. “You are bound, as I am bound, to do this thing. You are my blood.” She took her short sword, cut her
palm, then reached for his.
“Well, bollocks.” But he held out his hand, let her slice across the palm.
She sheathed the knife, gripped his bloody hand with hers. “Blood is life, and blood is death,” she said. “And here it opens the way.”
With his hand in hers, she stepped into the circle.
“Worlds wait,” she began, chanting the words that swirled in her head. “Time flows. Gods watch. Speak the words with me.”
Her hand throbbed in his as they repeated the words.
The wind swirled, whipping the long grass, snapping their cloaks. Instinctively, Larkin put his free arm around her, folding her into him as he tried to use his body as a shield. Light burst, blinding them.
She gripped his hand, and felt the world spin.
Then the dark. Damp grass, misty air.
They still stood within the circle, on that same rise. But not the same, she realized. The forest beyond wasn’t quite the same.
“The horses are gone.”
She shook her head. “No. We are.”
He looked up. He could see the moon swimming behind the clouds. The dying wind was cold enough to reach his bones. “It’s night. It was barely midday and now it’s night. Where the bloody hell are we?”
“Where we’re meant to be, that’s all I know. We need to find the others.”
He was baffled, and unnerved. And could admit that he hadn’t thought beyond the moment. That would stop now, for now he had only one charge. To protect his cousin.
“What we’re going to do is look for shelter and wait for sunrise.” He tossed her his pack, then started to stride out of the circle. As he walked, he changed.
The shape of his body, the sinew, the bone. In place of skin a pelt, tawny as his hair, in place of hair a mane. Now a stallion stood where the man had been.
“Well, I suppose that would be quicker.” Ignoring the knots in her belly, Moira mounted. “We’ll ride the way that would be toward home. I think that makes the most sense—if any of this does. Best not gallop, in case that way is different from what we know.”
He set off in a trot, while she scanned the trees and the moonstruck hills. So much the same, she thought, but with subtle differences.
There was a great oak where none had been before, and the murmur of a spring in the wrong direction. Nor was the road the same. She nudged Larkin off it, in the direction where home would be if this were her world.
They moved into the trees, picking their way now carefully, following instinct and a rough path.
He stopped, lifted his head as if scenting the air. His body shifted under her as he turned. She felt muscles bunch.
“What is it? What do you—”