“Cut it out,” I said, and when I looked up into his eyes, I saw they were shiny and glazed. A feverish spot stood out on each cheekbone. Gently, I laid my palm against his forehead, as my mother had done to me when I was a child. I jerked my hand away, gulping back a gasp of alarm. “You’re burning up.” I said. “And you’re limping. What’s going on, Bran? Let me see.”
I tugged at the rough oat-colored tunic, which smelled of smoke and flour and its previous owner. He grunted with irritation but raised the hem. I sucked in a breath.
A long, angry scab marred his side. Starting just below his ribs, it jagged and disappeared into the tied waistband of the dark, nubby breeches. Red streaks shot across smooth, tanned skin like malevolent spider legs. The black thread someone had used to stitch it had all but disappeared beneath the swelling.
When I pressed hesitantly, he hissed. Dark yellow pus oozed from the scab.
He heaved the shirt down. “See? Like I said. Nothing.”
His words might’ve been dismissive, but I could see pain cinch the corners of his eyes. He’d carried my mom through the tunnels and into the forest. The pain must’ve been excruciating, yet he never complained.
“Wait,” I said, recalling Celia ask about some wound back at the glade. “Did your mother do that to—”
“Leave it, Hope. It doesn’t matter.”
My horror was instant and nauseating. In the snowy courtyard of Mabray House, when Phoebe and I had escaped, I’d seen the moonlight on Celia’s blade when Bran’s mount had shoved hers out of my way. This was my fault. We had to get Bran back. To antibiotics and a sterile, modern hospital. If I was right about the Source, we’d at least know we might have a way out. Yes, we’d have to worry about locating—and likely stealing—two opals. But the stones meant nothing if the Source wasn’t there.
I refused to think about what would happen if I was wrong.
The low, barred grate where we’d emerged from the tunnels only hours before was now sealed. No amount of tugging or kicking made it budge. I yanked on the frosted iron until my palms were ice-scalded. “Gah!”
“Um,” Bran muttered, “it appears to be locked.”
“You think so, Captain Obvious?”
I gave the grate one, last savage kick for good measure, then let fly a string of curses.
Bran’s eyebrows flew up. “Impressive.”
When I told him to do something that was anatomically impossible, he only chuckled and took my arm. “Come on. We’ll find another way.”
“I can’t believe it.” Bran’s eyes scanned across the nave floor to the main altar.
On the road, I’d explained what I’d felt in the tunnel and seen, dangling upside down from the scaffolding during the coronation. We’d discussed Hectare’s cryptic message about a lady in “robes of purest white” guarding “her dark treasure in the deep.” But what if she had been trying to tell us there was a Source beneath Westminster Abbey?
Whether the little nun knew what she was saying or not, the clues added up. And since it was our only shot, we had to at least try.
“You know,” Bran mused, studying the curves imprinted in the black and white marble floor. “Even if the Source is here and we happen to locate some opals, it might dump us in some monstrous dinosaur era. Or even worse”—he shuddered theatrically—“the seventies.”
“You think bell-bottoms are worse than velociraptors?”
“Infinitely,” he whispered with a grin that made my pulse jump.
Bran had heard his mother and great-grandmother speaking reverently about the mythical Sources, and how travelers could choose their destination, just by concentrating on where they wanted to go. We had no idea if it would really work. But again . . . no options.
The nave lay mostly empty, and the bare floor stretched out toward the high altar. As we wove through the stout pillars that held up the barrel-vaulted ceiling, copper braziers and enormous candles filled the space with smoky layers of spicy incense and melting beeswax.
Rubbing my itchy nose, I whispered, “Okay. The entrance to the vaults should be behind the altar. We have to sneak by all those little old ladies waiting for confession, and we’ll have to be really stealthy, because—”
No warning. I sneezed. Explosively. Twice. The sound blared across the church and echoed against the walls. A flock of geese would’ve made less noise. A monk in the process of lighting candles frowned at us.
One side of Bran’s mouth quirked. “Quite right. Stealth. Got it.”
“Ohhh, you’re talking again,” I managed as I swiped a sleeve across my face.
Bran, eyes wide in mock innocence, closed his mouth and mimed throwing away a key. My face felt weird, and I realized I was grinning at him. Really, truly grinning for the first time in forever.
Would it be so bad if we didn’t make it out? If the two of us made a life here together?
I quickly thrust that thought away. “Guess we better get going.”
We knelt near the front, heads bowed, just another pious couple. When everyone’s backs were turned, we rushed behind the high altar; in this age only a shadow of the spectacular gilt masterpiece it would one day become. Beyond lay a stuffy storage room.