“No, I don’t.” Magnus tossed the handful of dirt directly into Livius’s eyes. The man howled in pain, his hands flying to his face.
Magnus grabbed the sack of coins a second after they hit the ground, feeling the satisfying weight of it in his hand.
The boy stared at him as if he’d just grown another head.
“Maddox!” Livius yelled. “Stop him!”
Magnus turned and ran out of the alleyway.
Chapter 3
Magnus ran as fast as the day he’d run after the horse that had gotten away from him during a hunt—a horse he had had to retrieve so as not to look even more pathetic and unworthy in front of his father’s friends. But it wasn’t fast enough.
He glanced over his shoulder to see that the boy, Maddox, was only a few paces behind.
“You need to stop!” Maddox yelled.
“And yet I choose to keep running.”
“Livius will kill you for stealing from him!”
“Not if he can’t catch me.”
But damned if he could find the tavern again. He needed to slow down and get his bearings, figure out which direction he’d taken through the city that seemed as large as Ravencrest, the capital of Limeros.
He staggered to a halt, scanning the streets, the horse-drawn carts laden down with passengers or cargo, and the lines of shops—everything from candle-makers to bakeries to inns along the cobblestone road.
He came to the sudden and horrible realization that he’d forgotten the name of the tavern. He strained to remember, knowing he’d seen the sign above the entrance.
How could he have forgotten something so important?
Maddox came to a stop, his face flushed, and Magnus gave him a dark look.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warned.
Maddox glared back at him. “You need to give me that pouch.”
“I know you won’t believe me, but I need this money more than you or your unpleasant guardian do.” He cast a wary glance up at the sun, his only way of judging how much time he had to get back to Lord Gillis’s villa.
“You know nothing about who we are and what we might need,” Maddox said.
The boy had a point, but not one Magnus had any time to debate. “You’re right. I know only that your guardian beats you without hesitation or remorse.”
Maddox had no immediate rebuttal for this, but he had the grace to flush. “My mother . . . I send her my part of our fee. She needs the money to survive. Without it, I don’t know what will happen to her.”
“Really. And what fee did she get for letting that man take control of your life?”
Maddox’s expression tightened. “Clearly you have no idea how dangerous Livius is.”
“Clearly.” Magnus weighed the pouch of coins in his hand as he struggled to think of the name of the tavern where he’d met Kalum and Emil. “There’s a tavern nearby named after a . . . a chicken?”
It was something like that, he was certain of it.
Maddox shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not from here.”
Magnus hissed out a breath of frustration. “So I assume you also don’t know of a woman named . . .” Again he grappled for the information he knew he had, but this time it came to him swiftly. “Samara Balto.”
Maddox held out his hand. “Give me the pouch, and I’ll be happy to help you find her.”
He stared at the boy’s hand with deep skepticism. “I don’t trust you.”
“Says the thief.”
From farther down the street, past a woman with two young boys who’d just entered a bakery, Magnus spotted Livius swiftly approaching them.
Maddox was a pest, but Livius was a threat.
“Never mind,” Magnus said, not shifting his attention from Maddox’s guardian. “I’ll find it on my own.”
He turned on his heel and began running away from the pair. He needed to find the tavern, he needed to find the men he’d spoken to and trade this bag of stolen coins for information. Then he might have a chance to escape from this living nightmare.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have dismissed Bella quite as readily as he had. For all of her ignorance, she had been extremely willing to please.
Checking over his shoulder, his stomach lurched to see that Livius hadn’t given up the chase. Still, he had to be twice Magnus’s age, if not more. Then again, Magnus wasn’t used to running very often, especially not while being pursued. He couldn’t actually remember the last time, before today, he’d moved at more than a leisurely pace.
Thankfully, his legs didn’t fail him today.
Magnus zigzagged through the winding city streets, narrowly dodging other civilians, who glared at him as he shoved past them. He wouldn’t ask anyone here for help. It would only slow him down. Besides, what would he say? That he’d stolen a bag of coins from the man chasing after him?
An admission like that would surely send him directly to the nearest dungeon.
While everything inside of him wanted to continue to deny what had happened, he knew he couldn’t. Somehow, that witch had sent him back in time. And he knew without any doubt that if he failed to return to that statue of the goddess by sunset, he would be trapped here forever.