Oliver considered, then arranged magnets on the board within the outlines of Moraig’s forest to the best of his memory. He put Mairead where she’d been, ignored the improbability of his own damned unconscious self disappearing just inside Moraig’s doorway, then stood back and studied the board.
“Is that it?” Derrick asked.
“I’m thinking.”
“What did you miss during the first two rescue attempts?”
Oliver found his hand halfway to his chin, which was alarming in and of itself. He stroked just the same and suspected he might understand why Jamie did it so often. He held up his index finger to request a moment, then walked around the perimeter of Cameron’s office, ignoring his glorious surroundings and putting himself back in Renaissance Scotland.
He came back to himself an indeterminate amount of time later to find those lads he’d gone on innumerable adventures with in the present—along with that rather alarming trip to 1602—simply watching him patiently. Well, Ewan looked as if he might be brewing up a particularly annoying smirk, but since that was nothing new, it was a bit comforting.
“I missed someone,” he said carefully. “And I changed things, if you want the entire truth. The first time, Mairead remembers having someone stab her in the back, but that changed after my first attempt.”
“You stopped that, at least,” Cameron offered.
Oliver couldn’t bring himself to point out that it hadn’t done Mairead any good, so he nodded and continued.
“Time One, I got to Moraig’s and realized just how many lads there were. Seven or eight, at least, and not in their right minds.” He looked at Cameron. “I couldn’t fight that many.”
“Not without a sword and a running start on a horse,” Cameron agreed. “Trying to stay out of your own way yet rescue yourlady is a complicated business. Just out of curiosity, how did the fireworks go?”
“Brilliantly,” Oliver said without hesitation. “I suspect it became clan legend, though I haven’t had the heart to go dig through history to find out for certain. Thank you, my lord, for such superior firepower.”
Cameron nodded and waved him on. “We have more, if that would be useful, though I’m guessing a more surgical attempt would serve you better here.”
“Agreed,” Derrick said. “What else on the second trip? And leave aside your unconscious self on Moraig’s floor.”
“Which wasn’t there in the past because I’d fallen through to the future,” Oliver pointed out.
Derrick looked at him for a moment in silence, then shut his mouth and nodded briskly. “Fair enough, if not a little unsettling. I’m assuming you also avoided your first rescue-attempting self well enough.”
Oliver shuddered a little at the memory, in spite of vowing that he wouldn’t. “Beyond the absolute barking nature of that, yes, I managed to keep out of sight of my first self, but—” He had to stop and take a deep breath before he could admit the truth in all its unpleasant starkness. “I was tempted to ignore the cosmic ramifications of the first me seeing the second me and simply go snatch Mairead from her cousins, but I’ll admit I hesitated. She was barely conscious from being struck in the head, I noticed the gleam of a blade where I hadn’t before, and I didn’t see how I could carry her and escape seven or eight—”
“Which was it?” Derrick interrupted. “That might be important.”
Oliver closed his eyes and ran through the details with a dispassion that was oddly comforting. He considered, then opened his eyes and looked at Derrick.
“Seven I could identify,” he said. “Plus one in the shadows who I can’t.”
Derrick waved him on. “We’ll put that lad in red. Peter?”
“Here, boss,” Peter said, tossing him another magnet.
“And when you came back through the gate?” Derrick asked.
“Someone followed me at least to the meadow,” Oliver admitted. “If I hadn’t been looking for his blade in my back, I wouldn’t be breathing.”
“Same magnet?” Peter asked. “Or do we need two?”
“Two,” Derrick said. “We’ll toss one if it turns out to be the same lad.”
“We also need to know if that person knows about the gate,” Cameron said with a frown.
“Or he might just have been following Ollie by chance,” Peter offered. “Or one of his incarnations, rather.”
“No matter,” Derrick said. “We’ll keep our eyes open and station ourselves at appropriate spots.”
And with that, they were off in strategy mode. Oliver watched those four men then gather around the board and discuss the whole operation as if it had been a stage play with movements they were blocking. He caught an inquiring look from Derrick at one point, but shook his head. He’d already replayed the whole scenario in his mind scores of times and landed exactly where he was: back in the future without the one thing for which he’d gone to the past. He was happy to let them take a crack at it and potentially see something he’d missed.
