“I was trying to get home,” she blurted.
“Home? But I told ye I would take ye back to Fortrose as soon as the route was clear. And ye are going the wrong way. Fortrose lies in— “
“I don’t mean Fortrose,” she cut in. “Well, I do, but not the Fortrose you’re talking about.”
He folded his arms. The lass was not making any sense. He dug into his sporran and pulled out the odd device he’d found on her bed. “What is this, Madeleine? Ye havenae been honest with me, have ye? Why? Dinna ye trust me?”
She stared at the device. “Damn it! I hadn’t realized I’d left this behind.” She paused. “I’m sorry. This isn’t about trust. Of course I trust you, Deryn. I think you might just be the best person I’ve ever met.”
He stepped closer, laid his hand on her cheek. “Then tell me. Tell me what’s got ye so spooked that ye would go running into danger like this.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I can’t. If you know the truth, you’ll turn us out.”
He pressed his lips into a tight, flat line. “I would never do that. Dinna ye realize that yet? I could no more turn my back on ye than I could stop breathing.”
She wrung her hands, her eyes wide, like a frightened deer. What was going on? What had got her so rattled? She hadn’t seemed this unsettled when she’d faced down Rodric MacKay’s guards.
“It was what you said yesterday,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “About the year the church was founded and the story Craig told about the Fae and then you mentioning the name Irene MacAskill.”
“The church? Irene MacAskill?” he replied, his eyebrows pinching into a frown. “Why would any of that unsettle ye so?”
She looked away again, staring out over the landscape. Finally, she turned back to him and took a deep breath. “Because it made me realize something I’ve been denying ever since I met you. Something that terrified me. And I recognized Irene’s name. I’ve met her too. But not here. A long, long way from here. I ran because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I was heading back to the place you found me, to the arch that brought me here. I hoped it could take me home.”
“Lass,” he said. “Ye aren’t making any sense. How could an arch take ye home?”
Her expression was stricken. She wrung her hands desperately. “Because I’m pretty sure that it’s a portal through time. That’s what I realized yesterday. That this is the fifteenth century, not the century I thought it was. My century. The twenty-first. Deryn, Rory and I are time-travelers.”
MADDY STOOD RIGIDLY, body tense, as she waited for Deryn’s reaction. Would he laugh at her? Get angry? Think she wascrazy? If there was one sure way to convince him that she’d lost her mind, this was it.
He backed away, a shocked expression on his face. But the next words out of his mouth were not the ones she expected.
“Did Irene MacAskill send ye here?”
Maddy blinked. “What?”
“In my experience, where time-travel is involved, the Fae usually are too.”
She stared at him, mouth hanging open. “What? You mean youbelieveme?”
“Are ye saying ye are lying?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Then why would I not believe ye?”
“Because what I’ve just told you is impossible. Or at least, most people believe it is.” She shook her head, trying to take this all in. “And why did you ask if Irene MacAskill sent me here?”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Now that is a long story. Let’s just say that in my former life, I was well acquainted with the Fae.”
“Your former life? What former life?”
He studied her and she could see the shutters coming down again, retreating from her as though she was trying to shine a light on things he didn’t want to reveal. “I think it only fair ye answer my questions first, lass. I ask again: did Irene MacAskill send ye here?”
“I...I...don’t know,” she stammered. “That’s what I hoped to find out by returning to that arch. She said some things to me about destiny and choices and fate and all that...” She trailed off as she saw that Deryn had gone white. “What’s wrong?”
“She said exactly the same things to me.” He ran a hand over his face. “Dear Lord, what is this all about? I thought running into ye that day on the trail was coincidence. Seems I was wrong.If Irene MacAskill is involved, there is much more to this than we understand.”
A leap into the unknown. Courage and faith. Then maybe yer choice will lead ye to what ye have been looking for all along.
