Page 60 of The Devouring Time

After, I doze in his arms. I feel sated and safe, and it isn’t long before a deeper sleep grabs hold of me and pulls me down.

“There has to be a way to remember,” Bianca says. “To warn everyone about what’s coming.”

“But how?” Nameless dread fills me, mixed with desperation. And…anger?

Her five glittering eyes all seem to fix on me, even though the outer ones have little movement. An attempt at a human gesture in this strange body. “I don’t know. Maybe in the archives?”

The archives of the Tschchch. I can read their language now; it might work.

“If there is anything to find, it didn’t help them,” Emerson says, eyes burning like marsh gas. The wounds from the barbed wire on his face open and close like little mouths as he speaks.

“We aren’t them,” I argue.

“No. You’re not a sorcerer.”

I turn away, though not so far I can’t still see him with one of my peripheral eyes, though its vision is bad for details. “Not yet.”

41

I blink awake to find myself curled in a warm embrace. Adrian’s strong arm lies snug around me, holding me against his chest, and his breath ghosts across the back of my neck. Early light streams through the window, and all I want to do is lie here forever.

Unfortunately, my bladder has other ideas. Adrian grunts when I slide out from under his arm, then rolls on his back and watches as I gather my clothes.

“Good morning,” he says with a sleepy grin.

“Good morning.” I give him a peck on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”

I hurry down the hall to the bathroom; thankfully it’s unoccupied. When I wash my hands, the mirror above the sink shows a face that still looks drawn, but much better rested than before.

I return to find Adrian getting dressed. “I suppose we should set the room to rights,” he says regretfully.

“We’ll just have to mess it up again tonight.”

He grins again. “It’s a deal.”

By the time we make our way down to breakfast, my stomach is complaining quite strongly about skipping dinner the night before. The restaurant is already half filled, mainly with men in suits and oiled hair, many with sample cases by their sides. Traveling salesmen, I assume. Others have a rougher look to them, and a woman in a long veil eats by herself at a small table, holding the veil out at intervals so she can slip her fork beneath without giving anyone a glimpse of her face.

I order the scrambled eggs with bacon and hot cakes, while Adrian chooses the sugar-cured ham and fried apples, with coffee for both of us. I set to the meal like a starving wolf, until Helen sits down in the third chair of the small table.

“I’m sorry we didn’t wait to order,” I say, after swallowing an indecently large forkful of eggs. “We missed dinner.”

“No need,” she says, looking amused. “I completely understand.”

Soon, she has a cup of coffee and a breakfast of a waffle and baked apples in front of her. “I haven’t heard back from anyone yet, but that’s no surprise,” she says, pouring a generous helping of syrup on her waffle.

“I had a dream last night,” I say. “And yes, I know dreams aren’t reliable, but mine have had bits of memory mixed in with them since I came back to myself.”

“Some dreams are more reliable than others.” She scowls as she takes a bite of waffle. “An old…friend…of mine believes in their oracular power, and uses them to guide her waking life.”

From the way she says the word friend, I suspect they were quite a bit more than that. “Mine are the opposite of oracular. Nightmares from the past, mixed in with fragments of memory from my captivity.” I pause, a sudden thought occurring to me. “I have some questions about magic.”

“I’ll try to answer them as best I can,” she replies. “Though I focus on the practical rather than the scholarly aspects.”

I take a deep breath, steeling myself. “When I was in France…a man, a friend, was injured. We weren’t able to save him or retrieve his body once he passed. A few nights later, I…I saw him. Walking, clearly dead, his eyes glowing like fireflies. He wanted into the camp. I panicked and shot him…” My throat tightens, and I clear it. “He was gone by the time the other soldiers came running. It was put down to shell shock, and I’m certain I did have that, but…”

“What was it in your friend’s body?” she finishes. She doesn’t seem to question whether I did in fact see Emerson, or at least his remains. “I don’t know. The European wizards…well, I can’t judge them, I might have done the same if our country was being invaded. In their desperation they tore open the Veil between our world and the Outside. Horrible things came through.”

Adrian nods. “Some of the European soldiers I knew talked about it, once they were drunk enough. They said those weren’t angels at Mons.”