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It wasn’t easy to stand. It was dark, but we were also illuminated. I couldn’t use my hands, stumbled on my skirt, and almost dropped the knife. Also, it was right behind me in my hands. I didn’t know how to get it anywhere safe and hidden. There were men on all sides of us. We were forced to move toward the vehicles. Magnus brushed close to my back. He took a step to turn from me, brushing his hand to mine and taking the blade into his hands.

We were by the vehicles. Pushed into a tight circle, men all around us. I pressed to his back. Tyler pressed close to the other side. We blocked Magnus’s hands from view as the clouds built above us.

Tyler’s said, “Are we going to do this shit again? Fuck.”

I said, “Hold on.”

Magnus was silent while he tried to get the knife into a manageable position and then the time jump hit me with a brutal slam to the gut and then it began to feel like I was ripping apart into pieces on a cellular level, molecular, so much pain⁠—

PART II

41 - KAITLYN

Darkness, noise, screeching and pain enveloped me, but far away in the distance, Magnus’s voice, as if it was miles away. Kaitlyn.

Then, Kaitlyn, get up. We have tae go.

No no no no no no⁠—

Kaitlyn, get up, we have tae run, now.

I pried open an eye. Magnus’s face was close, very close.

He said, “I need ye tae get up so we can run.”

I moaned, nodded and pulled myself to a sitting position. We were on a low rooftop, surrounded by grassy lawns.

I turned to look, but Magnus held my cheek, brought my eyes back to his face. “Daena look. Stand up.” I stood.

“Look directly at me. Good.”

What’s happening? I didn’t know if the words actually came out of my mouth or stayed rattling around in my head.

Tyler’s voice beside us, also standing. “Shit, we’ve got to get out of here, fast. Get the weapons off them.”

Magnus said, “Keep your eyes closed, Kaitlyn, stand there.” I heard a rustling as he and Tyler rushed around doing something. Then a second later, Magnus had my hand and he was pulling me into a run.

I couldn’t help it, as we rushed to the edge of the rooftop and a metal stair going down, I glanced back over my shoulder. The vehicles and weapons were all there and Commander Davis and his men were covered in blood, dead, piled. Left.

Magnus hadn’t wanted me to see, but it was as difficult to see as it was to imagine that all that murder and mayhem happened right there beside me while I didn’t see.

We made it to the stairs. Tyler first, me, then Magnus. As the door behind us opened and men came out to meet the time jumpers. Guards. From Donnan’s kingdom. They —

If I was too slow, if I stumbled, Magnus was dead. I had to descend, fast, though my body wasn’t fully working yet.

Tyler made it to the grass. Then me. Magnus right there. We raced behind the building, Magnus yelled “Run!” and we bolted across a long flat grassy lawn toward an orchard.

The men were fast behind us, and then vehicles, a helicopter took to the air — we made it to the trees but there was no protection. A drone flew close and a dark car bore down on us, a cloud of dust billowing behind it.

Tyler was the fastest, he dove between trees, down paths, taking sharp lefts and rights. I was slowing, Magnus had to pull me along.

Tyler took a sharp right and stopped behind a low shed. We pulled up together. “You cool?”

I said, “Yeah, just needed a breath — how’re your lungs, Magnus?”

“M’breaths are nae easy, but we must go.”

We raced out from behind the shed as the car chasing us screeched to a dirt-billowing stop. A door slid open. Lady Mairead said, “Get in the car, Magnus.”