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And the next moment, we were gone.
Chapter Thirty-five
Time twisted, colors ran and the bottom fell out of my stomach. And the next thing I knew, I was bouncing on the lap of a tuxedo-clad man in the back of one of London’s iconic black cabs. I stared at him and he stared back, brown eyes big and astonished. After a second, I leaned back and checked him over.
His tux didn’t tell me much, but the wide-eyed woman clinging to his arm was wearing a cute bob and a flippy little piece of chiffon that practically required rouged knees. “Twenties?” I guessed, because for some reason my time sense was seriously messed up.
“Sixties,” Mircea told me, staring out the back of the cab as it crept along through a snarl of traffic.
I adjusted my position so I wasn’t actually straddling the speechless guy’s leg. “How do you know?”
“Because they didn’t have miniskirts in the twenties.” He nodded at a nearby giggle of girls in tiny outfits.
“Are you sure?”
“Believe me, dulceat?a?, the advent of the mini is forever emblazoned on my mind.”
I scowled; it would be. But under the circumstances, I preferred some confirmation. I poked the girl, who jumped and gave a little screech. “What year is it?” I asked, but she only stared at me.
“Che anno è?” I tried.
Nada.
“En quelle année sommes-nous?”
Uh-uh.
“What are you doing?” Mircea asked.
“I don’t think they speak English.”
“I think it more likely that they are merely startled.”
“Okay. But they’ve had time to get over it now.”
“N-nineteen sixty-nine,” the woman finally whispered.
I frowned. “Then why are you dressed like that?”
“We’re on our way to a fancy dress party, if you must know,” her date said, finally finding his voice. “Now, who the hell are you and how did you—”
“There!” Mircea cried, pointing at something in the crowds outside.
“Thanks for the ride,” I told the partygoers, as we climbed over them to get out of the cab.
Outside, snow was swirling down out of a black sky, gilded by the lights that poured out of shop windows and glittered from stacks of multicolored signs. It looked vaguely like Times Square, except it was more of a circle, with a tipsy Cupid presiding over what looked like the Christmas rush. Hanging nets of illuminated stars hung across every street, swaying lightly in the wind. A wreath dangled drunkenly off a nearby lamppost. And half the people filling the sidewalks and dodging the street traffic were carrying shopping bags.
I looked at Mircea. “Is this—”
He nodded. “Piccadilly.”
That meant nothing to me, except that this was where my mother had dropped us off on our last little trip into time. And now, for some reason, we were back. And so was she, judging by the Victorian coach that was lying on its side across one lane of traffic, causing a major jam.
The horse was still in place, bucking and rearing at the smell of smoke from the burnt-out hulk behind it. My heart clenched; why I don’t know. I was still alive, which meant my mother had to be, too. But I didn’t see her or the kidnapper or anything else in the rapidly growing crowd.
But I guess Mircea did, because he grabbed my hand and took off.
“I think I left a shoe in the cab,” I told him, struggling to keep up as we wove through the human obstacle course at a breakneck pace.
