The River of No Return Bee Ridgway (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

it,” Nick said gruffly. “For God’s sake, I’ve jumped two bloody centuries and remade my life from the bottom up.”

The Alderwoman touched a drop of water that was running down her glass and drew a wet, undulating line on the tabletop. “Indeed you have. Admirably.” She looked up. “Do you remember the first rule of the Guild? And the second?”

“There is no return.”

“That is, indeed, the first and also the second rule of the Guild. But rules . . .” She paused. “I believe they say that rules are made to be broken.” She smiled at him, waiting for him to understand.

Nick stared back, not wanting to know what he suddenly did know. When he spoke, he spoke slowly and softly, to keep from screaming. “You have brought me here to London, thus breaking the second rule of the Guild, in order to tell me that the first rule is also a load of bollocks.”

“In a nutshell, yes.” Alice smiled at her own witticism. “Unless it is the other way around. I always considered the first rule to be about place and the second about time. But I suppose the order doesn’t really matter.”

Nick stared at her, not hearing her words. “So it is possible to go back in time,” he said, when her voice died away.

“Yes.”

Nick lost it then, and said a great deal that, later, he wasn’t proud of. There was a lot of cursing, and the vase of tulips ended up smashed against the window.

After a few minutes, Nick stood looking out at the city, struggling to regain his composure. Finally he turned back to find Alice quietly texting someone on her iPhone.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Alice finished tapping at the screen, waited until the soft shush told her the message had been sent, then looked up. “We’re not going to do anything to you. We’re extending an invitation. Wouldn’t you like to see your mother again? Your sisters?”

“They are dead.” Nick heard the gravel in his voice. This woman, twice his age, was calmly skewering him with a red-hot poker, right through the heart. Ten years he had lived here on the edge of time, ten years of mourning his family, of berating himself, of blaming himself, of hating himself.

“They are dead now,” Alice said, “but they aren’t dead then. Are you telling me you don’t want to see them?”

“Damn you.” Nick squeezed his eyes shut, balled his fists.

“This is a happy thing,” Alice said gently. “I’m telling you that you can go back.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Two days had passed since Eamon had confronted Julia in the study. He had spent the time running the full gamut of threats. Without result, of course, for Julia had no idea what Grandfather’s talisman was or where it might be hidden. Indeed, she didn’t even believe in it. She thanked God she didn’t know, didn’t believe. It was easy enough to keep a secret she didn’t know.

“You are a damned witch, Julia,” he growled over breakfast on the third morning after the scene in the study. “The servants are all wrapped around your finger. My meals have been inedible, my bed was short-sheeted, and my fire smoked all night. They have made it perfectly clear that they disapprove of me and favor you. But mark me, Julia, your friends below stairs cannot protect you. You are going to help me find that talisman.”

“I assure you, Cousin, I never saw any talisman, nor did Grandfather mention one. The occasions when I saw him play with time were purely for fun. He used it as a trick to make me happy when I was sad or angry.”

Eamon looked down his nose at her. “But still you knew. You saw. What did he do exactly? Tell me again how it worked.”

Julia sighed and went through her story. “Nothing that I could see. He would simply catch my attention, wink, and then the fun started.”

“But what did he do? Did he do anything different with his hands or his eyes?”

“No. Nothing like that.” Julia’s spine tingled when Eamon mentioned eyes, for of course it had seemed to be something Grandfather did with his eyes, concentrating on a small thing, ignoring the larger space, and focusing his intent onto a meaningless object. Then there would be that telltale rush behind her ears as the moments slowed or sped. There was no visible talisman. It was simply something Grandfather could do.

Eamon stalked back and forth. “He must have been staring at something, or perhaps holding something. Did he say any words? Any incantations?”

“No. He just . . . did it.”

“Blast it all to hell!” Eamon pushed his chair away from the table, stormed past Julia, and slammed the door of the breakfast room behind him, but immediately opened it again and stuck his head in. “You, Julia, are not to leave the house for any reason. No rides, no pottering about the estate. You will stay indoors until the talisman is found.”

“Yes, Cousin.”

Eamon slammed the door again. Julia made a sharp, very rude gesture at its blank, unresponsive face.

* * *

Arkady and Nick were sitting in matching leather armchairs before a roaring fire in the Mayfair mansion Arkady shared with Alice. Back in the day, this had been the city home of the Duke of Kirklaw. Nick had smoked cigars and quaffed illegal French brandy with the young duke in this very room the night before he left for Spain. The room and its décor were only slightly different now, and it gave Nick a decidedly vertiginous feeling to be sitting here again, another well-aged brandy in his hand and another well-cured cigar sitting half-smoked in another ashtray. But he shoved that distraction out of his mind and tried once more to concentrate. “Describe the feeling to me again,” he said.

Arkady twirled his cigar between his thumb and forefinger. “Time slows down around you. It stops. Unless you can feel it happening, you will slow down and stop, too. That is bad. That is what happens to Naturals. You