Canes of Divergence (35 page)

Rosewood Castle, Eirentheos

“I
’LL PULL THE
wagon in front of the clinic,” Thomas said as they entered the castle grounds. “Then it will be easier for us to get this stuff inside.”

William nodded. “Yes, I don’t want to risk breaking any of the vials of vaccine.”

He looked in the back when he brought the horses to a stop right at the base of the clinic steps. Zander was sound asleep against a stack of blanket-wrapped crates. “Should I wake him up?”

“I’ll do it,” William said
. “I need to take him inside and check his vitals again anyway – make sure he’s not having a reaction to the vaccine or anything.”

“Okay, I’ll start unloading the stuff.”

After opening the tailgate and offering a hand to Zander, Thomas worked slowly and carefully pulling the crates down from the wagon and organizing them up on the porch, and then began tending the horses, hoping that if he took long enough William would come out to check on him.

He was right; after about ten minutes, William appeared again – at exactly the same moment Nathaniel appeared
on the path. Thomas sighed. “How’s Zander?” he asked.

“He’s fine. Ex
hausted, and he has a low fever, but otherwise good. I was looking for the file with the vaccine data.”

“It’s here.” Thomas pulled it out of a crate on top of one of the stacks.

“Thanks.” William was just opening it when Nathaniel finally reached the top of the steps.

“Hey, Will, how about I take a look at that and at Zander and you can get inside to Quinn and the baby? We’ve been gone for a long time.” Nathaniel held out his hand for the file.

“I don’t want to leave you with all of this.” William nodded toward the crates.

“It’s fine. Take advantage of it while my fiancée is still far away and I’m bored. Jared and
Arthur are coming up from the stables to take care of the horses, so really, the two of you can go.” Nathaniel shot Thomas a knowing look – somehow, he always knew when there was something going on.

“So … I have a question,” Thomas said, once he and William were out of earshot of the clinic.

William stopped walking and turned to face him.

“This whole being considered an adult thing – does that mean really having all of the privileges of adulthood?”

His brother’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “Yes – and the responsibilities, too.”

“
All
of them?”

“Which privilege are you specifically referring to, Thomas?”

“Marriage.”

“Oh. You want to ask Mia to marry you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

William nodded but his lips pressed into a thin line. Thomas cringed as he waited what felt like a long time for his brother’s response. “The short answer is yes. I discussed with Mother and Father that if you were going to come and live with us as an adult then you would be treated as one in every way.”

“And what’s your personal opinion on it?”

This hesitation was just as long as the last one, and William’s chest r
ose and fell twice before he answered. “Have you and Mia ever discussed the idea of marriage?”

Thomas bristled. “Had you and Quinn discussed it before you proposed to her?”

“No.” William was calm, unaffected by his tone. “My proposal to her was a surprise to both of us, you know that. But nothing else was unspoken between us, Thomas. We weren’t arguing, we weren’t keeping things from each other – each of us knew what the other one wanted, because we’d both talked about it. Even if she’d said no right then, we would have been okay – we’d have been able to talk about it still, and laugh about it, and revisit the topic at another time.”

“And you don’t think Mia and I would be.”

“I have no idea. I’m obviously not there when the two of you are alone together. It doesn’t matter what I think anyway. Do
you
know what would happen if you asked her that question?”

Thomas closed his eyes and gave a single shake of his head.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do. If you were to ask her to marry you and she accepted, I would be  thrilled to host a big wedding for you in Philotheum. But … if you want the honest truth from where I’m sitting as your older brother … I think the two of you have some serious weeds in your garden right now, and if you don’t take care of those first, they’ll choke out any life you try to plant.”

Thomas kicked at a rock on the path, sending it deep into the nearby bushes. “When did you get to be the one who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to girls?”

“I’m not,” William said, chortling. “I don’t know what I’m doing ninety percent of the time, and then I even mess up the other ten percent. But I talk to her, Thomas. About everything. And I’ve been at it just long enough to learn what happens when I
don’t
share my thoughts and feelings with her. It crushes both of us. And that’s what I see you doing with Mia. That is not a good place to start.”

*          *         *

Thomas knew William was right. He had to talk to Mia. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, considering proposing to her. The two of them had barely talked in the whole last moon.

An
d now, an entire moon – or maybe longer, if he was honest – of avoiding a necessary confrontation had brought them to this – to both of them making separate decisions about a future that, ironically enough, seemed to be taking them in the same direction.

How he hadn’t seen it happening, he didn’t know,
but he knew at least half the blame belonged on his shoulders. Just as their paths were coming together,
they
had somehow diverged.

“You’re back.” Ben’s voice broke into his train of thought
and Thomas looked up to see him coming up the hallway toward him. “How did it … is everything all right?”

Great
. His distress was visible to everyone. Thomas forced himself to smile. “Yes. Everything is fine. Nathaniel and William think the vaccine is going to be a success, and we’re hopeful that the dog didn’t actually have rabies, so we didn’t have to kill it. At least not today.”

“That is good news.” Ben’s mood was the polar opposite of Thomas’ – he was happy and relaxed, no doubt a product of a day spent with Linnea.

Thomas had never imagined the stoic guard could be as happy he’d been ever since he began courting Linnea. Smiling for no reason in the hallways, finding little treats and ways to surprise her, taking off entire afternoons so the two of them could go on picnics….
That
was all Thomas wanted with someone. How could it be so difficult?

“Do William and Nathaniel need any help?” Ben asked.

“They’re fine – and you only have a couple more days left in your honeymoon. Really, Ben, go enjoy the time.”

Once Ben was gone, Thomas headed for the wing of the castle where the household servants lived.
Halfway there, though, he realized he should probably wait until evening, when she was finished with her work and they had real time to talk.

Well,
Mia rarely spent any time in her room during the day anyway. She probably wouldn’t be there, and
then
he could wait until evening. He knocked twice, already backing away from the door to wait until later, when he was startled by the sound of the knob turning.

“Thomas!” Mia said, stepping in front of the door and pulling it mostly closed behind her.
Odd.
She sounded happy he was there, but he suspected she was carefully controlling her voice. Her expression was closer to terror than joy.

“Can I come in?”

She hesitated – only for a second, but it was enough for him to see she didn’t really
want
him in her room right now, and her cheeks flushed pink as she pushed the door open and stood there, waiting for him to enter.

He almost used her hesitation as yet another excuse – almost offered to come back later at a better time – but then he made himself just take the steps, walking past her and over toward the couch.

“There’s nowhere to sit down, I’m sorry,” she said, looking more flustered by the second as she closed the door behind her.

Both the couch and the chair were covered with piles of clothing and her other belongings, books, sewing projects she’d been working on… A wooden trunk stood open on the floor over by her bed.

“You accepted the job. You’re packing.”

Her whole face and neck were glowing now, and her voice wobbled when she answered him. “Yes. I meant to talk with you about it later…”

“Did you? Were we ever going to talk about it at all, Mia? Or were we just going to keep avoiding it and pretending like everything is fine when it isn’t?”

“I was … wait.” She frowned. “You know about it?”

“What do you mean? Yes, William told me when he asked…” A cold, sick feeling slithered through him. “You don’t know what William asked me today, do you?”

She stared at him, her confusion obvious. “Was it something about me?”

She didn’t know. She had no idea he was going to Philotheum, too. She’d accepted the job without even
considering
him. He couldn’t look at her. Staring down at the floor, he had to swallow several times before he trusted himself to speak. “You’re planning on leaving without me – without even telling me.”

She didn’t answer. When he finally glanced back up at her, there were tears streaming down her face, landing in big drops on the front of her dress; her hands were twisted too tightly in her skirt to do anything about it.

Part of him wanted to rush across the room, to take her in his arms, to wipe away the tears himself, to tell her everything was going to be okay. But another part of him – maybe a bigger part – didn’t want to go near her at all. And he didn’t know what she wanted. She was in here packing to move a five-day journey away from him, and she hadn’t even bothered to mention it to him first.

He was only holding himself together just enough to know that he didn’t want to do anything in anger. After taking a very deep breath, he said, “I don’t think I’m up for dealing with this right now.” And then he walked out the door.

The Bridge, Eirentheos

O
N THE NIGHT
Zander arrived in Eirentheos, when Stephen had told him he was stuck here, ten days had sounded like a very long time.

Now that it was over, it
seemed like no time had passed at all – or like he’d spent an entire lifetime here, he wasn’t sure which. Whatever it was, the idea that two hours from now he’d be back in his own world felt strange.

“I told you if you kept up your questions about Quinn you’d wind up learning things that can never be unlearned, and you would change your life forever.”

His fork full of food fell to his plate with an astounding clunk when he looked across the table
and saw the man sitting in the spot Thomas had vacated only moments before. Alvin.

“What are you doing here?” he blurted out.

Alvin smiled. “Sometimes, the dinners Queen Charlotte arranges are just too wonderful to pass up. I just knew tonight would be one of those nights.” Picking up his own fork, he took a bite of the meat, potato, and cheese casserole.

Zander looked around. Nearly everyone had abandoned the table
already – they were all on the other side of the dining room, gathered around Owen. Zander could have joined them, but it had seemed only right to let Quinn and her family spend the last minutes they could with him. Ben, Marcus, and Luke were taking them to the gate right after the meal.

Quinn was mostly successful at holding back her tears, but Zander had seen her surreptitiously pull out a handkerchief twice while she was supposed to be eating.
The plate at the place where she’d been sitting was still full.

“Nobody even knows you’re here,” he said to Alvin.

“You do.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Was it worth it, Zander – finding out the answers to your questions?”

Did Alvin enjoy playing games with people?
“What if I said it was?”

Alvin didn’t react to that at
all the way Zander expected him to – instead, his half-smile turned into a blazing grin. “That would be excellent. Truly an accomplishment. I might even have to say I was proud of you, Zander.”

“Proud of me? For what? Running off to another universe just because I thought I knew better than what people were honestly telling me?”

Alvin’s grin didn’t fade. “Yes, definitely proud.”

“I don’t even know what you mean.”

“So what did you think of your time here, Zander? Without your car and your phone?”

“I’m ready to be able to drive again, if that’s what you’re asking. But actually, horses aren’t so bad once you get used to them.”

“I heard you rode quite well yesterday – that you even beat Alex in a race.”

“He’s eight.”

One of Alvin’s bushy eyebrows arched up. “And he’s been riding a fair bit longer than you. You don’t seem to be limping after all of that, either.”

He considered commenting on the fact that Alvin couldn’t possibly know that, since he was sitting
down, but those kinds of details didn’t seem to matter to Alvin. Besides, it was sort of a point of pride for him – that he was riding well enough now to not get so sore so quickly. “Ben’s a good teacher,” he said instead.

“Yes.” The look in Alvin’s eyes switched to a very fond one. “Ben is very good at many things. Horses, swords, teaching…” he glanced over to where Ben was standing behind Linnea, his arms around her waist, his head resting on her shoulder
, “and very loving. For such a young man, he has already lived deeply and well.”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t say the same thing about
me
, would you?”

“Since when do you have any concern
about my opinion, Zander?” Despite his words, Alvin’s expression was kind.

“I barely know you.”

“Exactly. I would think the much more important question is whether you would say that about yourself.”

Zander shrugged. “Until I came here, I never even thought
about something like that. I was just …
me
, doing normal things. Like everyone in my world.”

“And now?”

“Now I see a different side of it, I guess.”

“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself Zander. You’re young. Much younger in many ways than the young men here appear to be.
Ben, for example, has lived the equivalent of two hundred years in your time. He’s had more practice. From what I’ve seen of you these past ten days, I think you have more going for you than you give yourself credit for.”

“I don’t think I’d ever be able to sacrifice everything the way Quinn did, or the way Ben does every day that he works as a guard.”

“No? I wouldn’t place my money against it, Zander – that you’d be
able
to, anyway, if you made the choice. But choice does trump ability, every time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d hate to miss my last few moments with Prince Owen.”

*          *          *

Zander was still contemplating his conversation with Alvin as they mounted the horses.

Quinn had finally given up the pretense of holding back her tears. They flowed freely
down her cheeks as she hugged Owen for the last time before Ben lifted him into his saddle, and then climbed up behind him.

“Thank you,” William said, coming to stand beside Zander’s horse, “for
all of your help with everything. You have the money Nathaniel gave you, right?”

“Yes, although I still
feel bad for taking it.” Zander’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he’d seen the bills in the leather pouch. There was more than enough to get the rabies vaccine in there – far, far more.

“Don’t. We don’t have any use for it, and neither does Quinn’s family. Owen’s and Annie’s college educations are
already well covered. Quinn told us about your situation with your father – hopefully there’s enough in there to help you make a decision about what you really want to study for yourself. Or whatever you want to do with it. It’s yours. Thank you again.”

He walked away before Zander could even respond – not that he was even sure he
could
respond. He was still stunned a few moments later when Marcus began leading his horse in front of them, through the castle gates and toward the road.

The money – he didn’t even know what to think
about that. It surely wasn’t enough to take care of college completely, but … it did mean he could make his own decision about what he was going to do without worrying about his father.

A couple of nights ago – after they’d come back to the castle from rescuing Digger – he’d had a startling revelation. As angry as he’d been with his father, it was possible that he wasn’t entirely wrong.
Wrong about making Zander go into business, maybe – he knew he didn’t want that – but maybe it wasn’t so awful that he didn’t want to pay for Zander to mess around in college when he didn’t even know what he wanted to study.

Or hadn’t known,
anyway. After spending time looking at the hydroelectricity dams and the maps that Thomas and Maxwell were working on, the idea of building things that could help people appealed to him. Quinn’s dad, Jeff, was an engineer – maybe he’d talk to him when he returned Owen tomorrow.

“Did you have a good time, buddy?” he asked, riding up beside Ben and Owen – and marking off the accomplishment of having that much control over his mount.

“Yes, I had a very good time. I like it here.”

“Are you sad to be going home?”

“No. I want to see my mom and dad and Annie. I don’t like leaving Quinn and William and Samuel, though.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I’ll see them again, though.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Zander said, exchanging glances with Ben. He’d never been less sure of anything in his life, but he wasn’t going to say that to Owen.

“Alvin said I will for sure.”

That made Zander raise an eyebrow. If
Alvin
had said it, then maybe…

All of a sudden a memory came back to him in a vicious flash, sending creeping chills down his spine. The man – the strange man who had been sitting on the riverbank … in that instant, Zander knew exactly who he was.

“Zander! What’s wrong?”

He looked up in time to see Ben and Marcus turning their horses around and heading back toward him – he hadn’t even realized he’d stopped. Luke stayed ahead of them, but he, too, had turned around and was watching in concern.

“I think I saw Rahas on the other side of the gate.”

He realized, after he said it that if Ben and Marcus didn’t know what he was talking about, he might sound crazy, but the reaction was immediate.

Ben’s eye’s widened, but Marcus’ reacted almost violently. His entire body went stiff, and his hand went instantly to the hilt of his sword. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know for sure, but, I think I saw him in Bristlecone.” He actually
was
sure – he just didn’t know how he knew, and he didn’t want to explain that.

Marcus only grew more tense as
Luke rode over and Zander told them the story of the strange man on the hillside near the river in Bristlecone. “I wish we’d known about this before,” he said at the end.

“I wish I’d remembered enough to tell you. What do we do now?”

“We go,” Ben said. “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t tell anyone, because there’s nothing else we could have done, anyway. The three of us are the only guards who know the gate was opened again – we could have brought Simon or Maxwell, perhaps, but that might only have added to the danger. We don’t know if he saw you use the gate or if he knows it’s open. The important thing now is to get you and Owen through it. Do you have any way to get help on the other side if you need it?”

“His cell phone is charged. It worked with the same charger as my camera.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Ben said, “but I’m assuming that’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Here,” Ben reached behind him, unlatched one of the saddle bags and withdrew a long knife, in a stamped-leather sheath. “Take this.”

“To
Bristlecone?
”

“Yes. I don’t want you to be unarmed.”

If he used that knife on someone in Bristlecone, he was going to need the money for something other than college, but if he’d learned one thing from Ben during his time here, it was not to argue with him.

The rest of the way to the bridge, everyone was overly cautious; all three guards scanned the area repeatedly, noticing every small movement. Marcus’ hand moved to his sword for a moment when a rabbit scurried across the trail in front of them.

But they made it without incident. The trail curved close to the river, and then they rounded a bend, and there it was – the long stone bridge stretching across the river. The last reflections of the setting sun glinted along the moving water – the short delay while they’d talked on the trail had eaten up some of their time.

All three guards dismounted in incredible synchronicity as soon as they reached the base of the bridge. Marcus and Luke were wary, walking around the area, their eyes searching behind every tree and rock. Ben pulled Owen down and set him down gently before reaching into the saddlebag again and taking out his backpack.

Their load was much lighter going back. The cooler and duffel bag had been left behind, along with most of the contents of the backpack – Zander wasn’t even sure what else had been in there. Now it contained a few things Owen was bringing back with him along with the money and a letter Zander had spent the last two nights writing to his parents. He didn’t know if he ever planned on giving it to them, but it had felt important to write it, helping him organize his thoughts for some of the difficult conversations ahead.

Although Owen could have easily carried the backpack himself now, Zander reached for it as soon as his feet hit the ground beside them.

“Thanks, Zander,” Owen said.

“Of course, little man.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “
You and I will have to be friends forever now, since we’re the ones who have the secrets together.”

“I know how to get to my house and how to get inside with the garage code,” Owen said suddenly.

“That’s … good,” Zander said. “Do you want to go back to your house instead of mine to wait for your parents? I have a key, too.”

Owen nodded. “I know how to call my mom and dad, too. And there’s enough food and stuff at my house
if I need it.”

“Okay, buddy. We can go straight there, if you want.” One more night away from his house wouldn’t make any difference to Zander. “We can even order a pizza if you’re hungry again.
I don’t know what time your parents will be back, but I’ll stay and take care of you until they get there.” Something wasn’t right with Owen right now – probably it was just the transition, and the fact of leaving his sister.