Emerald Green (35 page)

I rolled my eyes and signed to him to go away, which to my surprise, he did. I suppose
Tinker Bell
was so exciting that he had to go back to it.

Meanwhile, Gideon had put the chronograph
down on the roof, and now he began carefully unwrapping it.

“Did you know that Charlotte was phoning us about every ten minutes, trying to convince us that you had this chronograph? In the end, she even got on Marley’s nerves.”

“What a shame,” I said. “And the two of them might have been made for each other.”

Gideon nodded. Then he removed the last of the wrappings and audibly took a deep breath.

I carefully stroked the shiny, polished wood. “There it is, then.”

Gideon said nothing for a moment. For more than a moment, to tell you the truth.

“Gideon?” I finally asked uncertainly. Lesley had begged me to wait a few days longer, until we could be sure that he was really to be trusted, but I’d dismissed the idea out of hand.

“I simply didn’t believe it,” Gideon finally whispered. “I didn’t
for a second believe Charlotte.” He looked at me, and his eyes were dark in this light. “Do you realize what would happen if anyone here knew about this?”

I didn’t bother to point out that quite a number of people did know about it already. Maybe it was just because all of a sudden Gideon seemed so bewildered, but I was suddenly afraid. “Are we really going through with the plan?” I asked. I
had a queasy sensation inside me, and this time, it was nothing to do with the beginning of a journey through time.

It was one thing for my grandfather to read my blood into the chronograph. What we were about to do now was something else again. We’d be closing the Circle of Blood, and there was no way we could foresee the consequences. To put it in as positive a way as possible.

My memory went
through all those horrible rhyming prophesies with lines ending
death
and
last breath
, and dredged up a few more rhyming
slain
and
pain.
The fact that I was apparently immortal was no consolation whatsoever.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be my own uncertainty that brought Gideon back to his normal self. “Are we going through with it?” He leaned forward and dropped a little kiss on my nose. “Do you
mean that seriously?” He stripped off his jacket and took the loot we’d lifted from Dr. White’s room out of the backpack. “Okay, here goes.”

First he put an elastic band around his left upper arm and tightened it. Then he removed a syringe from its sterile plastic pack and grinned at me. “Nurse?” he said in commanding tones. “Flashlight!”

I made a face. “That’s one way to do it, of course,”
I replied, shining the beam of the flashlight on the inside of his elbow. “Typical medical student!”

“Do I hear a touch of scorn in your voice?” Gideon cast me an amused glance. “How did
you
do it, then?”

“With a Japanese vegetable knife!” I said, a little boastfully. “And Grandpa caught the blood in a teacup.”

“Ah, I see. That cut on your forearm.” All of a sudden, he didn’t sound amused at
all. He plunged the needle of the syringe into his skin, and blood began flowing into the cannula at the other end of it.

“Are you sure you know exactly what you have to do?” I asked, jerking my chin at the chronograph. “That thing has so many different flaps and little compartments, you could easily turn the wrong cogwheel—”

“Chronograph Studies is one of the exams you have to pass to become
an adept, and I did all that ages ago.” Gideon handed me the syringe with the blood in it and undid the elastic band on his arm.

“Makes me wonder how you had any leisure time left to watch masterpieces of the silver screen like
Tinker Bell.
”

Gideon shook his head. “A little more respect would do no harm. Give me that cannula. Now, turn the flashlight on the chronograph. Yes, that’s it.”

“And
the occasional please and thank you would do no harm either,” I remarked, while Gideon began dripping his blood into the chronograph. Unlike Lucas, he did it with hands that didn’t shake in the least. Maybe he’d make a good surgeon someday.

I was biting my lower lip in excitement.

“Three drops here, under the head of the lion,” Gideon murmured, concentrating hard. “Then to turn this cogwheel
and switch the lever over. There we are.” He lowered the cannula, and I switched off the flashlight in a reflex action.

Several little wheels began going around inside the chronograph, clicking, clattering, and humming, just like last time. Then the clattering grew louder and the volume of the humming rose. It sounded almost like a tune. A wave of heat hit us in the face, and I clung to Gideon’s
arm, as if the next thing would be a gust of wind strong enough to blow us off the roof. But instead, the jewels in the chronograph lit up, one by one, there was a flickering all around it, and if it had seemed like a fire was blazing inside the chronograph at first, now the air was suddenly icy cold. The flickering light went out, and the cogwheels stopped turning. The whole thing had taken less
than half a minute.

I let go of Gideon and rubbed my arm. All the little hairs on it were standing on end. “Is that all?”

Gideon took a deep breath and raised his hand. This time it
was
shaking slightly. “We’re about to find out,” he said.

I took one of Dr. White’s little laboratory flasks from my pocket and handed it to him. “Go carefully. If it’s a powder, a breeze could simply blow it away.”

“That might not be such a bad thing,” murmured Gideon. He turned to me. His eyes were shining. “You see?
Under the sign of the twelvefold star, all sickness and ills will flee afar.
We’ll see about that.”

The hell with the twelvefold star. I’d rather rely on my flashlight.

“Go on,” I said impatiently, leaning forward, and then Gideon pulled out a tiny drawer in the chronograph.

I’ll admit I
was disappointed. After all that mysterious carrying on, blah-blah-blah about secrets, it was kind of an anticlimax. The little drawer contained neither a liquid, Lesley’s best guess (“Sure to be red as blood,” she had said, wide-eyed), nor a powder, nor a stone of any kind.

All it held was a substance that looked like salt. Although particularly beautiful salt, if you looked more closely—tiny,
opalescent little crystals.

“Crazy,” I whispered. “I don’t believe it! All that trouble and expense over the centuries, just for these few crumbs of whatever it is.”

Gideon held his hand protectively over the drawer. “Let’s hope no one finds out that these crumbs of whatever it is are in our hands now,” he said rather breathlessly.

I nodded. Again, apart from the people who already did know.
I took the cork out of the flask. “Hurry up, then!” I whispered. I suddenly had a vision of Lady Arista, who as far as I knew was afraid of no one and nothing, certainly not of heights, coming up through the hatch to snatch the little flask away from us.

Gideon seemed to be thinking something similar, because he tipped the crumbs into the flask without any ceremony at all and put the cork back
in. Only when it was safely stowed away in his jacket pocket did he breathe freely again.

But at that moment another idea occurred to me. “Now that the chronograph has done what it’s supposed to do, maybe it won’t work anymore for time travel,” I said.

“We’re about to find that out too,” replied Gideon, smiling at me. “Off we go to the year 1912.”

THIRTEEN

“
OH, SHIT,
I think I sat on that damned hat,” Gideon whispered beside me.

“Stop swearing, or the roof will fall in on us!” I hissed. “And if you don’t put zat ’at on, I’m telling tales of you to Madame Rossini!”

Xemerius cackled with laughter. He’d come along this far for the ride today. “The hat won’t save him. With that hairstyle, everyone in 1912 will take him for a roughneck.
He might at least have given himself a proper side parting.”

I heard Gideon swearing quietly again, this time because he’d obviously knocked his elbow on something. It wasn’t all that easy to undress and get dressed again in a confessional, and I was pretty sure that it was also sacrilege to use one as a changing room. Quite apart from the fact that it was certainly also a secular offense to
break into a church, even if you didn’t want to steal anything but just planned to use it as a launchpad for a quick trip to the year 1912. Gideon had unlocked the side door with a metal hook so fast that I didn’t have time to feel nervous.

“Wow!” Xemerius had whistled appreciatively through his teeth. “He ought to teach you that trick. The two of you would make an unbeatable team of burglars.
Immortally good, even.”

We were back in the church where Xemerius and I had first met, and Gideon had first kissed me. Although there was no time to indulge in nostalgia, I felt as if all these events dated from long, long ago, particularly when I thought how much had happened since then. In reality, it was only a few days since that first occasion.

Gideon knocked on the door of the confessional
from outside. “Ready?”

“No. Unfortunately they hadn’t invented zip fasteners in time for this dress,” I said despairingly. Even with the most daring contortions, I couldn’t reach all the little buttons down the back.

I slipped out of the confessional. Would my heart ever stop beating faster at the sight of Gideon? Would a time ever come when I didn’t feel I was dazzled by something incredibly
wonderful every time I set eyes on him? Probably not. Although this time he was wearing an unspectacular dark gray suit, with a vest and a white shirt under the jacket. But it suited him so well, with his broad …

Xemerius, dangling head down from the gallery of the church, cleared his throat. “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare…?”

“Very nice,” I said quickly.
“Kind of a timeless Mafia boss outfit. And the tie perfectly tied. Madame Rossini would be proud of you.” Sighing, I went back to my buttons. “The inventor of the zip fastener ought to have been made a saint long ago.”

Gideon grinned. “Turn around and let me do it,” he said. “Oh,” he added a moment later, “there are hundreds of them.”

It took him some time to do up all the little buttons, which
may have been because he kissed the back of my neck at every other button. I’d certainly have enjoyed that far more if Xemerius hadn’t called out, “Kissy, kissy, kissy!” every time.

At last we were through. Madame Rossini had found me a high-necked pale gray dress with a lace collar. It was slightly too long, so that I kept stumbling over it, and I’d have fallen full length if Gideon hadn’t caught
me.

“Next time
I’m
wearing the suit,” I said. Gideon laughed and looked as if he was going to kiss me, but Xemerius groaned, “Oh, no, not again!” and I pushed him gently away.

“We don’t have time,” I said.
Also there’s a bat-winged creature hanging six feet overhead making horrible faces.
I looked crossly up at Xemerius.

“What’s the matter?” asked Xemerius. “I thought this was an important
mission, not a date. You ought to be grateful to me.”

“Oh, thanks!” I grunted.

Meanwhile Gideon had gone into the choir of the church, and was kneeling down in front of the chronograph. After much thought, we had put it under the altar. Hopefully, no one would find it there while we were gone. Unless the church had a cleaning lady who worked Saturday evenings.

“I’ll hold the fort,” Xemerius
promised. “If anyone comes to steal that thing, I’ll show no mercy. I’ll … I’ll spit torrents of water over them!”

Gideon took my hand. “Ready, Gwenny?”

I looked him straight in the eyes, and my heart did a little jump. “Ready when you are,” I said softly.

Xemerius probably said something caustic about that, but I didn’t hear it, because the needle was already pricking my finger, and waves
of ruby-red light carried me away.

A moment later, I stood up. The church was empty and just as quiet as in our own time. I half hoped and half feared to see Xemerius in the gallery. He’d already been haunting this place in 1912.

Then Gideon landed beside me and immediately took my hand again. “Come on, we must hurry! We only have two hours, and I bet that won’t be time for even one-tenth of
our questions.”

“Suppose we don’t find Lucy and Paul at Lady Tilney’s house?” I said, and my teeth began chattering with alarm. I still couldn’t bring myself to think of them as my parents. And if the conversation with Mum had been bad enough, what would it be like to face them—a couple of perfect strangers?

When we left the church, torrents of rain were pouring down. “Oh, great,” I said, and
suddenly I’d have given anything for one of Madame Rossini’s impossible hats. “Couldn’t you have looked up the weather forecast before we left?”

“Oh, come on, it’s only a light summer shower,” said Gideon, pulling me on. But by the time we reached Eaton Place, the light summer shower had drenched us. You could say we attracted a lot of attention, because everyone else who was out and about had
an umbrella and looked at us pityingly.