There were three shapes on the floor of the cell, huddled together at the far end. One of them was on his feet, pacing like a caged wolf.
Moab.
He filled the little space with his back and shoulders, stamping tight laps from the bars to the rear wall. The torchlight hit his skull and threw a razor shadow up onto the ceiling, long and desperate. He muttered to himself, half a prayer and half a threat, and when he turned, I saw his eyes were wild. Sweat slicked his scalp and pooled at the line of his jaw.
He looked at me. “Fuck, you’re awake.”
“Lucky me,” I managed, and found my voice was two sizes too small for my own throat. “Where are we?”
He spread his arms and let the answer speak for itself. “Wherever it is, we’re not leaving.”
I pushed myself upright. My head spun, and my stomach lurched, but I made it to my feet on the second try. My jacket was gone, and so were my boots. The chill of the flagstones went straight up the bones of my legs. I glanced at my forearms. The shamrock tattoo was still there, but the skin beneath it had gone a deadman’s gray.
I shuffled to the bars, grabbed hold, and pressed my face to the chill. The hall outside was more dark than not. Every twelve feet, another cell, another torch. I heard voices—whispers, sobs, the rattle of chains on stone. Farther away, a scream, sharp enough to flinch the torchlight.
Moab resumed his pacing, every turn scraping his boot soles like a warning shot. He was hunched, chest tight, jaw grinding so hard I could almost hear his teeth.
Across the cell, Scarlette sat with her knees pulled to her chest, back braced against the damp wall. Her hair was a mat of tangled flame, plastered to her cheek. She looked pissed, which was Scarlette’s default, but there was a coil of fear running through it now—her eyes didn’t settle on anything for more than a second, always flicking to the door, the torch, the ceiling.
Mama Celeste was next to her, skirts spread on the slime like a Sunday picnic in hell. She didn’t look dead, exactly, but her face had gone slack and chalky, and her hands were folded gently in her lap. Eyes closed, she seemed to be counting her breath, in and out. No sign of a pulse, but then again, I’d seen her weirder.
I forced my legs to work, crossed to Scarlette, and crouched low. “You alright?”
She glared. “Do I look alright?”
I shrugged. “You look like hell, but I’m not judging.”
She started to laugh, but it came out as a snarl. “The magic trick got us all locked in the fuckin’ dungeon, Toolie. Congrats.”
Moab spun on his heel. “We’re not in the future anymore. That’s for goddamn sure.” He bared his teeth at the wall, then started pacing again.
I wanted to say something to settle him, but I couldn’t remember what brotherhood sounded like.
Instead, I sat next to Scarlette and tried to breathe through my nose, which only made things worse. The stench down here had weight; you could practically bite it.
Scarlette jerked her chin at Celeste. “She’s been out for a while.”
I leaned in, careful not to touch. “You sure she’s breathing?”
She scowled. “She’s breathing. Every time I check, she slaps my hand away.”
As if on cue, Celeste’s eyes flicked open. She took us in, one after the other, and then went right back to ignoring us, face smooth as a still pond. Not a trace of panic.
I cleared my throat. “Mama C. What the fuck happened?”
She smiled, small. “It worked.”
I stared at her, waiting for the punchline.
She rolled her neck, cracked her knuckles. “We made the jump. But time’s a messy old river, boys. Sometimes you don’t land on the bank you expected.”
Moab stalked over, hands flexing open and closed. “You could have told us the landing would be in a fucking oubliette.”
Celeste’s eyes glittered in the torchlight. “It was this, or nothing at all. You want to meet your destiny, sometimes you crawl through the mud to do it.”
Scarlette barked a bitter laugh. “Spare us the fortune cookie bullshit.” She’d adjusted just fine to her own time-travel from months ago. It gave me high hopes for Catherine.
A metallic echo clanged from down the corridor. Voices rose—men, maybe a dozen, speaking English, but not the kind you’d find in a classroom. I recognized some of the curses. Old curses. Irish and English mixed together. The tempo of the night sped up. We all felt it.