Isa shook her head. Sense? Not at all. “Yer from this future Robbie was taken to?” she asked at last, her voice sounding hesitant to her own ears.
“Yes. And even though he knew this might happen, he decided to act as my Guardian to bring me back here because, way back when, he’d promised a dying friend he’d look after this guy’s little girl, but first those guys almost killed him, and then the whole time thing got totally messed up, and now you’re not a little girl anymore. In fact”—she smiled sadly—“you’re his wife now. And he’s...” Her words trailed off and she squeezed Isa’s hand.
Leah’s story boggled her mind. If not for the things she knew to be true, the things she’d experienced in her own life, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Not even the words she could understand.
But she did believe, and knowing the truth of his story made so many things he’d said and done so much easier to understand. Still, honesty deserved honesty.
“I have something I must tell you as well. As yer no his daughter, I am no his wife.” Isa kept her voice low, hoping to control the emotion buffeting her in waves. “No that I wouldna give all that I am to be such. Thinking to secure our release from the man who’d captured us, I spoke my vows to him in front of my clan. I’m no free to be Robbie’s wife. No ever.”
Leah rose up on her knees and put her arms around Isa, hugging her. “Don’t cry, Isabella. You are his wife as far as he’s concerned. That’s all that matters right now.”
All that matters? Hardly. If she understood Leah’s story correctly, the man she loved lay dying before her very eyes and it was as much her fault as anyone’s!
“He came back because of a promise to look after me.” She drew on Leah’s earlier words to help it all make sense.
“Uh-huh,” Leah confirmed, sitting back down on the floor.
“Came back though he knew it might cost his life.”
The girl nodded her agreement to that statement.
“Came back from a future time where he was perfectly healthy.”
“Yes.”
Isa felt as if there was something important just waiting to be plucked from the line of logic she’d followed, but it eluded her. Her tired mind struggled to find the missing piece, and then the pieces snapped together like the foreign puzzle box in her grandfather’s solar.
She tried it one more time.
“If he can travel through time, and he’s no in any danger in the future...” she began, pausing as she considered the implausibility of what she was getting ready to say.
“We should send him back to that future where the Faerie Magic wants him to be.” Margery finished her line of reasoning from the shadows by the door.
“How long have you been standing there?” Isa stood and turned to face Robbie’s mother.
“Long enough to recognize what you say as truth. An excellent plan, my dear. Leah? How do we make it happen?”
Leah had risen to her feet as well, one hand supporting her against the chair. “I’m not one hundred percent sure. I only know that the women who sent us told us we had to think about the place we wanted to be. So I guess you have to think about where you’re going.”
“It takes those of the Faerie blood to invoke the magic.”
Isa jumped at the sound of Robbie’s voice and hurried to his side. One look at the growing red splotch on his bandage and she knew they had little time left.
“I am of Faerie blood. Only tell me what to do, Robbie.” Anything. She’d do anything to save his life.
He held out his hand to her. “Come sit beside me. I’ll tell you about my home and we’ll imagine ourselves there.”
Isa carefully climbed up onto the bed, cursing her clumsiness when she noted the flinch of pain on his face. “Tell me. Help me to see it with you.”
“My home sits in a lovely valley in the mountains. It’s a big ranch, with plenty of room for...” He paused, panting for breath, obviously in pain. “Room for little Jamie and all the children you’ll give me.”
Isa tried to envision his words, but his dream was too much fantasy even for her, despite how much she wanted what he described to come to pass.
“It’s no working. There’s nothing,” she muttered, her frustration and fear growing by the second.
His eyes were closed, as if it took too much effort to hold them open, his face wrinkled as he gritted through the pain. “Cate warned as much. It took three of them to send us.”
“And we’ve only two.” Leah stood at the side of the bed, twisting her fingers together. “Try again, Isa. Keep trying.”