Page 93 of Discovered Magic
“Okay, so how do we handle this?” Ebba asked. “Laszlo and I have been back to the mountain with Quentin and have found no trace.”
“How long has it been?”
“Two months.”
Two months? Impossible! In his newly formed memories of the events, they’d only been there a week at most.
“Time is unfolding there and in here”—he tapped his forehead—“simultaneously. I know what has happened, but not what will.” And wasn’t it frustrating as hell?
Alastair handed off a tumbler. “Which means Alex and Wilder sought you out at some point. What can you tell us?”
Damian sipped his scotch to buy a moment and reorganize his thoughts. This had happened previously when the timeline was changed to save Ebba. The new memories disconcerted him, and he always had to backtrack to make sure what he remembered of the past had happened correctly. If the smallest thing were to change, it could mean vanquished enemies were still a threat.
“Abbie opened a portal to 1875. On the other side of the jump, she encountered a band of half-rate outlaws and a Native American Guide.”
“A guide, as in someone hired, or a Guide, as in a spirit walker?” Alastair asked, frowning slightly as if needing to sort it out for the story.
“Wait,” Ebba commanded. Turning to Laszlo, she asked, “Isn’t that technically what you are?”
“Yes and no. You could say I was until I became a Reaper.”
“But Stands-in-Shadow also had Seer abilities,” Damian explained. He gave them all a sardonic look. “May I continue?”
“Yes, Papa. Please do. This is so interesting. Don’t you find it interesting, Ronan?”
Sabrina was perched on the dining room table with her hands folded in her lap and her legs swinging to a rhythm only she heard.
“Aye,” Ronan agreed, but there was laughter in his voice.
It took everything Damian had not to roll his eyes. Thank goodness for centuries of control.
“Abbie and Shadow climbed the canyon to escape,” he said. “They were both wounded, however, and she fell. Draven Masters and Jonas Thorne arrived in time to save her.”
“Oh!” Hand in the air, Sabrina squirmed.
“What is it, Beastie? What can’t wait?”
“Draven. He’s like you, Papa. His new memories are forming right now, too.”
“Bloody hell, you’re right.” He glanced at Ronan. “We should call and loop him in.”
“Sure, and I’m on it.”
“If they saved her, why not send her back?” Ebba asked, sliding a fruit-and-cheese platter onto the table and lifting Sabrina down with a bop to the nose.
They all gathered round for the rest of the tale.
“Abbie’s memory was damaged in the fall, and though Nate?—”
“Grandpa Nate was there?” his daughter squealed in delight.
“Sabrina Dethridge, if you don’t let me get through the telling of this story?—”
The air around them grew thick, and a light flared in Ebba’s bedroom seconds before Draven and Ronan strolled out. Masters looked like a bear with a sore thumb.
“Et tu, Dethridge?”
“Yes,” Damian replied with a rueful grin. “I was about to tell them of Nate and Evie’s involvement.”
