Trapped

“Until she crashes, yeah. She might survive the crash; we don’t know. Hasn’t happened yet. But generally airplane crashes don’t leave many survivors.”

“You have Amelia Earhart alive and you’re casually speculating on whether she will survive a crash? Atticus, we have to save her!”

“How? Think about the problem. Once you enter that timestream, you’ll be moving as slowly as she is. You can’t prevent the crash. No one can.”

“But that’s horrible! Prolonging the moment of her death—”

“For her, nothing is prolonged. It’s still the last few seconds before she crashes.”

Granuaile clenched and unclenched her fist several times before she spoke again. “Gah! What’s the point, then? Why is she here? Do the Fae enjoy watching people die in slow motion?”

“No, that’s not it at all,” I said, puzzled that she didn’t see the miracle here. “She’s inspirational, Granuaile. A strong, brave woman like Amelia—well, the world could use a few million more of her.”

Granuaile paused to consider, an angry set to her jaw at first, but after a moment it relaxed into regret and she shed a tear for Amelia. She wiped it away impatiently. “So is that what you have up and down this river? Bits and pieces of history?”

“That’s exactly it. Some of it is accidental—lots of those missing ships from the Bermuda Triangle wind up here—and some of it is purposeful, like Amelia. Here we preserve what otherwise would have disappeared forever.”

“Have you preserved anything here?”

“No, too dangerous for me to keep coming back here when Aenghus Óg was around. Too tricky to retrieve things anyway.”

She frowned. “I thought you said you couldn’t retrieve things. Don’t you slow down when you try to access them?”

“Think of those arcade games you see in restaurants and grocery stores, where a hook comes down and epically fails to snatch the plushie. They use hooks on really long staffs. As long as the majority of the staff remains in this timestream, it won’t slow down. It just moves superfast in the slow stream, which means you need to be careful about touching objects—they’re easily breakable. And that illustrates the point about why we can’t save Amelia: If we tried to yank her out of her plane, we’d break her neck or snap her spine.”

“Okay. I think I’ve seen enough. Can we go?” Her words were clipped, annoyed.

This hadn’t gone the way I’d imagined. When I was first shown the Time Islands by my archdruid, I’d been filled with wonder. So had all my previous apprentices. Granuaile, however, had become upset. Occasionally this happened: Modern values and the ancient ones I grew up with were radically different, and sometimes I misjudged rather badly what was cool and what was repulsive.

“Sure,” I said, walking over to the nearest tree. We needed to talk about this, but there was no need to do it in front of the many faeries in the canopy, who no doubt were eavesdropping on our conversation. Not wanting to take Lord Grundlebeard at his word, I placed my hand on the trunk and attempted to find the tether to one of my favorite spots in Gaul—or, rather, France. It wasn’t there. Nor were any other of my accustomed destinations in Europe. Resigned, I searched all available points to which we could shift and chose a tree in the eastern foothills of Mount Olympus. I pulled us through to that spot and half-crouched, listening and scanning the area, expecting trouble. When nothing like trouble presented itself, I straightened and enjoyed the view below us.

“Well, here we are,” I said, gazing down at a town of seven thousand souls, orange-tiled roofs, and white buildings in a cushion of green; beyond it, the blue flag of Poseidon’s sea stretched to the horizon, where it met a lighter sky. We were underneath the canopy of a pine; most of the trees here were pine, cedar, or fir. Olympus loomed behind us, and the path to the summit was visible nearby.

“Where is here?” Granuaile asked.

<And is it dinnertime?>

“That is Litochoro, Greece. ‘City of the Gods,’ if you want to buy the tourist name. Lots of people come through here. We need to find a place off the beaten path where we can safely get to work on your binding. When we need supplies, we’ll come down to this town to get them.”

“All right,” Granuaile said. “Lead the way.”

I led the way, picking a careful path between trees and staying on the south side of the trail. I was heading for the course of a natural wash in the foothills; there would be some runoff there for water and plenty of deadwood for fuel. Oberon kept pace beside me instead of zipping off through the forest to sniff that tree or mark that bush.

<Atticus?> Oberon said.

Yeah?

<I consider myself a fairly discerning student of human intonation, and, as such, I feel it is my duty to inform you that Granuaile sounds unhappy.>

I know she is, buddy. I’m not sure why, but I’m going to find out tonight once we make camp. Now is not the time to press her. She might not know precisely why. The hike will give her time to mull things over.

<You are wise.>

Not really. A wise man wouldn’t have irritated her in the first place. Do us a favor?

<Sure.>

Scout ahead a little bit, but not too far—make sure you can hear us. We’re looking for a good place to make camp, but it has to have little to no evidence of human traffic, and we need a thornbush.

<Aren’t the good places to camp usually the ones without thornbushes?>

Usually. This is a special case, however.

<Okay. You’re the one with the snacks, I guess.> Oberon trotted ahead, his nose low to the ground, searching for spoor. Granuaile and I hiked behind him in silence, keeping our meager human senses alert for any sign that we might not be bushwhacking alone.

Normally I am not the sort to indiscriminately whack bushes. The undergrowth grew thicker, however, as we climbed the slope and strayed ever farther from the path, until there was no space between the brambles. We had to push our way through what turned out to be rather thorny bushes indeed. I could almost feel Granuaile’s mood worsening behind me as scratches appeared on our arms, and occasional punctures through our jeans made us curse. My own mood was beginning to sour as well.

“Can’t you ask the earth to clear a path for us through this stuff?” Granuaile finally asked.

“I could,” I admitted, “but that sort of thing might draw the wrong kind of attention here.”

“Whose attention?”

“The Olympians. Both sets. We’re in their territory now, and it’s not just them we need to worry about—it’s all those nymphs and dryads and the entire mythological zoo that the Greeks dreamed up and the Romans ripped off. If I take off my sandals and start drawing on the elemental here, it’s a fair bet the Greco–Romans will be tipped off that someone’s using magic in their backyard. I haven’t completely given up on my paranoia yet. I want us stationary and isolated if possible before I take any risks.”

The two of us silently fumed as we waded and picked our way through a sea of uncomfortable thorns and woody branches. After a half hour of this, Oberon’s voice in my head was a welcome relief.

<Hey, Atticus. Look up. See that vulture?>

A broad black wingspan sailed overhead, moving from my right to left, angling toward a steep hillside.

I see it.

<Watch where it goes.>

Normally, vultures alight in trees or they alight on the ground next to something dead; they are not cave dwellers. But this vulture sailed right into a sizable cave entrance up on the hillside, and I could plainly see that there were thornbushes nearby.

How’d you spot this?

<I saw him fly out earlier. At first I thought it was a bat, because that’s what flies out of caves, but he’s weird. He circled around once and went right back in. So there you go. Kind of high up, but it’s a cave.>

Yeah. And probably up for grabs too. Either that’s a nest or there’s something dead in there. We