Chapter 22
Tilly couldn’t stop shaking. Or crying. They were tears of joy of course, but she could also see in her daughter’s eyes that she’d been through something harrowing. She led her into the breakfast room where she had watched the boys eat. She hadn’t had an appetite in what felt like ages. She gently pushed Ariana into a chair and began making her a plate, trembling so much that bits of sausage fell onto the floor.
“Really, Mum, I couldn’t eat a thing just yet. Please sit down.”
Tilly dropped the plate with a clatter and hurried to sit beside Ariana, pulling her chair close enough to grab her hand. She didn’t know when she’d be able to let go again.
“Are you all right? Really all right? Where were you all this time?” She realized she must have looked like she was gearing up to deliver another slap and softened her features.
“It’s a long story,” Ariana sighed. “And confusing even to me in parts. I’d really rather only tell it once. And Owen needs to tell his part as well.”
“Oh, bloody hell, where is your father?” After a firm squeeze, she dropped Ariana’s hand and ran to the hallway. She found she couldn’t leave her child, not even for a moment. She was frozen in the doorway and finally let out an unladylike bellow toward the stairs. “Julian! She’s back. Hurry and come down.”
Kostya peeped his head out from the library down the hall and his eyes widened when he saw her. She shrugged, not having time for niceties at a moment like this. “Run and fetch him then, if you don’t want me yelling up and down the halls.”
He said something she couldn’t make out to whoever was in the room, probably Owen. Good, Ariana had said he needed to explain some things and she wanted to properly hug him. Though they’d known roughly where he was all this time, no one could help but worry about him being so far away and on his own. And how had he ended up with Ariana?
She waved eagerly for Kostya to hurry up, still unwilling to let Ariana out of her sight. The look on his face should have been as relieved as she was, but if possible, Kostya looked more worried and haggard than before. Was something wrong with Owen?
Before she could ask, he took her by the arm and motioned for her to go back into the breakfast room. She stood firm.
“Is it Owen? Is he hurt?”
“He’s fine. It’s not Owen.”
Well, this didn’t bode well for her relief at all.
With an impatient grimace, he yelled for Serena, who came out of the library. She looked much happier than Kostya. Her eyes were wet with tears but she smiled widely until she realized her husband wanted to tear her away from the reunion with her son. She might have put him off if she hadn’t seen the same look that had Tilly getting worked into an anxious frenzy again.
“It’s Ashford,” he said when he closed the door behind them.
“Father?” Ariana stood up. “What is it?”
Tilly didn’t expect to hear that something was wrong with Ashford and felt her legs begin to buckle. As if sensing it, Ariana reached for her arm.
“He hasn’t been sleeping. He made himself sick from writing those spells, didn’t he?” Tilly made for the door, pulling Ariana with her. Seeing her safe would perk him right up. She immediately knew it was worse than a self-inflicted illness when Kostya held his hand out to stop her.
“He’s not ill, he’s gone.”
Now Tilly’s knees did give out. Ariana cried out, following her to the floor and throwing her arms around her. “It's my fault, all my fault. Mum, what will we do?”
“Stop,” Kostya said. “Dear God, I suppose I shouldn’t have phrased it so bluntly. The idiot’s gone back in time to—” he stopped and leaned over to give Tilly a hard look while Ariana had her head buried in her shoulder. He mimed a throat slashing gesture.
Tilly caught her breath. The relief that he was alive was quickly swallowed whole. “You must be joking,” she said, standing up and dragging Ariana with her. “Your father’s alive, darling. At least until I find him.”
Ariana pieced together what Kostya said before stopping himself so she wouldn’t hear and wiped her face. The poor girl looked as if she’d run three marathons and then been tossed in a raging river. “Did you say he went back in time? But that’s not when I was. I was going forward all this time.”
Tilly sucked in her breath. No matter what they’d done, Ariana had still ended up in the future. Before she could spiral out of control, she concentrated on the fact that Riri was right in front of her, safe and sound if not a little haggard. She’d promised she wouldn’t run away again. But now her husband had run away. She was starting to feel put upon.
“What’s going on?” Serena interrupted. “You don’t mean to say Ashford’s trying to time travel again? It nearly killed him the last time.”
It was Ariana’s turn to gasp. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a spell he made up himself. His sister was the talented one in the family, at least at writing new hexes. He couldn’t get any of the known spells to work so he had to piece one together. And yes, it nearly killed him.” Kostya gave Ariana a stern look, which in that instance Tilly thought she deserved more.
“He did it to come after me,” she admitted. “It’s a long story.” She took a deep breath, trying to think of where to start.
“Cousin Dexter told me all of it,” Ariana said.
“You saw Dex? You went to that future?”
“That was one of them,” she replied sheepishly.
Tilly let it go. Finding Ashford before
