Time Guy Has A Name
Milo
The kitchen door swings open, and Rowan’s silhouetted form stalls on the threshold as he takes in my… preparations.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him since we got back.
After what almost happened between us, and then with Guardian’s phone call, the moment we returned he thoroughly checked the perimeter and then disappeared into the kitchen to cook dinner.
Clearly, he needed some alone time, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate me bugging him.
Besides, I’d had my own work to attend to.
Work that’s now scattered all over the living room floor, and is likely why he’s still hovering in the doorway with a plate in each hand—because he can’t find carpet to step on to make it to the table.
I cringe. “Sorry! I can tidy this… Let me just…”
Unfolding my legs, I push up from where I’m wedged on the floor between the seat cushions from the sofa.
Dusting off my jeans, I tiptoe between the crystals positioned at carefully selected intervals.
Probably, my internal debate about their exact location took the longest of all the preparations I’ve been so hyperfocused on.
It’s what I’d needed the sofa cushions for—to help prop up my wobbly Cairngorm Quartz.
When I last cast the temporal spell, I’d laid her down, but I’m trying to be good this time, trying to do things properly, and all the teachers at the Academy were so strict about crystals standing, so… she’s standing.
Proud, I look down at it and smile. The central timekeeper will work better than before because my anchor and I can sit on the sofa cushions either side, and the crystal will be secure between us. Then the other six time-link crystals will surround us to increase the spell’s potency.
It hasn’t all been entirely by the book, though, because I couldn’t find anywhere that clearly described what grid shape is best for communicating with someone lost in time, so I had to get a little creative.
However, they are all at least set out well ahead of casting, which means their energy flow is priming—something I’d been too impulsive to account for last time.
I still need thyme and salt too, but hadn’t wanted to disturb Rowan in the kitchen. And there’d been plenty of other things to get on with, like finding a screwdriver so I could…
“Why’s the bathroom mirror not… on the bathroom wall?”
Reaching to take my plate, I aim my best and most disarming smile Rowan’s way.
“Interesting witch fact,” I begin, leading him through the maze of magical paraphernalia on the floor and over to the table. “Did you know that concave mirrors are specifically recommended for more focused scrying because they act as a portal without the pesky problem of reflections?”
I drag my bag from off the small breakfast table and onto the floor with a thud, then set down my dinner.
Rowan takes the other seat.
“Interesting werewolf fact: did ye know that wolves—especially alpha ones—are often hairier than average?”
Sitting, I pick up my fork, and shake my head—no.
“Which means we need to shave daily if we don’t want to resemble a rogue wolf.
” Rowan picks up his fork and uses it to point at the mirror that’s precariously balanced on the arm of the sofa, where it waits for the salt to help cleanse it.
“And concave mirrors are the best at guaranteeing a close shave.”
Something in the way his intense eyes bore into me as he presses his point forces mine lower, to the steaming bowl of handmade pasta set before me. Is he… upset with me for taking the mirror?
It’s not broken, and I’ll put it back. Besides, all the bathrooms have one, so it’s not like he can’t shave.
And anyway, he has a beard, so he doesn’t need the mirror for magnifying properties.
And anyway anyway, he’s a werewolf. He could probably precision-shave his name into something from ten paces.
I twirl my fork until it’s loaded with spaghetti, then shove it in my mouth so I don’t say any of that out loud. It’s far too hot. And it’s still too hot when I swallow it. But my eyes roll back in their sockets at how good it tastes, and I moan out loud.
Through a half-chewed mouthful, I mutter, “What magic do you do in there to make food taste so good?”
Rowan smirks, twirling his own forkful of spaghetti. “Ye like this?”
I’m already on my second mouthful when I answer. “Mhm.”
“The sauce has a blend of wild boar and venison from my family’s estate. I always keep a small, frozen stock for… reasons.” Rowan refocuses on his food, but I hear what he leaves unsaid.
His family are scattered around Europe, there’s a threat to his Bloodline, and Guardian’s transferring out right when he needs him the most. Rowan’s reasons for wanting to use a homemade meat sauce today, of all days, are pretty obvious—he needs to re-establish a connection to his pack somehow.
But as much as I empathise, I also don’t know what to say. I want to reach out and hold his hand, offer that support through physical touch, but after earlier… I’m not sure that my touch would be welcome. So I nod and shove another forkful of rich game pasta into my mouth instead.
And Rowan does the same.
So I twirl another forkful.
And so does he.
And all that can be heard is the gentle clinking of cutlery while we eat in silence.
Until his phone buzzes from inside his pocket with an alert for an incoming message.
Resting his fork on the lip of the dish, he reads it, then stands to fetch his laptop.
Wordlessly, he sets it up on the table so we can both see the screen, and I have this uncomfortable pang of sadness in my stomach over the loss of our easy camaraderie.
I push it down with another full and flavoursome mouthful of spaghetti.
Rowan clicks on a few things, and then a presentation runs full-screen while we each finish our dinner.
Between us, image after image of all the employees at the Office of Time—not just the heads of departments—scroll past. There must be hundreds of them, and yet I’d never heard of it until Time Guy burst into my room a couple of days ago.
Slide after slide whizzes by, and all the employees’ facial features blur into one. Two eyes start to resemble one long eye, which is kind of funny. But then… wait. Are cyclops real? Do they work at the Office of Time?
The image of a cyclops in a suit with a briefcase makes me snort a laugh, and Rowan arches an eyebrow.
I straighten in my seat because some voice at the back of my head says it helps with concentration, but honestly, I blame Rowan, because I don’t know anyone who could pay attention to this task after eating a massive bowl of carbs.
Then… there! Time Guy.
Of the two red-haired men I’ve met recently, this is the one I never want to see again. Although Time Guy’s hair is less ginger and more of a dull red-brown. Lifeless. Not like the vibrancy of…
Rowan pauses the slide show and clicks the image to follow a series of on-screen prompts.
“Janus,” he says in a sneer. “Yer Time Guy has a name.”
“A stupid one…” I mumble.
Rowan nods in agreement as he texts on his phone. “Janus is the head of the department of Transitions—”
“Transitions, as in how the fabric of time folds in on itself?”
He thinks for a moment, then that tightness around his eyes softens just a little. “Aye, just like that, I reckon.”
His phone buzzes. “The Dogs don’t have a current location on Janus. His photo was provided by his PA—an old acquaintance of Guardian’s papa.”
Another silence stretches between us while Rowan types back.
“So, he could be here with us… or there with them?” At my question, his hazel eyes lighten to a brighter gold, and instantly I realise the mistake of voicing that out loud. Stupid, stupid, Milo. Inside thought.
“I’ve just given Operation Tempo the go-ahead to raid his office.
As a favour to Guardian, Ms Anna—Janus’s PA—will leave their office door unlocked.
Bear and Delilah are on point.” The muscle in Ranger’s neck tics.
“It’s oh two hundred there. They have until zero six hundred to locate anything that gives intel on the Luna del Lupo, General Romulus and his brother Remus, yer Lost Colony, or any other evidence of corruption. ”
I check the time on my phone. It’s a little after 8:00 p.m. here, so that means that…
I count on my fingers… Bear and Delilah will be done long before the witching hour.
If I wait until 3:00 a.m. to do this spell cast, which had been my original plan, then not only might Janus learn that his office has been raided and come here to stop me from using the Luna del Lupo to protect the General and his Bloodline, but I might miss my shot at helping Sarah and the Colonists.
“I think we should do my spell now,” I blurt, standing from the table so fast the chair almost topples over.
Rowan tenses but remains otherwise motionless. Taking advantage, I swoop up my empty dish and pick my way back between crystals and cushions to the kitchen.
Depositing the dish in the sink, I head to the pantry to start my search for salt and thyme. Unlike the paltry grocery offerings in my apartment, I’m confident that Rowan will have both… somewhere.
Rowan’s dish clatters when it joins mine in the sink.
Aha! Thyme. And now I remember the salt lives on the counter by the stove.
Herbs in hand, I exit the pantry and turn to find the pensive werewolf leaning exactly where he’d been at lunch when I’d made him that tuna wrap. How can that have been only a few hours ago? Feels like so much longer.
“This spell, how dangerous is it?” That Scottish brogue trickles down my spine.
Wanting to desperately distract myself from how much the alpha in him affects me, I aim for levity.
“Well,” I start, opening a low drawer to find a bowl big enough to submerge my purloined mirror in. “I’m not at the truly dangerous part yet.”
The rumbling growl from Rowan’s wolf is hard to ignore, but still, I manage to free a roasting dish from under the skillet that was used to cook last night’s dinner.
“This spell is more like…” I nudge Rowan sideways so I can half fill the tray with warm water from the tap. “More like a phone call—with a witch lost in time.”
Careful not to spill any, I set the tray on the counter and grind in some salt. Impatience builds at how little salt actually comes out, and I release a growl of my own.
I shake and twist the stupid thing harder.
Rowan takes it from me. “Tell me when.”
Smiling awkwardly at how cool and collected he always is—and how not cool and collected I am—I fix my gaze on his hands.
“I’m hoping that, along with information on the enchantment, Sarah might team up with me. With her on the inside and me on the outside, if we time it just right, we could force the fold in the fabric of time open.”
Rowan stops grinding the salt.
“Oh, ooops. When.”
I plunge my finger into the warm water to swirl it about for a couple of seconds, then yank it out…
“Hot, hot, hot,” I chant, and suck it into my mouth.
“And if it goes wrong?” persists Rowan.
I hold up my cut and burned finger to indicate that I’ll be right back, then dart out of the room to retrieve the mirror from the arm of the sofa. “If it goes wrong, then instead of a phone call it would be more like dropping by for an unannounced visit. Permanently.”
I drop the mirror in the tray of salted water with a splash, and purposefully ignore the death glare I can feel boring into the side of my skull from the alpha wolf beside me.
“Clean, clean, clean. Thinking cleansing thoughts. So clean. And shiny. And not at all full of trapped energy. All the energy is back where it belongs. Clean, clean, clean.”
I hover my eager pinching fingers above the mirror, readying to dive in and retrieve it from the boiling depths, but Rowan reaches in to smoothly lift it out instead.
“I’m not sure that’s how intentions work.”
“Which one of us is the witch, hmm?” I cock my brow and take the mirror.
“That’s not even the same mirror,” he says, pointing to the one that I’m now wiping dry on my shirt—well, Rowan’s shirt.
I shrug. “They’re all connected.”
Gathering the mirror, salt, and thyme in my arms, I head back to the living room.
“But you could help make it safer, if you wanted?” I toss over my shoulder as he follows.
I take a moment to position the mirror so the hairbrush is in the centre of its focus, and then turn the salt shaker this way and that way looking for how it unscrews.
Once again, Rowan takes it from me, removes the lid, and hands it back. “How do I do that?”
A little at a time, I pour what’s probably the thinnest pentagram ever so that the tiny amount of salt in the shaker spreads far enough to complete—I won’t be making that mistake again. “According to Ray…”
Another low growl from the werewolf cuts me off. Surely he’s not jealous? Of Ray? Because if he was, that would mean that underneath it all, Rowan cares. I suck the inside of my bottom lip between my teeth.
No, it’s not that. More likely it’s because I’m pouring his cooking salt all over the floor.
“According to Ray…” I try again. “I need an anchor. Someone I have a strong connection with to help me find my way back.”
When the pentagram completes, I hand the mostly empty shaker back to Rowan, who dips his head to catch my eye. “I mean, what do I need to do? If it helps keep ye safe, Milo, I don’t care what it’s called—I’ll do it.”
I pause, unable to fight the blush that heats my cheeks. With my head still lowered, I nod, and point to the seat cushions on the floor. “You’ll sit on that one, and I’ll sit on this one.”
Rowan sets aside the shaker and dutifully folds his large body onto the cushion without disturbing the balanced Cairngorm Quartz.
With much mental effort to keep my intentions focused on the spell cast, I tear off the thyme leaves and sprinkle them over the salt lines. Then I take my seat opposite Rowan.
Except… “Oh.”
“What?”
“We need to touch somehow, but that crystal has to stay between us, and I might need my hands—”
“Pass me yer legs.”
“Huh?”
“Yer legs, Milo. Put one here.” He pats his right thigh, up by his groin. “And the other here.” He pats his left thigh.
Oh. Yeah. Sure. I can totally do that. It’s not at all like if I was to just scoot forward a little bit that I’d be sitting directly in Rowan’s lap.
Awkwardly, and almost knocking over the quartz—twice—I manage to get my feet to cradle his hips.
“Thank god for long legs,” I mumble.
“What did ye say?” He brings his large, warm hands to rest on my shins.
“I need to clear my head.”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve got ye, Pup.”
With more focus than I’ve ever given anything in my entire life, I try my best to centre my breathing, but his proximity is throwing me off.
I close my eyes and repeat a simple mantra in my mind. “I am breathing in. I am breathing out.”
Gradually, I stop noticing the hands on my legs, and instead become aware of the cool sea breeze on my skin.
Someone calls my name.
“Master Milo Tobitt…” Sarah curtsies low and holds her skirt out wide. “You made it back.”