Once Every Never (30 page)

“It will be my punishment,” he murmured. “For serving the queen so blindly in life, my soul will return here after I die to serve her forever in the beyond. For good or ill.”

Clare thought he was being a little harsh on himself, but it wasn’t the time or place to point that out. Besides, it wasn’t as if his spirit was actually tethered to the silver bracelet. It was a gesture, she thought. Nothing more.

He walked over to Clare and held out a hand. “I am finished here and now I will leave this place, Clarinet. Will you come with me? Boudicca’s chiefs will come soon to close up the tomb. They will pile rocks over the entrance and cover it with earth and turf. And, with the help of Llassar’s enchantments, perhaps the Romans will never find it.”

No
, Clare thought.
They never will
.

Connal plucked one of the flaring firebrands from its sconce and led the way out of the chamber, Clare following close behind. He led her down a passageway opposite the one they’d come through, into another, smaller chamber that held the body of Tasca, and then out into the chill black night.

Llassar waited with his same bulky travelling pack slung over his shoulder.

“Hey,” Clare greeted him. “Mr. Smith.”

Llassar blinked at her and then inclined his enormous, leo-nine head. “Lady Clare,” he said. “May the goddess smile upon you.”

“Yeah. You too.”

“Perhaps one day, again. For now, she turns her face from us, I think.”

If Connal was surprised to see that Llassar and Clare knew each other, he didn’t register it. In fact, Clare thought, he’s not really registering much in the emotion department. She worried about him. He seemed shocky or post-traumatic or something. His behaviour in the grave chamber with the bracelet and Boudicca struck her as odd.

Llassar hefted the pack higher on his shoulder and nodded at it, saying to Connal, “I finished it last night. It will keep her safe. After we close up the barrow, we’ll take it to the Great River and offer it to the gods in their domain that they may mark her passage.”

Clare recognized now the contours of the bronze shield she’d seen Llassar holding high above his head in her inaugural shimmering. She remembered how it had been that first sight of Connal, the sound of him saying her name, that made her want to explore this world. It seemed like a thousand years had passed since then. In a sense, she supposed it had. “Is that the grave shield?” She nodded at the pack. “Are you guys going to go throw it in the river?”

Connal and Llassar regarded her with mild surprise.

“Hey, look. I’m guessing you cast one of your magic spells on that thing using
my
blood, didn’t you?”

The two men exchanged a wary glance. Llassar had the good manners to look vaguely guilty about it.

“Right. Well, so, you shouldn’t be surprised that I know about it then. And don’t worry. It worked. The grave remains undisturbed.”

Llassar seemed relieved, not only that the enchantment, according to Clare, had worked, but that she hadn’t wrought some horrible vengeance on him for using her “tylwyth teg” blood in the process.

“Let me ask you something, though.” Clare frowned, puzzling. “When you close up the tomb, are you going leave the torc with the queen? The big gold one she’s wearing now?”

“Yes!” Llassar said in alarm. “The torc
must
stay with her. It is …”

“What?” she said with a sinking feeling. “Cursed?”

He nodded his big, shaggy head. “Aye. It was Boudicca’s doing. Not just enspelled. But cursed. Blood cursed.”

“Damn.” Clare put a hand to her neck, remembering the sight of her blood on the cloth Connal had used to clean the wound.
Stupid scrap of cloth
… “She used my blood in that one, too, didn’t she?”

“And her own,” Llassar said. “It was a dark spell. An evil spell. I counselled her against it but she would not be dissuaded. Her grief had made her mad. That is why I created the grave shield—so that I could bury her vengeance with her where it would never be found.”

Great
, Clare thought.
Nice try
. Except that it
had
been found. In a hole in the ground in Snettisham.

Clare took a deep breath and explained, as simply as she could, that in her world the torc was on the loose. The passage of time really did seem an abstract concept to the Druiddyn, but Llassar and Connal seemed to get the gist of it. As she spoke their confusion turned to alarm.

“Connal,” Llassar rumbled. “This is ill luck. Clare has only ever sought to help us. For Boudicca’s vengeance to be inflicted on her world … it is not just. Not right.”

“You say the barrow remains hidden, Clarinet,” Connal said. “Undisturbed. How do you know that? Unless you yourself have found it there?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Clare shrugged. “Well, Milo was the one who actually found it. And he’s sort of a genius. But like I said, it’s undisturbed and we won’t tell anyone. In fact, we’re actively trying to
keep
it a secret. That’s why I’m here talking to you guys.”

“Who is Milo?” Connal asked.

“He’s … a friend.” Clare blushed and felt ridiculous for it. “He’s been trying to help me through all this. Although I’m still not really sure why. All I’ve done so far is gotten him hit on the head and had a gun pointed at him—”

“The queen’s torc must never be worn again, Lady,” Llassar interrupted. “You must return it to her barrow. It must lie here with her—or it will carry her spirit out into the world and Boudicca will wreak her vengeance anew. I have seen what my queen is capable of.” He looked at Connal. “We both have. It must not happen again.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Clare stared at the smith in disbelief. “Even if I take the torc to the barrow, there’s no way to get it
inside
the grave chamber.”

“Connal might be able to help,” Llassar said quietly, turning to look at the young Druid. “If he is willing.”

“Wait,” Clare said. “What? He can?” She turned to Connal. “You can?”

Connal looked at the sorcerer smith with a question in his red-rimmed eyes.

“Boudicca meant for you to be her spirit warrior,” Llassar said, putting a hand on Connal’s shoulder. “But this Shining One kept that from happening.”

“Oh …” Clare grimaced. “You saw me in the boat too, huh?”

Llassar nodded.

“Um.” Clare dropped her gaze to the ground. “Yeah. Comorra also had a hand in it. We didn’t mean any harm.”

“I know. That is why I never told the queen what I saw that night. If Andrasta had wished it so, Clarinet,” Llassar said, “it would have been so.”

Clare didn’t argue.

“I think the Raven Goddess has had other plans for you all along, Connal.” His gaze shifted to the silver bracelet the Druid prince wore. “I made those cuffs for you at Boudicca’s request, and there is strong magic in them.
Her
magic.” He nodded his bearded chin at Clare. “They were to be your talis-mans, Connal, and through them Andrasta was to give you the gift of walking the spirit ways—just as she opens those ways to Clarinet.”

“Right,” Clare put in, as if she knew Andrasta personally. Llassar and the rest of her Iceni pals seemed to think she and the war goddess did coffee dates in the Otherworld.

“The spirit warrior ritual was never completed,” Llassar continued, speaking directly to Connal. “Your spirit was readied for travel, but it was not released. It is within you still, but it is unbound. Unfettered. It can go forth now … and then return again. And, once in her world, your spirit can guide Clarinet along another way—along the spiral path that is the unseen road leading into the heart of the queen’s barrow.”

Clare knew she was staring at Llassar wide-eyed. But, really? Was it so much of a stretch for a Toronto girl who’d been bouncing back and forth in time for the last few days? She turned to look at Connal. There was a wildness still in his eyes, but he’d taken on a look of rigid determination. He nodded once, curtly. Clare got the uneasy feeling that he was agreeing to what Llassar had proposed only because he had nothing to lose.

“You don’t have to do this,” Clare said.

He shook his head. “Llassar is right. It is Andrasta’s will. I will go with you when you return to your world and I will be your guide.” He slipped the silver cuff off his wrist and held it out to Llassar. Clare remembered how the talisman had sparked and triggered her own magic when she’d touched it. “Make the magic, Llassar.”

“I can,” the Druid smith said. “But I’ll need help.”

“What kind of help?” Clare asked.

Llassar’s gaze met hers and, beneath his beard, his mouth quirked upward in a humourless grin. “How good a friend is this … Milo?”

22

“O
h, sure. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for disaster at
all
,” Al said. And then added, in net-speak, “End sarcasm.” Just in case Clare hadn’t picked up on it.

Llassar had told Clare what needed to happen if his magic was to work in her world. Clare had conveyed the plan, with all its details and dangers, to Al and Milo. Milo fell silent, mulling the idea, while Al frothed over with proclamations of impending doom.

When Connal had placed his silver wrist cuff in Boudicca’s tomb, Clare had assumed it was simply a gesture. Of course, that was before Llassar had enlightened her; otherwise, she never would have guessed that Connal’s disembodied spirit was actually tethered to his accessories—one of which was now sitting on Milo’s coffee table. It looked innocent enough, but Clare had watched Llassar perform the ritual. She had felt the night air crackle with the power the Druid smith called down and had watched as the cuff began to glow with eerie, eldritch light in the moments before Connal slumped to the ground, senseless. And Clare knew that the bracelet she’d carried back with her through time was brimming with Connal’s disembodied spirit—just waiting to be released so that it could play tour guide at Bartlow Hills.

But there was only one way for it to do that.

“Do you have a better idea?” Clare sighed. She shared Al’s concerns.

“No.” Al sat glaring suspiciously at the harmless-looking piece of jewellery. “But I’m
so
not keen on risking the health and well-being of the only guy in London who will drive us places this summer.”

Milo snorted. “Thanks, Allie.”

Al waved a dismissive hand at him. “Plus he’s my cousin and I love him yada yada. This is a
bad
idea. There cannot possibly be any worse ideas than this one.”

“Fine,” Clare snapped. “Okay. I know what we’re gonna do instead.”

“What?”

Clare stood up and pulled on a pair of leather driving gloves that Milo had lent her so that she could handle the silver artifact—and any other shimmer triggers—without risk of coming into contact and setting off a time trip. She put the cuff back in her jacket pocket where Llassar had placed it and turned to Al. “We’re going to take Boudicca’s torc back to the museum, give it to my aunt, and tell her the whole weird-ass story, top to bottom. And then
she’s
going to tell us what the hell to do.”

“Okay,” Al said. “I give up. You win. That is a much,
much
worse idea.”

AL AND MILO
had both honestly thought she’d been joking when Clare had made the suggestion back in Milo’s apartment. Maggie had thought she’d been joking when she’d started to tell her about the last few days.

None of them thought she was joking now.

But the fact that Maggie thought Clare was being serious didn’t exactly mean she was having an easy time wrapping her cerebral faculties around her niece’s story. She had tried breaking it down into its component minutiae and focusing on the details one at a time, but that held its own share of problems.

“Wait just one minute, young lady!” Maggie had squawked abruptly at one point in the telling. She shot out of her desk chair and stalked across the room, closing the door to her office and throwing the bolt lock for good measure. “Clare—do you mean to say you’ve actually
met
Claxton Man?”

“Yes.”

“More like ‘Claxton Hottie,’” Al murmured.

Clare kicked her under the table. Over in the corner, standing beside a shelf groaning with books and what looked like a real human skull, Milo frowned faintly.

“
The
Claxton Man?” Maggie asked again.

“Yes.”

“The
Bog
Man Claxton Man?”

“His real name is Connal—”

“Oh dear …” Maggie got a bit on the breathy side. “What was he like?”

“Really cute, apparently,” Al chimed in.

Clare squeezed her eyes shut. Al seemed to be exacting some kind of penance for Clare’s having made time with a dead Druid while Milo got his lights punched out on her behalf. On the one hand, Clare could actually appreciate Al’s loyalty to her cousin. On the other, she really wished Al would just shut up.

“Dark smouldering gaze, nice chest, square jaw …” Al was on a roll. “Soft lips. Occasionally painted blue—”

“Soft …” Maggie’s eyes went window-wide with shock. “Clarinet Imogen Reid! Were you snogging a Bog Man?”

Milo’s blue eyes glittered with grim amusement.

“Uh—yeah.” Clare glared at Milo defiantly for a moment. She wasn’t about to apologize to him. He’d had
five
whole
years
to declare his affections, after all. She turned her attention back to her aunt. “Yes. A bit. And it wasn’t my idea. Also, he was
pre
-bog. But, y’know, thanks for the mental picture …”