Page 84 of Killing Time

But even though they were safe here, this still wasn’t the future they’d envisioned together.

No, they were supposed to go back where —when— she’d come from.

He decided not to comment on that, however. While Devynn appeared remarkably unscathed, considering everything that had happened to her, it might have been pushing things to make her immediately begin to focus on how she could get her gift under control enough so they could jump ahead to her time.

“But we have,” he said, and leaned over to press a kiss against her cheek.

It looked as if she intended to reply, but someone knocked on the door right then. Since by that point the hour was well past ten o’clock — they’d slept in and taken their time getting ready, even though they’d shared the shower — Seth knew he couldn’t allow himself to be too annoyed by a visitor.

Especially since he thought he knew who it might be.

Sure enough, Ruby stood outside, looking fresh and bright and very unlike a woman who’d been up until the wee hours the night before. “Do you mind if I come in?”

“Not at all,” he replied, stepping aside so she could enter the house. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you,” she said politely. “I had tea hours ago.” Her gaze moved past him to Devynn, who’d set down her coffee cup and stood as soon as their guest entered the living room. “But I wanted to talk to you two.”

“Of course,” Seth said, now somewhat mystified. “Did you get word to the elders last night?”

“I did,” Ruby said. She went over to one of the armchairs that faced the couch and sat down, so he headed back to the couch so he and Devynn could resume their seats. “Everyone was very relieved, of course, but they want to talk to you sometime today when you’re ready.”

This didn’t seem too unexpected. Of course the elders — and Abigail and Charles — would want to hear their accounts of what had happened in Flagstaff the night before.

“We can go up before lunch — ”Seth began, but Ruby immediately shook her head.

“That’s not a good idea.” She paused there and glanced over at the front window, almost as if she expected to see someone peering in, eavesdropping on their conversation. “Seth, I’m fairly certain Abigail is going to demand that you hand over the amulet.”

“Shewhat?” he said, while next to him, Devynn stiffened.

“Why in the world would she do that?”

“Because she thinks it’s an abomination, and she wants it locked up.” Ruby’s red-lacquered lips tightened a fraction before she continued. “And she also thinks you no longer have any use for it, since Devynn’s been rescued and there isn’t any immediate danger of Jasper retaliating.”

Seth still wasn’t so sure about that, but he decided he should hold his tongue on that subject for now. “It isn’t Abigail’s to take.”

“Maybe not, but she doesn’t see things that way. And she’s theprima— she may not seem very strong to you, but she can still force you to hand it over if necessary.”

By this point, Devynn had set down her coffee cup. Frowning, she said, “So…what are you suggesting we should do?”

“Go back where you came from,” Ruby said promptly. “Isn’t that what you’ve planned to do all along?”

It was, although Seth had never come right out and said such a thing. However, his cousin was perceptive and had probably read between the lines of comments he’d made or the way he’d reacted to certain topics of conversation, not wanting to commit to anything when he knew so much was still up in the air.

“It is,” he said, and realized what a relief it was to confess such a thing to Ruby. “I don’t want to stay here. This isn’t my time.”

No, it wasn’t, with both his parents gone and Jerome itself barely a husk of the boom town it had once been. Some might have argued that he still had his brother and his sister-in-law and the nephew he’d finally been able to meet during those tense days while he was waiting for the dark of the moon to arrive. Arthur was a sturdy boy of fourteen who took after his father and not his mother, thank the Goddess, and seemed like a good enough kid despite his parents’ tense relationship…but those missing twenty-one years now seemed like a yawning gulf, one that Seth would never be able to bridge.

Devynn shifted on the couch, almost as if she’d meant to say something and had decided against it. After all, the two of them had hashed all this out days ago…or decades, depending on how one wanted to look at the situation.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby said, her tone now quiet. “But I think I understand.”

“The real problem is my so-called ‘gift,’” Devynn said next. “Without any real control over it, I’m not sure I can get us where we need to go.”

“You were doing well when Jeremiah was helping you manage it,” Seth told her, but she only shook her head.

“I was doing better, but it still wasn’t enough. Even with the amulet amplifying my power, I still made mistakes. There’s no guarantee that we’ll end up in the same year I left.”

Theprima-in-waiting had listened to this exchange with a small frown tugging at her brow, but now she seemed to perk up. “Maybe I can help.”

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