Page 96 of The Empire and the Wolf King

We placed the folded paper inside the box and Ash dropped in a few pens. “I can see how important they are in emergencies now. Those are for the next person.”

“How many dost ye hae now?”

“Five left.”

“I hae two pens, another piece of paper, a gun, and yer pink undergarmies. I am ready for anything.”

She laughed. I closed the lid and replaced the dirt and the boulder.

She whispered, “I hope they find it.”

I said, “I hope they kill Asgall, I hope they rescue us, and…”

I folded my hands and began a prayer.

I prayed for our family tae be victorious in the battle of our lives, and tae reunite the bairns with their mother and father. Then I asked God tae guide whoever it was that would be rescuin’ us, tae intervene with care. “And Our Father, if they find us earlier on our timeline afore we meet, I pray that we are easy tae persuade tae find one another again. And please guide us tae marry once more. Amen.”

She said, “Amen.”

I said, “Now we wait for the do-over tae begin.”

And then we sat together under the tree, with Ash tucked under my arm, waiting.

CHAPTER 44 - JAMES

BALLOCH CASTLE - 1710

Istepped out into the courtyard to see Quentin working near our loads once again. He had been down here for hours every day, this time he had Mookie beside him, looking up at him adoringly, with Saddle the chicken perched on Mookie’s back.

Some of the women had refused Mookie’s entrance into the nursery, and I couldn’t really blame them, so the pig was down here now, a witness to Quentin’s fixation.

Quentin was using a ratchet clamp to tie down a box. He looked hot and bothered as he did it, and what was especially concerning was that he had done this already many times before. The load was counted, secured, waiting.

But we were freaking out.

Me too, but I was pretending this was normal because I was trying to keep Sophie calm — Junior had cried again all night and I was losing my mind.

It was normal, I had heard a baby cry at night, and all the women acted as if this was just a thing babies do, but all I kept thinking was, I was in the eighteenth century, in a castle that had been built in the sixteenth century and didn’t have electricity or running water. There wasn’t a flushing toilet coming for centuries. All I had was a first-aid kit and a box of medicine that I would need Google to know how to use.

My time travel vessel didn’t work.

I had a growing sense of panic… growing.

And rescue hadn’t come. It kept on not coming.

I said, “Hey, Quennie, whatcha doing? Tying down the boxes for the tenth time?”

He wiped his brow, but kept ratcheting the strap down, I am not…” He grunted, then said, “This isn’t tight enough, going to need to do it again. Should I break down this pallet? Maybe smaller boxes would be better.” He tossed the end of the strap over it. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.” He opened the clamp and began pulling it from the strap, undoing it for the eleventh time in three days.

“Who ya talking to, Quennie? Is someone in your head telling you to take yet another inventory?”

“Nope, not one person here to tell me what to do. I know what to do. I gotta inventory these weapons and supplies and be ready for when the rescue comes.” He yanked the strap free of the load and tossed it to the side.

“Yet you’re making the load less ready, right now, the rescue might come any minute now.”

He huffed, yanked a box off the top, put it beside the load, and then used his dirk to slice through the tape. “I’m going to inventory this load, one more time, and break it into smaller boxes.”

“We got smaller boxes?”

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