Page 97 of The Empire and the Wolf King

“We got knives and cardboard, grab a tape dispenser.”

“Dammit, so your mind has ridden off the track and is careening into the stands and I have to come along for the ride?”

“What else you got to do?”

“Nothing, waiting for rescue to come, or the vessel to turn back on, that’s it. You checked the vessel this hour?”

“Yeah, not working.”

“Great, who’s working on our rescue you think?”

He remained quiet as he pulled cans of food from the box and stacked them beside it, organizing them into proteins and vegetables.

I worked quietly for a moment then said, “Really, who’s coming?”

He shoved the box away, tipping it over so that cans rolled out, and said, “No one! Fucking get it in your head, no one is coming!”

“What the hell? You need to calm your ass down. You’re going to freak out the natives.” One of the guards looked over the wall at us. I waved a hand. “It’s cool, we’re fine.”

Quentin righted the box. “They aren’t coming, you see that, right?”

“I don’t see anything like that. We are at Magnus’s family castle, you’re Magnus’s colonel, I’ve got a baby for fuck’s sake. We are going to get rescued! As soon as theycancome, theywill. You sound like a quitter.”

“I’m not quitting. I’m just saying we have to get used to the idea that they are not coming.”

I put my hands on my hips and exhaled. “Well I don’t like that idea at all. Why would they not be coming?”

“Maybe no one can fix this.”

“You mean we’ve been thoroughly beaten? I don’t think so, we have Magnus, Fraoch, Lochinvar, me and you, come on — Chef Zach.”

He laughed.

“Of course we are going to be rescued, we are too important, plus I have a baby. I can’t believe the world could be that fucked up.”

He was quiet, using his blade to cut the cardboard to build another box. “So you don’t believe we are thoroughly beaten?”

“Nope. Can’t possibly have happened. Take in a deep breath. Do you feel like a medieval man or do you feel like a modern man who time travels?”

“A modern man who time travels.”

“See? They’re coming.”

“So who is coming?”

“I got money on Fraoch. I bet you this can of pineapple that it’s Fraoch who rescues us all.”

“Alright, I’m putting my can of beans on Lady Mairead.”

I laughed. “We don’t think Magnus?”

“Nope, not this time.”

I straightened up and twisted to crack my back. “Man, I am exhausted, maybe while you do this rearranging I might sleep here on the boxes.”

He pulled a long piece of tape out and sealed the bottom of a box and began putting some cans inside.

Then I said, “Have you thought about the possibility that once Fraoch kicks ass, that they might rescue us earlier? Like a do-over?”

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