Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(89)

“We could make our living as fortunetellers.” I tried for a joke, but the words caught in my throat when I remembered the day I’d met Phoebe, and how she claimed I looked like a gypsy girl.

Bran smiled, and plucked a stray twig from my hair. “Though I would be the hottest thing on two legs in balloon knee breeches and a gold earring, I happen to be overly fond of iced macchiatos, hot showers, and films with frequent explosions.”

“Plus”—he turned to stare down at the frozen bank—“my brother Tony’s not even twelve,” he said. “He’s a sweet lad. Innocent, you know? I can’t . . . I won’t let my mother use him like she did me. He’d never survive all this.”

When his fists clenched in his lap, I scooted closer, until our sides pressed together. Bran’s heat bled through the layers, stopping my shivers.

“We’ll just have to find another way back, then,” I said. “Your mom and Flint, they ran off. Obviously you didn’t come through at the glade?”

“No. We used another portal at a site clear across London. I would’ve had to cross through that one to get home.” He squinted up at the sun. “It came and went a while ago, I would guess. On horseback, Mother and Flint would’ve made it in time.”

“Then why?” I cried, shifting so I could see his profile. “Why come with us at all when we left Westminster? You could have just gone back to London. You could’ve gone home.”

His jaw muscles worked, but he didn’t look at me. “You needed me,” Bran said simply.

Silence fell as I realized the sacrifice he’d made. “Bran—” I started, but he interrupted.

“Doesn’t matter. What we have to do now is figure out another way home. However, in case you haven’t noticed, neither of us is currently in possession of a lodestone. Clearly you know what can happen if you travel without them.”

At my nod, he yanked one of the curved swords from his belt and began digging distractedly in the frozen turf. I watched as the tip of his blade gouged a design in the mud. A figure eight. Three wavy lines bisecting the figure horizontally where it crossed over itself. The sign of the Dim.

I stiffened. Then, taking the sword from him, I drew a straight line vertically down through the center.

He frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“What does it mean?”

He frowned. “It’s the sign of a Source. Obviously.”

I started to nip at my cuticles, but stopped when I saw my mother’s blood still crusted there. “Since I’m kind of new at this whole time-travel thing, why don’t you just enlighten me? What the hell is a Source?”

Bran stretched out his long legs and leaned back against a thick oak that grew just behind us.

“Sources are supposed to be the most powerful and ancient entrances to the Dim,” he explained. “That line you drew indicates an original portal, where thousands instead of hundreds of ley lines intersect. Supposedly Stonehenge is one, though there’s no way to access it, since it would be deep underground. Also, Avebury, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Bermuda Triangle, Easter Island, and the ancient ground drawings in Lima. They’re all rumored to contain a Source. They’re believed to have been sealed or otherwise hidden long ago.”

Bran may’ve been speaking by rote, but my heart had started galloping at his words.

He looked over at me. As I gestured for him to go on, ideas began racing through my mind.

“Theoretically, a real Source would not require machinery, and a powerful-enough lodestone would allow one to travel wherever and whenever they wished.” He shrugged. “According to my mother, that is. It’s an obscure legend, but she never stops searching for an accessible Source.”

I let my eyelids close as I remembered leaning against the damp stone wall of the tunnel beneath Westminster and feeling a design etched beneath my palm. In my panic, it had slipped away. But now I jumped to my feet, pacing as another memory popped to the surface. I’d been swaying, upside down, a hundred feet above the abbey floor. I’d just caught a glimpse. Near the altar, the curve of a design embedded in black and white marble.

“Come on.” I tugged him to his feet. “We have to go. Now.”

“Where?”

I looked up at him, willing him to trust me. “Westminster Abbey.”

Bran’s mouth twisted. “Going to pray, are we? God knows it couldn’t hurt.”

“Well, that’s true,” I quipped, “But it’s not why.”

His sigh rose white and steamy in the winter air. “You realize it’s a good bet Becket might be about?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

With a groan, he slid his blade into his belt. “All right, but may I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“We might want to change out of these gore-soaked rags before we enter the holiest place in London. I can’t speak for myself, but you”—he grimaced, tutting as he gestured at my skirts, which were tacky and stiff with frozen blood—“are a horror.”





Chapter 44


AS WE SUSPECTED, OUR HORSES WERE LONG GONE, likely thanks to Celia. Fortunately, the roads were still passable, with plenty of inbound traffic, even at that hour of the morning. With a few charming words and a jingle of coin, Bran procured us a ride. Also, the young couple was absurdly grateful to trade their own, musty homespun for our fine silks and wools, no matter the condition.