Page 92 of No Place in Time

FINN

1301

Finn had been working at the ropes since the door slammed shut. The hemp had cut through the skin of his wrists. He could feel the sticky slip of blood, but the knots were no looser than they had been an hour ago.

Beside him, Cecily’s breathing was short and shallow in the blackness.

“Finn.” Her voice was thin. “How long do we have?”

He didn’t know. The cell was so dark that he couldn’t see his own hands. Benedict had said the machine would arrive by midday. That could be hours from now or any moment.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The silence stretched between them. He could hear her breathing, short and labored. He thought of the things he had not said to her. The things he had been waiting to say in the proper place, with the proper words. But there was no proper time. There was only this dark cell and the footsteps that might come at any moment.

He swallowed. “Cecily.”

“Yes, Finn.”

“I have nothing to offer you. No ring. No land that’s mine. No promise that we will live through this hour, let alone the rest of our lives.” He paused. “But I would marry you, if we walk out of this cell alive. I would ask your father for your hand, and I would always stay by your side. I would love you and protect you all my days. Will you… will you have me?”

She did not answer right away. He could not see her face. He could only hear the soft sound of her trying not to cry.

She leaned her head on his shoulder and said, “Yes, Finn, of course I will.”

He turned his face toward hers in the dark and kissed her.

Then she drew a breath. He could hear the smile coming back into her voice.

“If we live, we’ll live at Veyron Hall,” she whispered, her voice light. “I’ll hold a feast for everyone. We’ll have music that shakes the floors and so much food no one goes hungry.” She leaned into him closer. “And I’ll wear a dress of the deepest blue.”

“You’ll be the most beautiful woman there.”

“I’ll be the only woman you’re allowed to look at.” Her attempt at a laugh was shaky. “You dance with me first, and last. That is the rule.”

“Only you?”

“Only me.”

“And what about you? Will you be dancing with anyone else?”

“Of course not. I will be a married woman, Finn. It would be inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?”

“Entirely.” Her voice broke, and the fantasy dissolved back into the cold reality of the cell.

He leaned his head back against the stone wall and closed his eyes. He had just become engaged to her in a black cell, while bound and bleeding, with no witnesses and no ring and no promise of tomorrow. It was the only proposal he would ever make in his life.

If they did not survive the day, none of it would happen. The blue dress. The feast. The dance she would not let him share with anyone else. All of it sat in the dark with them, fragile as a candle in the wind.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Finn was on his feet before he could think. He turned his shoulder and pushed Cecily behind him, putting himself between her and the door. He had no weapon. He had no hands. He had only his body, and if it came to it, he would put himself in the path of whatever came through that door so she would have a few seconds more.

The bar lifted with a scrape of wood and metal. The door swung open. Light flooded in, blinding them for a moment. Finn squeezed his eyes shut against the glare, then forced them open again, squinting. A figure stood in the doorway. Not tall enough to be Benedict. Not broad enough to be a guard.

A woman.