Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons 1)

“The Baron?”

“The Baron Luigi, lord of Firenze.”

“Who has the key to this door, then?”

“Mom and Dad. The castle keymaster, maybe. No one else.”

“Can you contact them?”

I shook my head, again. “They’re gone. My father locks me in when they leave, and when they come back, they check to see if my work is done. If it is, they let me out. I get to eat and go out. If not I just have to sleep and drink here until everything is finished.”

“Has anyone been by to check on you?”

I shook my head. “No one.”

“Then when can we get out of here?”

“If they don’t make it home, the door won’t be opened until tomorrow morning, when Giancarlo realizes that I’m still locked in here. And even then, he’d need an extra key.”

Kara kicked at the door. “I can’t make a gateway, not without help, not after that fight with Gerard. And I don’t know who I could connect to right now anyhow.” She paused, looked at the dark slit of window. “There’s something else. Something about the light.”

I looked at the window. “It was day, in the shop, before you did the spell. And now it’s night. We didn’t just connect different places, we connected different times.”

Kara shook her head. “Anders, you make it sound so simple. What you’re describing, I just can’t imagine it. There’s no way.”

“When the circle opened here, it was early evening,” I insisted. “The sun had just set. When I looked in at you, the sun was shining brightly.”

Kara looked at me in panic. “Wait, what day is it then, now?”

“Friday, or Venerdi, like they call it here.”

“The winter solstice?”

I nodded, worried about what she was going to say.

Kara looked pale. “Then the day was the same, but the time was different. We just lost three or four hours.”

I felt a sinking feeling is my stomach. “That means...”

Kara nodded. “Gerard should be here any moment,” she said. “Even if he just walks over here, taking his time.”

There was a rumble from deep down underneath in the castle, a crash, and a scream.

I cringed. “I think Gerard just arrived,” I said.

Kara looked at the door. “How long do you think that door will hold him?”

“It’s one of our normal doors.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe an hour? Two hours? Unless he’s brought help.”

There was a banging at the door. Whoever was out there was moving faster than any person I knew. The door shook. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a person. I heard a roar of frustration.

“He’s brought help,” Kara said.

Something slammed into the door, and we heard another roar. The door, itself, did not budge.