As if she’d never been there at all.
I fell to my knees and roared.
Chapter
Seventeen
PORTIA
Ilanded hard on my ass.
Pain shot up my hip, and I collapsed on my side, the air knocked from my lungs. Coughing, I rolled onto my back and stared at a pale blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. Sunlight played through trees that swayed overhead, their leaves rustling in a warm breeze that carried the acrid, unmistakable stench of car exhaust.
Slowly, city sounds intruded. The rumble of traffic. The distant blare of car horns. And, more faintly, the wail of a siren.
My dragon retreated, taking all my anger with her. It fled like water circling a drain, leaving me hollow and trembling.
Empty.
I sat up, and the trembling intensified. Tavish and Albie weren’t next to me. They weregone.
Scrambling to my knees, I scanned my surroundings. Grass spread under me like a thick, green carpet. Trees bordered a broad, winding concrete path lined with several wrought iron benches. The path cut through the greenery, branching off like forks in a highway. A group of children on roller skates sped around a distant bend. Their shrieks and laughter echoed after them.
But there was no sign of Tavish and Albie.
Oh gods, what had I done?
I’d left them behind. I’d run from them and jumped through time alone.
The bag.Where was the chronomancer’s bag?
I patted my chest, my stomach, searching frantically for the familiar weight of the velvet pouch. Nothing. I ran my hands down my sides, checked the grass around me, spun in a circle looking for the telltale plum color.
Gone. It was gone.
“No, no, no,” I whispered, crawling through the grass and sweeping my palms over the ground. Maybe it had fallen when I landed. Maybe it was just a few feet away.
But there was nothing. Just grass and dirt and a few scattered leaves.
I must have dropped it in Razrothia. Or lost it during the jump.
A sob burst from my lips, and I clapped a shaking hand to my mouth.
Your recklessness is a curse.
Tavish’s sharp, frustrated voice ran through my head, his words an echo of my father’s the last time I saw him.
Your recklessness is a curse.
Maybe I was doomed to hear it from everyone I loved. My chest tightened.
I loved them.
Gods, I loved them. Somewhere between the cave in medieval England and the hotel in Bucharest, I’d fallen in love with Tavish and Albie.
And now they were gone.
I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, my breath coming in short gasps. They were gone, and I had no idea where—orwhen—they were. Were they still in Razrothia? Were they safe? Were they?—?
