“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.”
“Listen, about your deal. Does it still stand?”
“What?”
“If I undo your chains, will you show me around here?”
“So you believe that you have come back to my time?”
“No, but it’ll be easy to prove you wrong when we both go upstairs in time to see you arrested.”
“You’re a strange one. Here you are in a dungeon with me and you think you are still in charge of things.”
She thought he sounded amused rather than angry. “You’re in charge are you? The man in chains is in charge of me?”
“I am.”
“Then let’s have a race. First to the door wins.”
She wasn’t sure how he reacted but the rattle of his chains suggested it wasn’t good.
“All right,” he snapped. “If you can unlock these chains, I will show you around this place. Good luck getting them undone. They are cursed.”
She felt for the manacles. In the darkness her hand slid down over his chest. “Sorry,” she muttered. She found the chain a second later, sliding the silver key into the lock. The manacle fell away at once and in the same moment the dungeon door slammed shut.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking up in the darkness. “Something weird is happening here.”
“It’s that key,” Wallace said. “It has more power than I knew. Quick, undo my other chains.”
“But who shut the door?”
“My chains, now!”
She obeyed automatically, groping her way to each of the manacles in turn, doing her best to ignore the strange bubbly feeling inside her whenever she accidentally touched him.
“Are you really Wallace MacGregor?” she asked in a quiet voice as the last manacle fell away.
“I am he. Heir to the MacGregor lands, sworn enemy of the MacCallisters.”
“Does that include me? I’m a MacCallister.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. When he did so, he was talking more to himself than to her. “You remain unbound?” he asked, sounding shocked. “The curse does not touch you. Are you not the last of the MacCallisters? The end of that line? You have no descendants, do you?”
She looked sad for a brief moment before answering. “There is only me.”
“Then it must be the key. We must get it to him. Father, I will see you soon.” He grabbed hold of her arm. “Come on, time to go.”
“Tell me this isn’t real,” she said. “Tell me the police are waiting out there and you’re not Wallace MacGregor. You can’t be Wallace MacGregor. We’ll go up there and it’ll all be normal and then you’ll have to explain to them your penchant fordungeons and chains. Get it right and they’ll probably make you a Member of Parliament. They’re into that kind of thing.”
“Open the door,” he said, pushing her over to it.
She almost stumbled but managed to keep her balance. “Quit shoving me,” she snapped.
“Open the door.”
“All right, grumpy.” She felt the edge of the door, finding the handle a moment later. It was locked. “How is it locked?” she asked.
“Use the key,” he replied. “The key is the answer to all this. I realize that now.”
