She found the keyhole. With a flick of her wrist, the door unlocked. She pulled it open and walked through.
At once something was different. Under her feet was springy, not solid. She kneeled down. Grass. Wind was blasting her in the face. Nearby was the roaring sound of the ocean crashing onto the shore somewhere.
“What on earth?” She turned and stepped back through the door but she was no longer in the dungeon. The door opened into a small cottage. “Where are we? What happened?”
“We are on Knife Island,” Wallace replied, appearing next to her.
“Oh, of course we are. I should have guessed. Ghosts that come back to life and dungeon doors that open onto islands in the middle of the sea. I should have guessed. How do I get home from here?”
“Back through the dungeon door.”
“And where is the dungeon?”
“About two days walk that way, if you could walk across the ocean.”
“The ocean? Are you kidding me? What’s going on?”
“The key unlocked the wrong door,” he said, taking her hands in his as she started to hyperventilate. “Just calm yourself a moment. Sit.”
“Sit, of course. Sit. Why not?” She let him guide her into a chair. From where she was she could see through the cottage window.
At first there was only darkness but then her eyes adjusted. The moon emerged from behind a cloud, further illuminating the island. The sound of the sea was very close.
“I ken this place,” Wallace said.
“How?” Natalie asked. “How do you know it? Have you been here before?”
“Never.”
“Then how do you know where we are?”
“My favorite story is set here.The Tale of Knife Island.I ken it like I ken my own hand.”
Natalie leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes, hoping that might bring her back to reality. Nothing happened. “So we’re on an island you’ve never been to and the castle is two days across the sea. Does that about cover it?”
“Aye.”
“And this is the Middle Ages?”
“As you keep calling it.”
“Then I only have one question.”
“Which is?”
“How on earth do I get home?”
7
The barefoot man sat alone at the top of the west tower. From where he was, he could see all the land he’d conquered. How long had it taken him to get to this point?
He thought about the crisscrossing timelines, the way the future, the past, and the present had merged and turned away from each other.
To any normal person it would have been enough to make their head explode. As it was, he had to concentrate to make sense of it all.
Dragged back through time when all the future was laid out before him. It wouldn’t happen again.
Three keys had come and gone. Three chances to rule the world. Somehow the puny little highlanders had outsmarted him. He refused to thinkabout how it had happened. It wasn’t his fault. It was his old enemy trying to outsmart him.
