Page 28 of No Place in Time

She screamed, a strangled, high-pitched wail.

Finn lifted the knife instinctively. The blade sank in once. The dog yelped and snapped at Finn this time, its jaws closing on his sleeve, tearing the cloth.

Finn drove the knife down a second time. Harder.

The dog gave a terrible shriek and collapsed into the leaves.

“We can’t stop,” Finn said, his chest heaving.

They ran until the sounds behind them faded.

At last, they collapsed beneath a pine that buffered the winter wind. The sky was beginning to pale.

Finn pulled Cecily close. She shook with cold and pain. Her sleeve was dark with blood.

They had nothing—no money, no food, no warm clothes. The cold bit harder now, a cruel reminder of the warm beds and rich food they’d started to take for granted.

Finn stared at his hands. He had a cut on one palm. His sleeve was torn. His whole body shook with the cold.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”

Cecily didn’t answer at first. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he felt her tears wet through his tunic. Finn’s throat tightened until it hurt. He swallowed hard, but it didn’t help.

He hated this rush of emotion. He turned his face away so she wouldn’t see. He forced a rough laugh that didn’t fool either of them.

“Brat,” he muttered, but it came out as a sob.

Cecily made a weak sound. “Sir Know-It—”

Finn cut her off by pulling her closer, wrapping his arms around her as if he could hold heat into her bones by sheer force. She clung to him, her fists twisted in his tunic, and he held her until his arms ached.

When their shadows had shortened beneath them, they got up and began walking.

17

FINN

1296

By midmorning, the ground rose, and the woods thinned around them. The cold had eased a little with the rising sun, though patches of snow still clung to the shadows.

Cecily walked slowly but steadily, holding her injured arm close to her body. She did not complain, but Finn could see the tension in her shoulders and the careful way she placed each step.

He followed the line of an old field and found a shed leaning against the wind. The land had once been cleared and worked, but nature was taking it back. Brambles crept in from the edges. Young trees had rooted where crops once grew. The shed leaned to one side, its roof bowed and patched with mismatched boards. No tracks marked the ground nearby.

“This will do,” he said.

Inside, he helped her sit on a patch of packed earth near the back wall, where the boards still held. Then he set to work. He dragged fallen limbs and stacked them against the broken wall, weaving branches through the gaps to block the wind. He tore loose boards from the collapsed section and wedged them in where he could. It was rough work, but it held.

Cecily tried to help, lifting smaller branches with her good arm. After a few minutes she stopped, her breath coming in rapid gasps.

“It hurts,” she said, holding her injured arm.

“Rest,” Finn said. “I’ll finish. Don’t use your arm more than you must.”

When he was done, he cleared the floor as best he could and spread pine needles thickly where she could rest. Then he knelt beside her and examined her arm.

Swollen, red skin stretched tight around the bite. She flexed her fingers carefully, then stopped.