The Multitude, стр. 34
“I waited till after dark. Then I let her drink from my pitcher.”
Maybe the blazing sun had finally taken its toll on his brain. He forced his gaze up from a drawing he’d mistaken for an imaginary siren.
Adala had gone soft, too, judging by her crazy jabber. “The guards would never allow such a thing.”
“Soldiers can be bought.”
“What are you saying?” He blinked, and the pendulum sway of his dizziness steadied.
“I’m saying I surrendered my virtue to help a saint.” Adala snatched the sketch pad. “That guard was the only customer to ever set foot in my chamber.”
The tears in her eyes tore at his heart. “I’ve misjudged you.”
“Yes, you have. My sketches are the charms I sell, and sometimes the wine, but only to men I can trust.” She stuffed the pad back into her pack. “If the monks knew of the illusions Maynya taught me, they would’ve burned me at the stake for practicing witchcraft.”
“You trusted me with your wine.”
“I wanted you to know you risked your life to save someone better than a whore.” She lowered her gaze to the ground. “Perhaps my pride will get me killed one day.”
“It might if you try any tricks in Portus. You won’t find many trustworthy men in these frontier towns.”
“No illusions, then.”
“You mean vials of powder?”
“Believe what you want.”
“I don’t buy your notion of saints, either,” he said. “They’ve been few and far between, in my experience.”
Adala turned away. “Surely you’d agree Maynya is one of the few and far. Her mere sketch brought more life to your eyes than I could.”
Quintus didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t intended to reveal his inexplicable feelings for a woman he’d never met, nor had he picked up on Adala’s attraction to him. In a gesture he hoped was spurred more by generosity than guilt, he reached into his pouch and came out with a fistful of coins. “You’ll need money for provisions.”
“I’m quite good at barter.”
“Take some bread at least.”
“Save it for Maynya. No doubt she’ll be in the stocks again when you reach the capital, if she’s still alive.”
* * *
“Servo is pro Maynya.” Save it for Maynya.
Brewster shot up in bed, fully awake, but with Adala’s words still ringing in his ears. Lately, the memories of his Latin dreams had been lingering. This time, he clung to enough detail to realize the storyline didn’t match Carla’s. She’d told him about life in a woodland, not bondage in Virtus’s bridal pool. Her shadow world was completely different than the one he’d just seen.
He turned to Carla. To where she should have been, sleeping beside him.
And he found an empty side of the bed. Not even an indentation on her pillow.
Gravity might as well have doubled. He lacked the strength to stay upright.
Something small and metallic pressed against his back. He rolled over and found a two-headed silver coin with a chain hole near the top. The identical sides displayed a centurion surrounded by a ring of Latin words. Somnium. Virtus. Spiritus.
Virtus? Carla might have been having dreams about a forest existent, but she’d left a coin behind with the name of his imaginary homeland. He racked his brain for a logical explanation but failed. No matter. He could chew on that one later. For now, he closed his fist around the coin, closed his eyes, and tried to bring it back.
But the wormholes didn’t surrender their prizes so easily.
CHAPTER 15
Back in Syracuse
Carla squirmed on a stool at the checkout counter of her store, flipping through a stack of bills she hadn’t found a way to pay. Sales were half what they’d been a year earlier, and she hadn’t brought in enough cash to cover expenses. Most shoppers were too worried about putting food on the table to buy anything as superfluous as a stuffed bunny. One domino falls and brings down the others. She understood economic theory well enough to know her store teetered straight in the path of those dominoes.
She’d taken steps to seize control of the situation, having set plans in motion to cut expenses, carry less inventory, and borrow a bit more from the bank. While the unpaid invoices still brought a tingle of unease each time she went through them, she didn’t panic anymore—not over her business, anyway. No, her anguish had a new, more frightening focus. Her pinball bounces from one reality to another had been increasing, as had her worry she was losing her mind.
Earlier that morning, she’d fished Brewster’s card out of her purse and tried calling him, only to get an out of service message in reply. He’d told her the card carried his new cell phone number, so it should have worked. Directory assistance for a Brewster DeLay landline in Northbrook, Illinois, hadn’t panned out, either. On the other hand, if she and Brewster were separated by a year…
The haunting possibility he didn’t actually exist, other than in a crazy corner of her subconscious mind, nearly brought her to tears—and not only from fear of insanity.
They’d clicked, big-time. This funny, kind, tender, honest, intelligent man, this kindred spirit who dreamed in Latin, this fellow vortex traveler had triggered a hum in her soul and an ache for much more. She wanted him in her life.
Carla tried talking herself down from the ledge, reminding herself Brewster had to be real or she wouldn’t have his card.
And now he had her coin, a talisman her mother had given to her when she was a child. Carla had awakened before Brewster did. She’d run her fingers through his hair, kissed the tip of his nose, and pressed the coin into his palm. Then she woke again. In Syracuse.
The act of giving served as additional proof, didn’t it? The talisman truly was gone in the morning—not in the drawer of her bed stand, where she remembered seeing it the night before. But