arms round the big, smelly creature and rested his forehead against its massive neck, feeling inchoate comfort.
He thought of nothing for a little and was inexpressibly relieved. Little by little, though, coherent thought came back. It maybe wasn’t true that things—the past—couldn’t be changed. Not the big things, maybe, not kings and battles. But maybe—just maybe—the small ones could. If he couldn’t come right out and tell the Frasers of Lallybroch what doom was to come upon them, perhaps there was something he could say, some warning that might forestall—
And if he did? If they listened? Would that good man in the house die of his apoplexy anyway, some weakness in his brain giving way as he came in from the barn one day? But that would leave his son and his daughter safe—and then what?
Would Jamie stay in Paris and marry the flirtatious Frenchwoman? Would he come home peaceably to live at Lallybroch and mind his estate and his sister?
Either way, he wouldn’t be riding near Craigh na Dun in five or six years, pursued by English soldiers, wounded and needing the assistance of a random time traveler who had just stepped out of the stones. And if he didn’t meet Claire Randall. . . . Bree, he thought. Oh, Christ. Bree.
There was a sound behind him—the door of the house opening—and the beam of a lantern fell onto the path nearby.
“Mr. MacKenzie?” Brian Fraser called into the night. “Are ye all right, man?”
“God,” he whispered, clutching the dog. “Show me what to do.”
LIGHTS, ACTION, SIRENS
THE DOOR AT THE top of the staircase was locked. Jem pounded on it with his fists, kicked it with his feet, and shouted. He could feel it back down there behind him, in the dark, and the feel of it crawled up his back, as if it were coming to get him, and the thought of that scared him so bad that he shrieked like a ban-sìdhe and threw himself hard against the door, over and over, and—
The door flew open and he fell flat on a dirty lino floor, all footmarks and cigarette butts.
“What the devil—who are you, laddie, and what in God’s name were ye doing in there?”
A big hand grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. He was out of breath from yelling and almost blubbering from relief, and it took a minute to remember who he was.
“Jem.” He swallowed, blinking in the light, and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Jem MacKenzie. My mam’s . . .” He went blank, suddenly unable to remember what Mam’s first name was. “She works here sometimes.”
“I know your mam. No mistaking that hair, laddie.” The man who’d pulled him up was a security guard; the patch on his shirtsleeve said so. He tilted his head to one side and the other, looking Jem over, light flashing off his bald head, off his glasses. The light was coming from those long tube lights in the ceiling Da said were fluorescent; they buzzed and reminded him of the thing in the tunnel, and he turned round fast and shoved the door shut with a bang.
“Is someone chasin’ ye, lad?” The guard reached a hand toward the doorknob, and Jem put his back hard against the door.
“No!” He could feel it back there, behind the door. Waiting. The guard was frowning at him. “I—I just—it’s really dark down there.”
“Ye were down in the dark? However did ye come to be there? And where’s your mother?”
“I don’t know.” Jem started being scared again. Really scared. Because Mr. Cameron had shut him up in the tunnel so he could go somewhere. And he might have gone to Lallybroch.
“Mr. Cameron put me in there,” he blurted. “He was supposed to take me to spend the night with Bobby, but instead he took me to Craigh na Dun, and then he took me to his house and locked me in a room overnight, and then the next morning he brought me here and shut me up in the tunnel.”
“Cameron—what, Rob Cameron?” The guard crouched down so he could frown right into Jem’s face. “Why?”
“I—I don’t know.” Don’t ever tell anyone, Da had said. Jem swallowed hard. Even if he wanted to tell, he didn’t know how to start. He could say Mr. Cameron took him up the hill at Craigh na Dun, to the stones, and pushed him into one. But he couldn’t tell what had happened then, not any more than he could tell Mr. MacLeod—that’s