Debbie from Amelia island stables arrived just after breakfast to drop off Magnus’s horse, the horse trailer, and truck we rented for the day. It would be my first time driving a truck with a horse trailer, and I thought about asking her to do it for us, but Magnus and I needed to do this alone.

It would be difficult enough to explain that the horse and Magnus were gone when I returned.

While Magnus washed up after breakfast, I tore a strip of leather, about a foot long, off the sheath of one of Magnus’s practice swords and carved my initial, K. I wrote 310. . . and the rest of my phone number. It looked terrible, not well-crafted at all. I took a sharpie pen and wrote the number better on the inside and then carved a heart at the end of the number. It was a panic move. I was flailing for ideas. I wished I had engraved his ring with it. Or gotten him a tattoo. Or sewn it into the seam of his kilt.

When he emerged from the bathroom, I showed it to him sheepishly. He nodded and I tied it in a knot around his left wrist. He put an arm around me, pulled me in tight for a hug, and then we looked around the room for anything else he might need.

He was dressed in his gear, cloak over his shoulders, sword on his back, dirk at his hip, sporran at his waist. His leather shoes. His prescription meds. I remembered he should have a photo. Hayley had framed the photo of the two of us, leaning together the night of our wedding surrounded by the feast. I was in my wedding dress; he was in his wedding suit. We hadn’t touched beyond the Handfasting of the wedding, but already we glowed. It looked very much like we were in love.

I could easily print another. I pried the back of the frame and peeled the photo from the matte. I folded it small, careful not to crease our faces. He opened the sporran and I stuffed it in. I glimpsed the vessel nestled inside — ready to be used.

He said, “We should go I think.”

“Yes, it’s a two hour drive.” I grabbed my keys and purse and we headed to the driveway.

Debbie walked us around the trailer, the truck, and explained all the odd things that might go wrong, then she left.

Quentin met with Magnus and received his last orders.

Zach and Emma stood on the driveway to say good bye. I climbed into the driver’s seat.

Magnus opened the passenger side door, a second away from climbing in — then he turned, looking over his shoulder, past the house, toward the beach.

When I followed his gaze I saw it, storm clouds, rising roiling rolling out over the sand.

I said, “Magnus?”

He continued to watch the sky, body tense, his expression focused. I asked again, “Magnus?”

He glanced at me across the seat, “I may need tae—“

“The horse, you need the horse and the—“

He turned and ran, fast, under the house, sprinting toward the dunes. His cloak rippling behind him. His arm reaching over his shoulder to unsheath his sword.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” It took me two tries to work the dumbass door handle, crash it open, and spill out of the truck to the ground.

“Shit, he’s going. Quentin, he’s going!”

Quentin raced toward the beach after Magnus with me one second behind. Zach and Emma followed at a run as well. All racing toward the beach and the furious looking storm.

By the time I came over the hill Magnus was roaring down the sand dunes toward a man on horseback.

“Magnus!” I ran harder, not understanding why. What in the world would I do once I got there, watch? I couldn’t just watch him fight. I needed a gun. Quentin probably had one. Probably.

Magnus had his sword drawn. As he closed on the man and horse, bellowing wildly, he brought the sword around in an arc, meeting steel with steel. A clanging crash, surrounded by arced lightning. Dark skies. Wind whipped sand in our eyes. The sand-blasting pain bringing the fearful tears that demanded to come.

“Magnus! Come back, we should still go this way; don’t leave yet! We have a plan!” My words were whipped around my head and wildly away behind me.

The man who had come from the storm was weak. I could see it, disoriented and dazed, but he was also on high, swinging down against Magnus. Magnus was sweeping up. They fought brutally for long moments, spinning in a circle.

Quentin stood on the dune, not drawing his gun. “Quentin? Shoot him!”

He shook his head.

“Shoot him!” I grabbed his arm, deciding to grab his gun away and shoot the man myself. Because then we would have two boxes. We would only need to find one more. We could take our time.

But Quentin struggled against me. “I’m following orders, Katie.” He wrenched my arm behind my back to stop me from grasping at his clothes. “I’m following orders. He told me not to draw my weapon. He doesn’t want a body here — any questions.”

“You know what Quentin? You’re an asshole.” I turned as Magnus swept the sword, spun, and whacked it against the man’s right arm. The fighter dropped his sword. He grasped his injured arm and slumped forward. Magnus had the reins in his hand. The horse bucked and fought and Magnus pulled attempting to control the crazed horse.

He was trying to get his hand into the man’s sporran to find the vessel. He had a foot on the stirrup and was trying to heave himself up while the horse spun and bucked — but then the man grabbed Magnus in a chokehold.

Magnus’s feet left the ground kicking the air, and that was all I could watch.

I raced toward him. Quentin yanked the back of my shirt, trying to stop me. The wind rushed toward me. It felt like an uphill climb — the world conspiring against me — but he needed help.

I had to help.

And then worse — Magnus thrust his hand into his own sporran — his lips were moving. He was reciting the numbers while holding onto the vessel about to jump time—

just as my hand grabbed his arm to yank it away.

His eyes,

deep,

dark,

enraged,

met mine and it was —

Too late.

The force of it hit me like a concussion grenade. It slammed into me so brutally my head snapped back. Lifting, stretching, shoving. I was yanked. Something held my wrist painfully tight. Air rushed past. I was thrown left and right. Then my body felt like it would be torn in two, pushed and pulled and ripped into pieces.

And then it got really, really fucking bad. Every nerve, every synapse was twisted. All cells pried up, and every. Single. Bit. Of. Skin singed away.

And that part, it lasted for forever. Just pain, gasping breath, endless buffeting, and screams that went on and on and on — knives in my ears.

Make it stop screaming!

— I wished I could pass out. I begged God or the universe or whoever was in charge of what this was to let me die and please bring on the darkness instead of this piercing red riot of pain.

And that was it for a really, really long time.