Page 52 of The Devouring Time

“So, you were drugged and switched, your mind traveling in time—to the past or future?—to inhabit the body of a member of the Swarm. While there, you encountered Bianca Giuliani, also dragged out of her own time. Like you, she’d been replaced—that explains why she suddenly left her family and went to Rome. It wasn’t the real Bianca at all.” He taps his pencil absently against the table. “When she returned, she remembered your name and wrote it down. Did she have the same amnesia as you, or something lesser?”

“I’ve been remembering a little, in dreams,” I admit. “I thought they were just nightmares, but instead they were memories leaking back. Maybe it was the same for her.”

“If we could have read the damned book, we’d know more.” Adrian sighs. “So, when the Swarm and the Timekeepers have finished with you, the swap is repeated. You’re returned to your own body and time, with the memories of your sojourn blacked out in some fashion. The member of the Swarm presumably returns to its original body and time as well.”

My attempts to push away my growing horror crumble, and I stumble over and sit down on the bed again. “Something stole my body,” I say. “It did things, wrecked my life, and I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t…”

The sense of violation overwhelms my ability to speak. Some creature took my body and did God-knows-what with it. What terrible things had it done with my hands? What orders were given through my lips?

The mattress sinks as Adrian sits down beside me. His hand rests on my back, rubbing a gentle circle. “At least you know you’re not guilty of anything. You’re not a cultist or a murderer.”

“I know, but…” How can I explain? “It was my body, and I didn’t want any of this, and…”

Tears sting my eyes as Adrian twists on the bed to pull me to him. I accept the comfort a second time, burying my face in his shoulder and trying to muffle my helpless sobs in his coat. He strokes my hair and makes soothing sounds deep in his throat.

At last, I regain control of myself. I lean back a little and find myself staring into his face. His handsome features are drawn in an expression of concern, but as I gaze into his warm brown eyes, I think I detect something else as well. His full lips are right there, breath ghosting against my cheek.

There are a thousand reasons I shouldn’t do what I do next. I’ve just received an enormous shock, we’re in danger of our lives from not one but two cults, none of this has improved my already shell-shocked mind and emotions…

But none of it matters as I close the small gap between us and press my lips to his.

36

He responds without hesitation, his mouth hot and hungry. His grip on me shifts, pulling me closer, so I’m acutely aware of the hard length of his thigh pressed against mine. I’d been clinging to him in my distress; now I let my hands trace the broad line of his shoulders, down to his narrow hips and back up again.

His lips part and the kiss deepens, tongues touching. He tastes faintly of coffee, and the smell of lilacs rises around me as I let out an involuntary sound of pleasure. It’s the most perfect moment I can remember, certainly since the war, and for a moment everything falls away except for warmth and desire.

It can’t last forever, though. After a few endless, glorious moments, the kiss ends, though we’re still wrapped in each other’s arms. Adrian’s forehead leans against mine, and I sense more than see him smile.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he murmurs.

“Really?” I ask. “Because my hair is a disaster, and⁠—”

He cuts me off with another, briefer kiss. “Really. There were a few times I almost acted on my impulses, but I wasn’t sure if you were a secret murderer.”

His words are like a splash of cold water, and I sit back. “Oh. Right.”

No kiss, however wonderful, could erase the fact my body had been taken over, the creature in it using my face and name for its own inscrutable ends. I hope it didn’t kill anyone with my hands, but it almost certainly ordered for Pearce to be murdered and the Key of Mithras stolen.

“Obviously I didn’t think you were, but now we know for certain.” He lets his arms fall from my shoulders but catches my hands. His fingers are strong against my own. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to break the mood.”

“No, it’s all right.” I squeeze his fingers to show I’m not upset.

Adrian’s thumb slides over my knuckles in a gentle caress. “You’ve had a shock—we both have, I suppose, but you most of all. It’s supper time, so let’s find something to eat. Food always makes things better, or so my mother would have it.”

“My mother was a terrible cook. Didn’t have the patience for it, I think. She just made the same few dishes over and over: porridge for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner boiled meat of whatever species the butcher had on sale that week, alongside whatever greens were in season. Also boiled.”

“Oh dear.” Adrian’s eyebrows went up. “I suppose army rations weren’t so bad to you, then.”

“At least they were edible.”

“If you say so.” He rises to his feet, gently drawing me up with him.

We kiss again, then I excuse myself to find the washroom in the hall, so I can splash water on my face and hopefully erase some of the evidence of my bout of crying. As I approach the small mirror, I feel the familiar twist of dread in my stomach at what I might see.

Because I don’t expect the reflection to be human.

At least it makes sense now. Did the creature in my body experience any of the same revulsion when it saw itself in my body? Or was it used to such switches, having taken other victims before me?