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Always act as if you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. He’d been given that bit of advice by a number of people, from performers he’d shared a stage with to academic advisers … and, much more recently, by both of his in-laws.
He put a hand on Buck’s chest and looked into the man’s face. He was still sweating and plainly scared, but there was a little more color in his cheeks. His lips weren’t blue; that seemed a good sign.
“Just keep breathing,” he advised his ancestor. “Slow, aye?”
He tried to follow that bit of advice himself; his own heart was hammering and sweat was ru
“We did it, aye?” Buck’s chest was moving more slowly under his hand. He turned his head to look round. “It’s … different. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.” In spite of the current situation and the overwhelming worry for Jem, Roger felt a surge of jubilation and relief. It was different: from here, he could see the road below—now no more than an overgrown drovers’ trace rather than a gray asphalt ribbon. The trees and bushes, they were different, too—there were pines, the big Caledonian pines that looked like giant stalks of broccoli. They had made it.
He gri
“Do my best.” Buck was gruff but maybe starting to look better. “What happens if ye die out of your time? D’ye just disappear, like ye never were?”
“Maybe ye explode into bits. I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Not while I’m standing next to you, at least.” Roger got his feet under him and fought down a wave of dizziness. His own heart was still beating hard enough that he felt it in the back of his head. He breathed as deep as he could and stood up.
“I’ll … get ye some water. Stay there, aye?”

ROGER HAD BROUGHT a small empty canteen, though he’d worried about what might happen to the metal in transit. Evidently whatever it was that vaporized gemstones wasn’t bothered about tin, though; the canteen was intact, and so was the small knife and the silver pocket flask of brandy.
Buck was sitting up by the time Roger came back from the nearest burn with water, and after mopping his face with the water and drinking half the brandy, he declared himself recovered.
Roger wasn’t all that sure; the look of the man was a little off-color still—but he was much too anxious about Jem to suggest waiting any longer. They’d talked about it a bit on the drive to Craigh na Dun, agreeing on a basic strategy, at least to start.
If Cameron and Jem had made it through without mishap—and Roger’s heart misgave him at that thought, recalling Geillis Duncan’s careful collection of news reports involving people found near stone circles, most of them dead—they had to be on foot. And while Jem was a sturdy little boy and capable of walking a good distance, he doubted they could make much more than ten miles in a day over rough country.
The only road was the drovers’ track that led near the base of the hill. So one of them would take the direction that would intersect with one of General Wade’s good roads that led to Inverness; the other would follow the track west toward the pass that led to Lallybroch and, beyond it, Cranesmuir.
“I think Inverness is the most likely,” Roger repeated, probably for the sixth time. “It’s the gold he wants, and he knows that’s in America. He can’t be meaning to walk from the Highlands to Edinburgh to find a ship, not with winter breathing down his neck.”
“He won’t find a ship anywhere in the winter,” Buck objected. “No captain would cross the Atlantic in November!”
“D’ye think he knows that?” Roger asked. “He’s an amateur archaeologist, not a historian. And most folk in the twentieth century have trouble thinking anything was ever different in the past, save the fu
“Mmphm. Well, maybe he means to hole up in Inverness with the lad, maybe find work, and wait ’til the spring. D’ye want to take Inverness, then?” Buck lifted his chin in the direction of the invisible town.
“No.” Roger shook his head and began patting his pockets, checking his supplies. “Jem knows this place.” He nodded toward the stones above them. “I brought him here, more than once, to make sure he never came upon it unawares. That means he knows—approximately, at least—how to get home—to Lallybroch, I mean—from here. If he got away from Cameron—and, God, I hope he did!—he’d run for home.”
He didn’t trouble saying that even if Jem wasn’t there, Bria
“Right, then.” Buck buttoned his coat and settled the knitted comforter round his neck against the wind. “Three days, maybe, to Inverness and time to search the town, two or three back. I’ll meet ye here in six days’ time. If ye’re not here, I follow on to Lallybroch.”
Roger nodded. “And if I’ve not found them but I’ve heard some word of them, I’ll leave a message at Lallybroch. If …” He hesitated, but it had to be said. “If ye find your wife, and things fall out—”
Buck’s lips tightened.
“They’ve already fallen,” he said. “But, aye. If. I’ll still come back.”
“Aye, right.” Roger hunched his shoulders, anxious to go, and awkward with it. Buck was already turning away but suddenly about-faced and gripped Roger’s hand, hard.
“We’ll find him,” Buck said, and looked into Roger’s eyes, with those bright-moss eyes that were the same as his. “Good luck.” He gave Roger’s hand one sharp, hard shake and then was off, arms outstretched for balance as he picked his way down through the rocks and gorse. He didn’t look back.

WARMER, COLDER
“CAN YOU TELL when Jem’s at school?”
“Yes. He goes on da bus.” Mandy bounced a little on her booster seat, leaning to peer out the window. She was wearing the Halloween mask Bree had helped her make, this being a mouse princess: a mouse face drawn with crayons on a paper plate, with holes pierced for eyes and at either side for pink yarn ties, pink pipe cleaners glued on for whiskers, and a precarious small crown made with cardboard, more glue, and most of a bottle of gold glitter.
Scots celebrated Samhain with hollowed-out turnips with candles in them, but Bria
She smiled, despite her worry.
“I meant, if you played warmer, colder with Jem, could you do it if he wasn’t answering you out loud? Would you know if he was closer or farther away?”
Mandy kicked the back of the seat in meditative fashion.
“Maybe.”
“Can you try?” They were headed toward Inverness. That was where Jem was supposed to be, spending the night with Rob Cameron’s nephew.
“Okay,” Mandy said agreeably. She hadn’t asked where Rob Cameron was. Bria
“Colder,” Mandy a
“What? Do you mean we’re getting farther away from where Jemmy is?”
“Uh-huh.”
Bria