(Somewhere behind Ruthven, Cressida relinquished his hand and moved in to hug someone else.
“Still alive, Monterey?”
“Still making trouble, Cress?”
“I bet my escape plan’s better than yours.”)
The world was falling apart around them. Ruthven reached up, just as Oxford reached down and for a moment, they could not look away from each other.
“We’re probably going to die in the next ten minutes,” blurted Ruthven.
“Good point,” said Oxford, and kissed him.
It was a good kiss. Good enough for Ruthven to forget, just for a second, that they were trapped in a future where humans were extinct, and they were surrounded by giant purple cats all going through some kind of horrific memory trauma.
He got about six seconds, in fact, of Oxford’s mouth warm on his, and the pleasure of being held in his arms, before the noise and hubbub and general peril came rushing back with a vengeance.
“Jump,” someone snarled in Ruthven’s ear. It sounded a lot like Professor Boswell.
They jumped.
The next tier of glass platforms was a dizzying distance beneath them, far enough away to risk breaking limbs. But that didn’t matter, because they didn’t reach it.
The largest time hoop Ruthven had ever seen in his life opened up underneath him, and he fell into it feet-first. The only thing good about this truly terrifying course of events was that this time, it was Oxford holding his hand.
1 Mushrooms were infamously served to the emperor Claudius by his wife and niece Agrippina, shortly before his death from poisoning. The mushrooms were later declared innocent, and history has never proved otherwise…
Forty-Nine
The Matter of the Violet Sunflower
Cresting, swirling, bubbling… drop.
They landed hard on the rounded cobblestones of the quad, under a night sky. There were glowing street-lamps here and there about the place, illuminating the campus in a soft shade of peach.
“Everyone in one piece?” Boswell asked briskly.
Everyone included Ruthven and Oxford, Lovelace and Monterey, Fenella, Cressida, Boswell.
No Anachronauts. No Nero.
“Who brought us home?” Lovelace asked from her position, cradled against Monterey’s chest.
Cressida waved the postcard she’d been fiddling with through the trial. “A couple of your Control kids made contact about thirty minutes ago. Quant and Khan? Took them a while to lock on to our location, even with all the opal implants we have between us. They’re not used to looking forward in time. Good for them to develop new skills. This is a school, after all.”
Ruthven dared a glance up at Oxford. He had kissed him. Like he meant it. Like it was something he had been thinking about doing for a long time.
What he saw now was not the pleased secret smile of someone who had finally kissed a boy he liked. Oxford looked wretched. When he saw Ruthven looking at him, the first thing he said was: “I’m sorry.”
Now Ruthven felt wretched. He stepped back, feeling his face heat up with embarrassment. “For kissing me?”
“Not exactly. But you’re going to hate me when I tell you the truth, so I shouldn’t have done it.”
The others were listening. Of course the others were listening.
“The truth about what, young Oxford?” Boswell asked in his sternest, most professorial voice.
Oxford relaxed his hand. Something gleamed there, a circle of purple glass.
“Is that a chronocle?” Ruthven demanded, then paused, catching up to his own thoughts. “Is that the Violet Sunflower?”
The Basalt Sphinx was a mug, according to Anne Boleyn. Why shouldn’t the Violet Sunflower be another everyday object?
Oxford nodded slowly, looking ashamed of himself.
Lovelace hissed between her teeth. “You did that?” she demanded. “Set off that… mind bomb in the future.”
“Settle, love,” said Monterey. “Desperate times and all that. He got us out.”
“Cressida and Control got us out,” Lovelace snapped.
“Not all of us,” Boswell added. “Nero may be an arsehole but he is one of us and no one rescued him.”
“They’re Anachronauts,” said Cressida, not sounding especially bothered. “If they can’t find their own escape route, I’ll eat my two-horned Viking helmet.”
Lovelace was still staring at Oxford. “Did you make a whole planet full of cats forget that we existed? That time travel existed? They were in pain, Oxford.”
Oxford crumpled. He lowered himself to the nearby steps that ringed the quad, and put his head in his hands. “I didn’t know it would be like that. I just tapped the glass and followed the instructions.”
