We congregated in the gym again, Maddox pacing in front of us as we stood in rows.

  The sun shone though the full-length windows but gave none of its warmth.

  “The second trial is a simple one,” he boomed, “Simple yet difficult. You have to survive three days in the era of witch trials without getting convicted of witchcraft. With your clothes and the way you speak, you’ll be noticed. You have to hide among the townsfolk, convince them you are one of them, same as you’ll have to do as a Custom. And there’s no questions, perfect.”

  All of our faces were blank. At this point we’d realised the trials were all going to be a bit out of the ordinary, and perhaps unnecessarily convoluted, but it made sense in the Estate’s own sort of way. No rhyme or reason behind any of its actions except pure spectacle. But going to a time where witchcraft was believed in? It was bound to be a strange adventure.

  As before, Niva brought out the time machine, this time staring at me before flicking the switch. Her hair was neatly pushed back with the same red bandana as last time although it couldn’t distract from the wrinkles in her clothes and the dark circles under her eyes, darker than usual. She had clearly not slept in a while. I gave a small wave, trying to ignore the rising guilt and hoping there would be a way to undo some of the damage I’d caused.

  The Chancellor and Shirley left Elian to watch on their behalf, however his face was solely focused on Niva. His lips were pressed in a thin line, concerned. It seemed they hadn’t talked yet.

  I tore my gaze away from the both of them as the familiar pulse of blue light fired up the machine, causing the swirling blue forcefield to come to life again.

  We filed in one by one like we did before, and it wasn’t long until my turn came.

  Phase two of the project. I’d made it this far, I could last another round, couldn’t I? Live to fight another day.

  Niles’s face flashed into my head.

  Of course I could.

  I gave Elian a two-fingered salute, and this time he saluted back, his mouth still a straight line, his brow furrowed in fear, as I stepped into the portal. The blue mist once again transported me through time and space, the sensation weightless, before I landed on my feet with the remaining participants.

  The first thing that hit was the smell, knocking into my nostrils like a punch. And judging from almost everyone else covering their noses, they smelt it too.

  A dirt path lay ahead of us surrounded by forest, birds sang in the trees and at my feet a beautiful butterfly flew from one wildflower to the next. Its wings flashed blueish purple in the light, fading to black tips dotted with white.

  Rolene snapped her fingers in my face. “Keep your head on your shoulders, kid, we could be anywhere.”

  “Right, sorry. I’m guessing we follow the path?”

  We all looked at each other and shrugged, with no obvious alternative, but then came the debate about which direction to choose.

  “This way,” said one of the participants, pointing to where the sun hung low in the sky. The same sun that had flooded the gym with light moments earlier, only a thousand years younger. “We follow the sun.”

  Crynn, the Relegate who amazed us all with his magic tricks at dinner, shook his head and pointed in the opposite direction. “There’s animal footprints going away from that direction, I’m guessing they’d be heading away from a human village. If we follow the sun we might bump into them and it could be dangerous.”

  “Do what you want, but if you want to live,” he shouted at everyone, “You’ll follow me.”

  Crynn confronted him.

  “It’s a death trap, you’ll get people killed just because you can’t see sense.”

  “My sense is perfect.”

  He shoved Crynn, who stumbled backwards but recovered quickly. Even though he was a few inches shorter than his aggressor, he gave him a glare that could make anyone cower.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you looking for a fight?”

  “Why? You up for one?”

  “Only if you keep pushing me.”

  “Right then.”

  The other man lobbed his fist into Crynn’s face, igniting a chain reaction of violence.

  He ducked as the man swung at him again, narrowly avoiding his face, while Crynn tackled the man’s whole body to the ground and pummelled his face.

  I grabbed Crynn to pull him off but got rewarded with an elbow to the nose, causing my eyes to water.

  Once the initial pain subsided, I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  “Enough!”

  To my surprise, everyone stopped what they were doing.

  “Has it occurred to any of you that we’re the only ones looking out for each other? If we make enemies of our own we’ll have nobody.”

  That earned a sneer from everyone and more than a few eyerolls, but they could laugh all they wanted, the fighting had stopped.

  Rolene stepped onto a tree stump, coming into her own the past few days, more confident than I’d last seen her.

  “She’s right, there’s only one way we’re going to survive this. We all have skills we can use to get out of this mess so here’s what we’re going to do. People on my left, go left, people on my right, go right. There, sorted. And if anyone’s got a problem with that they can talk to my fist.”

  Several members of the group grumbled sheepishly as I sided with Crynn, along with Rolene, and the majority sided with the other man.

  “If it gets to a few hours before you reach anything, turn back the other way, agreed Jax?” said Rolene.

  “Agreed,” he replied, nursing several red patches on his face that would soon bloom into bruises.

  It didn’t take long for us to set off in different directions, hopefully to discover a world that wasn’t too hard to blend into.

  We trekked through the lush green forest, the light dwindling with every passing minute. The sun hadn’t set quite yet but its heat was surely gone, replaced by a breeze rustling through the trees, sending a chill down my spine and bringing with it a sense of unease not helped by the birds, who stopped singing one by one.

  We were a decent sized group but even in our large numbers too many shadows flitted around, making me turn my head more than once.

  The time was clearly slipping away, and the fear of what night would bring found its way to the forefront of everyone’s minds, writing out a single thought.

  We picked the wrong side.

  “We should turn back,” a woman said.

  Mumbles of agreement rippled through the group, along with a few grumbles of ‘I knew Jax was right.’

  I strode towards Rolene, ignoring the sharp snap of twigs underfoot.

  “They’re growing restless.”

  She paused for a moment, looking behind to where we’d come from, where we’d have to head back if the path continued like this for much longer, then staring straight ahead as if she could see past them, see where the town lay.

  Driven by some primal instinct known only to herself, she picked up a fallen branch and planted it into the ground as a makeshift walking stick.

  “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m marching on,” she said, challenging the others to confront her. “If you want to turn back I won’t stop you, but in my bones I know we’re on the right track. So you can all play it safe if you wish, but I know what’s waiting for us back there, and I’d rather take my chances with the unknown.”

  She turned on her heels, waiting for no one, and a few of the project participants glanced amongst each other, sussing out where the majority would go so they could copy.

  It didn’t take long for me to fall into step with Rolene, and the bargain paid off as not even five minutes later she stopped, beckoning me forward.

  “Come here, kid, what do you see?”

  I scanned the area she was pointing at, but there didn’t seem to be anything of note. There were the same short oaks, same hazel flowers that had accompanied us since we set off.

  “Not much,” I admitted.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Exactly.” She clapped me on the back, “The trees are thinning out. We’re getting close to the edge of the forest, and that means a town.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile as I picked up my pace, racing ahead to where the trees thinned more and more until there was only two rows of them lining a path to a set of city gates.

  They opened to reveal a large crowd marching with all the fanfare of a procession, parading two women dressed in white rags that barely covered their thin bodies.

  Both their heads were bowed, and even the slow, agonised shuffle of their feet, the clear suffering they were in, couldn’t stop the crowd from jeering.

  The townspeople pushed them further out of the town, up the path that led straight toward us. One of the women pleaded while the other kept her head held high, but both were looked upon with disgust, and the silent mutterings of their prayers went unanswered, if they could even be heard above the sneers and cries of the townspeople.

  “They’ll see us,” I told Rolene.

  “Quick, everyone hide!” She gestured for everyone to scatter.

  And everyone did.

  People clambered up trees, dived into bushes, and crawled into obscurity, not wanting to be seen by these people so ready to hate.

  I found a spot behind a tree. Not the safest place but from where the townspeople were coming, they wouldn’t see me.

  And who else would I find but Elian hiding behind the tree next to mine.

  “What the blazes are you doing here?” I hissed.

  “I promise this has nothing to do with you.” He threw his hands up. I raised an eyebrow.

  “So you just happened to be in the exact same place I’m trying to hide?”

  “Alright so I saw you and wanted to help you survive, but the reason I was here in the first place has nothing to do with you,” he amended, peering around to check on the townspeople.

  “As much as I appreciate it,” I whispered, scooching closer to him to minimise the chance of being caught, “We’re managing fine. I don’t need your help.”

  “Funny.” He tilted his head. “Didn’t Niles once say the same thing to you right before you completely ignored him? Niva says hello, by the way.”

  “No I don’t!” A muffled voice came from some rustling bushes.

  My breath hitched. Niva had travelled in time again. Could it mean she’d forgiven her mother? That she was ready to fight?

  I shook my head, there’d be time for asking questions when we weren’t hiding from what appeared to be murderous cultists.

  A man in black robes started reading from a book as the women were led up a platform with nooses hanging from the top beam.

  Holy crap, this was an execution. Those two women were going to be hung.

  “Let the records show,” he read in a voice that croaked, “That Mary Trembles and her accomplice Susanna Edwards have hereby been found guilty for the crimes of using witchcraft and sorcery to cause harm to one Grace Barnes and will be hung for their crimes. May they find peace with God.”

  Several people started prayers as the women were placed into the nooses. I didn’t know much about the witch trials, but I knew witchcraft wasn’t real, and I knew those women were innocent. They’d be killed because people were scared of what they didn’t understand. Because people saw things they couldn’t explain and called it sorcery, then found the easiest person to blame.

  “We can’t let them do this,” I whispered.

  “They were the last witches to be hung in Saxanglain back when it was called England. We have to, it’s an inevitable point in history,” countered Niva, poking her head out of the bush, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  I sucked in a shaky breath.

  “Too late.”

  I leapt out from the tree and barrelled towards the crowd but Elian tackled me into nearby bushes before I was spotted.

  “What are you doing? Do you want to get killed?” he hissed.

  “We need to stop them,” I argued.

  “You’re not thinking straight. You can’t take all those townsfolk on at once and win.”

  “I wasn’t planning to. I just needed to buy the women time to escape.”

  His face sunk as he realised what exactly I intended to do.

  “You’re a danger to yourself, do you know that? I can help you save them, but there’s a better way to do it.”

  He held out his hand to help me up, kindly ignoring the mud stains that had splotched all over my Estate issued uniform.

  I swallowed the ball stuck in my throat.

  “Tell me how.”

  He brushed some loose twigs off his trousers.

  “Saving their lives is easy enough. I can distract the townsfolk and lead them further into the forest where Niva will be waiting with her DNA bomb. We knock them out for a while and give the women forged documents to take a boat to Ivernia, or Ireland to them I suppose, where they’ll be safer. But listen, unless those women die, each participant is in danger of being accused of witchcraft themselves. Susanna Edwards and Mary Trembles must be the last ever witches hung in England, but before that the timeline is flexible.” He looked to Niva for confirmation. She nodded. “I suppose what I’m asking you is, are you willing to risk forty lives for two?”

  My heart sunk as I understood the dilemma.

  On his face I saw the weight of years spent determining risk and reward, deciding the necessary sacrifices to make, and how much each sacrifice ate away at him.

  “Would you do it?” I asked, searching his face for an answer, but his well-trained features settled into obscurity, masking his true feelings.

  “I’m not you,” he replied with a shrug.

  Time was ticking, the prayers wouldn’t last forever, and with them, two innocent lives. If I didn’t make a decision soon, time would make it for me.

  The women were guaranteed death if we didn’t act; the participants weren’t if we did. But I couldn’t make that decision for them, and in terms of the numbers, forty was a lot more than two.

  “There’s another way. There has to be. Why’s it up to me to decide anyway?”

  “You want to save their lives, be the hero, make the world a better place, these are the decisions you have to make. Fun, isn’t it? But that’s what they don’t tell you about being a hero, that you have to choose who’s worth saving.”

  He spoke from experience, that much was obvious, and my heart ached for the man he might’ve been had he not been forced to fight on the warfront, had he not been forced to become a hero.

  There couldn’t only be two options. I’d make another one, one where everyone would be safe. There was always a way, I just had to be clever enough to find it. We had resources; Elian said himself he could forge documents. Surely there was a way to use that to our advantage.

  “I’ve got it.”

  If I didn’t know any better I’d say a spark of hope flitted in his eyes.

  “There’s a way to save everyone. I’m guessing the only proof we have that these women died is records right? Well, if you can forge them boat tickets and fake identities, I’d say you could forge death certificates. They’re officially the last to die as punishment for witchcraft and the universe will keep it that way. The participants are safe.”

  Elian grinned.

  “What do you think Niva? Can your friends forge death certificates?”

  Niva rolled her eyes.

  “They haven’t evaded your father for no reason. But we’d better get a move on otherwise it’ll be for nothing.”

  True, the prayers sounded like they were coming to a close. We needed to act fast.

  “Sneak round the back, don’t untie them until I’ve lead the townsfolk away,” he instructed, “Niva, you know what to do. With any luck the combination of our plans might just work.”

  Less than a minute later I was behind the gallows, waiting for Elian’s distraction with baited breath, hoping against hope it would work, when a twig snapped behind me.

  I turned, seeing a woman with light brown hair hidden under a cap.

  Her brown eyes widened, and I pressed a finger desperately to my lips.

  Please don’t tell on me. Please don’t tell on me.

  She nodded, glancing back and forth between me and the gallows, taking in my different clothing which to her must have looked otherworldly, took a deep breath, then calmly walked back towards the gallows in the clearing. It felt like we’d made a beautiful connection, one that transcended the barrier of centuries between us, and I knew then and there I’d made a new friend I’d remember for the rest of my life. A life I owed her, since she’d all but saved it with her silence.

  “Come quickly, there are evil spirits here!” she alerted the others.

  Oh.

  Well, screw you too.

  I ran but there were others waiting for me, and the spectators from the gallows approached quickly from behind. Before I could act, they’d circled me into a trap with no escape.

  Another woman marched forwards to get a proper look.

  “Come to collect the souls of the witches, I guarantee it.”

  “We can’t suffer her to live,” a man cried, riling up the town’s folk.

  Murmurs of agreement rolled in a wave through the crowd, and before I knew it, they started closing in with pitchforks and torches.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I was a time-traveller from the future?” I tried, and as if in reply, one of the men jutted a pitchfork closer to my face.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Wait!” Elian bellowed, leaping into the clearing, Niva unenthusiastically in tow. “We are angels, sent to oversee your good work. Behold, our miracle!”

  “Do I have to?” Niva grumbled.

  Elian said something through gritted teeth that sounded remarkably like ‘help me out here, they have pitchforks.’

  “Fine.” She sighed and took out a contraption from her tool belt, which I recognised as the DNA bomb. She pressed a few buttons and it started glowing white. “Come closer, ye faithful, and rejoice in the light. Step forward and be blessed by us.”

  She stopped just short of rolling her eyes.

  “If you’re angels,” asked one of the townsfolk, “Why are you dressed like demons?”

  I tapped one of the prongs on his pitchfork.

  “More to the point, we’ve got a glowy machine, do you really want to mess with us?”

  Elian groaned.

  “Tell me you didn’t try to make a pun just then.”

  “It’s how I cope with stressful situations,” I shot back.

  “Fools!” shouted what looked like the leader of the witch-hunt, “They are pretenders! They use the Lord’s name in vain. All pretenders and heretics must be judged. Arrest them!”

  Niva opened her mouth to say something but Elian cut her off.

  “You can save the ‘I told you so’ for later.”

  He ripped a pitchfork from the nearest set of hands, turning it to those in the circle. “You’ve got one chance to drop your weapons.”

  They all charged him at once but his well-trained reflexes deflected each swipe, pitchfork twirling through the air in a blur as he knocked three people down before I could even take advantage of the broken formation.

  While one man’s back was turned, I clambered onto it, knocking my fist into the side of his head until he fell to the ground.

  “Niva!” I shouted, wrestling a woman swinging her torch at me, “Run! We can still do the plan.”

  She took the opportunity and fled, already whipping out a screwdriver and her machine before ducking into some bushes.

  Elian whacked a couple more of the townsfolk on the head, knocking them out.

  The flame from the woman’s torch brushed my skin, and I yelped back in pain, the burnt area already red.

  She swung again and I ducked, tackling her from below the waist so we both collapsed to the ground. I took the torch from her hand while she fell and used it like a shield against the oncoming citizens.

  I saw an opening between two distracted fighters and leapt for it, calling to Elian behind me. He paused for a second then followed, and we ran as fast as we could with the townspeople chasing after us.

  I couldn’t see the other project participants anywhere and hoped that meant they were safe, but in the meantime, we were facing life or death. And it looked like a horrible death.

  We caught up with Niva as the three of us barged deeper and deeper through the forest, on a tangent to where we came from. Zigzagging left and right until we lost all sense of direction.

  A spark came from Niva’s machine.

  “It’s ready. You go on ahead. I’ll hold them off.”

  “And it’ll definitely work on all of them?” I asked.

  “I’ve got this. Keep going until you get to safety.”

  I slowed down with her.

  “I’m helping you.”

  She exchanged a look with Elian, who simply gave a grave nod but made to move.

  “No!” I tried to stop him. “We’re not leaving her. We can’t just leave her to fight them on her own.”

  “She knows what she’s doing.” He put a hand on my shoulder, “I promise.”

  I looked at her, her eyes lit up with determination, and sighed.

  “Take my backpack,” she offered, “You’ll need it more than me. Just don’t touch my Chew-Chew Trains or I’ll kill you.”

  She dumped it in my hands and stopped running, looking back as the remaining townsfolk gained on her, but she faced them like a mountain in a storm, even as they pushed her to her knees.

  A smile played on her lips as she pressed a button on the machine, and light torched everything in its path.

  White light vapourised trees to dust, and the people that stood in its way.

  Niva stood to her feet, gazing over the scorched land she created, a victory shining in her eyes until two hidden people came behind her, and knocked her out cold.

  It all happened in slow motion. She fell to the ground, and I didn’t hear myself crying out for her as they tied her hands behind her back. Elian pushed me forwards, and I ran. I ran and didn’t stop until the raw breaths scraped my lungs.