Free The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel by MacAlister Katie

mother started to say, but Mrs. Vanilla began squeaking loudly and kicking her legs. We set her down and she bolted, moving amazingly fast for an old lady. Around the counter filled with doughnuts she dashed, and into the back area.
    We didn’t wait. We ran after her, the electronic
ping
of the door chime letting us know that the security guard was hot on our heels.
    Mrs. Vanilla scurried past the doughnut-making equipment, heading straight for a door to what must be a storage room. I prayed to every deity I could think of that it was, because if it wasn’t, we were going to be in a serious world of hurt.
    Mom Two threw open the door and without a look back, dashed inside, followed by Mrs. Vanilla and my mother. I hesitated for a second. The security guard appeared behind me.
    “I so hope I don’t see you in a few seconds,” I told him, then turned on my heel and leaped through the open doorway into the storage room.
    Only it wasn’t a storage room.
    I fell with a loud
thwump
onto soft, daisy-spotted green grass, getting a good mouthful of it before I managed to roll over onto my back.
    The stars sparkled overhead, like so many glittering diamonds scattered on an indigo cloth. They looked so close, I wanted to reach up and touch them, to let their cold, brilliant light cleanse me of all impurities.
    I sat up and spat out the bit of grass, half a daisy, and a very surprised potato bug. I looked around. Although the moon was high in the sky, a quarter moon that was as bright as a full moon, closer to earth a reddish haze hung over the land, like smoke from an odd sort of fire.
    Directly in front of me were the three shapes of my two mothers and Mrs. Vanilla, the last of whom was being supported by the former.
    “You guys are OK?” I asked, getting up. “I guess I owe Mrs. Vanilla an apol—”
    The words dried up on my tongue as Mom Two shifted, allowing me to see beyond her.
    A semicircle of men in plate-and-mail armor stood looking at us, each of them holding a drawn sword.
    “Oh, hell,” I said on an exhale of breath.
    “Anwyn, not hell, I think,” Mom Two corrected.
    As she spoke, the ranks of men swept aside like a human parting of the Red Sea. Through the opening strode a woman, tall, pale, and slender. She was clad in a black leather bodysuit and had daggers strapped to either hip. Her eyes were a dark shade of green, and she had long black hair with green extensions that matched her eyes.
    She looked like she belonged on the set of a martial arts movie. “Who are you?” she demanded as she approached, making an impatient gesture toward us.
    I pushed my way in front of my mothers. I wasn’t abnormally courageous, but I had no intention of letting someone who looked like she could kick Jackie Chan’s ass get pushy with my moms.
    “My name is Gwen. These are my mothers. The old woman is Mrs. Vanilla. Who are you?”
    “Holly,” she snapped, her gaze raking us all over for the count of three. She turned, and with an imperious wave of her hand at the nearest guy in armor, added, “Arrest them. They’re spies.”
    “What?” I shrieked as the men moved in. “Wait, we’re not spies! This is Anwyn, right? The afterlife? The happy bunnies and sheep and lovely rolling green hills place?”
    Two men grabbed each of my arms and more or less frog-marched me toward an array of sharp black silhouettes. I looked over my shoulder to see my mothers being escorted as well, but they didn’t appear to be in distress.
    “You all right?” I asked my mother, who was immediately behind me.
    “Of course. You were the only one who fell coming through the entrance.”
    “No talking,” the man on my left arm said, his voice gruff, if muffled, behind his steel helmet.
    I bit back the words I wanted to say to him, instead focusing my attention on where we were being led. The black shapes resolved themselves into tents, of all things. Small fires dotted what could only be called an encampment, with at least a hundred (and