No one even breathed as Tolliver walked across the floor, and then the sound of his footsteps disappeared with the sound of a slamming door. Quinn felt like she might fall over, though William was standing so closely behind her shoulder that he would have caught her if she had.

Natalie let out a low groan, and William's entire demeanor shifted instantly. He squeezed Quinn's shoulder and then somehow, in the next second he was kneeling in front of Natalie; Andrew moved to her side to watch.

It was difficult to see anything in the pale light of the candles that Natalie and Andrew had brought with them from upstairs. Quinn moved automatically to retrieve the ones she and William had been using from underneath the stairs.

Relighting them, she carried both of them over near the chair and set them on the floor.

William nodded at her as he carefully touched the young woman's stomach. "That was definitely a contraction," he said. "I think you're in labor, Natalie."

"Already?" Andrew asked, panic in his near-whisper.

"Yeah... You can't hide this forever Natalie," William murmured. "How long has this been going on?"

She shrugged. "Most of the day. I thought... I just wanted this to happen when we weren't hiding out."

"We were going to try and travel, to make it to the town where her sister is living before the baby came." Andrew said.

William squeezed Natalie's hand. "None of that will matter once the baby is here, I promise."

She nodded.

"Can we help get you lying down, so I can get a better idea of what's going on?"

Quinn took the few short steps to Andrew's side, and bent down next to him. "Come on, there are lots of blankets and pillows in the area under the stairs."

Andrew stood to follow her. "There are plenty of medical supplies and lots of water in the crates as well," he said quietly to William, who looked up at him in surprise.

"Medical supplies?"

"Yes, these rooms below the safe houses are well-stocked for nearly anything. Twenty people could survive down here for weeks."

Quinn raised her eyebrows, but nobody said anything as she and Andrew carried blankets and pillows over to William, and then walked around the basement, lighting candles and setting them on the high shelves. She wondered how many safe houses there were, complete with these underground rooms filled with supplies and how many people were inside them right now.

She was reaching above her head to set a candle on one of the small sconces when there were suddenly three loud stomps on the floor directly above her.

Startled, she dropped the candle, and the candlestick clattered noisily against the stone floor. The fall through the air extinguished the flame, but droplets of hot wax splattered on her neck, shoulder, and down her arm. She bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out, terrified that whoever was above her would already have been alerted by the noise.

Panicked, her eyes instantly searched for William. His expression matched hers.

"It's all right. That's Ellen." Andrew's voice was calm as he came to stand beside Natalie, and loud too, or at least it felt that way. He was speaking in a normal voice, rather than the soft whispers they'd been using the entire time they were down here. "She's letting us know there's nobody in the house besides her, that we don't have to be so careful."

While William went to dig through the storage alcove to find the crates that held medical supplies, Quinn and Andrew folded and piled several blankets on the floor to create a soft bed for Natalie. Andrew helped his wife get settled and comfortable just as William returned.

"Can you come and help me for a second, Quinn?" he asked.

She nodded, and followed him over to the alcove. There was a strange expression on his face as he pointed down into an open crate.

"What?" she mouthed.

In response, he reached into the crate, and lifted out a stethoscope. Underneath it were piles of cloth-wrapped packages. The open one on top revealed several different sizes of gauze bandages. Next to it lay what looked like several feet of plastic tubing rolled into a circle. A stack of metal boxes lined the edge of the crate. It took her a minute to realize what was upsetting him. She looked up at him in surprise.

"From Earth?" she whispered, so low that she almost couldn't hear herself.

He nodded.

"How? What?"

He shrugged, his expression as confused and wary as hers.

* 23 *.

Still Trapped

WILLIAM COULD NOT UNDERSTAND what was going on how all of the medical supplies, so clearly from Earth, had found their way into the basement of a safe house in Philotheum. Of course, there was only one person who could have brought them here, and that fact was the source of his frustration.

He had realized last night that Nathaniel had been here before, that he was familiar not only with the house, but also with Ellen and Henry. Did Nathaniel know that Ellen was Tolliver's sister, as well? None of this made sense to him anymore.

All of these things were running through the back of his mind as he tended to the young woman. Her labor was advanced if nothing changed, if they weren't rescued soon from this basement, he would be delivering this baby by himself. This thought terrified him. He knew what to do in theory. He had read about it in medical textbooks, and even been in attendance at four births with Nathaniel, but even his uncle delivered babies only rarely. On Earth, he wasn't an obstetrician, and here, in their own world, mothers were almost always attended by experienced and skilled midwives, not healers.

As if the fact that he was going to be delivering his first baby in a dark basement while hiding from Tolliver wasn't enough, his thoughts were in a muddle over what had just happened with Quinn. He didn't understand it at all. One minute they'd been laughing and the next ... he hadn't seen that coming, at all.

He had often wondered, during this trip, how it could come so easily to his younger brother, how Thomas could just up and kiss the girl, not even considering the consequences. He'd never pictured himself doing something like that.

Guilt churned in his stomach when he thought about Thomas. He wondered, yet again, why his brother had kissed Quinn. Did he really have feelings for her? He must, on some level. Although interacting with girls was a natural skill for Thomas and certainly he'd kissed more girls than William had he would never have done something like that if he didn't really care for Quinn.

Did he actually intend to pursue a relationship with her, though? William had no idea, other than he couldn't imagine Thomas not making his intentions clear to Quinn if that were the case.

He shook his head, trying to shake the convoluted thoughts loose. He couldn't worry about it right now. Not about how Thomas felt, or how Quinn did, or even how he, himself did. They were where they were, and there were things to do. First and foremost, there was a baby to deliver.

William held up his stethoscope for Natalie and Andrew to see. "This instrument will let me hear the baby's heartbeat, so I can check on him or her." He placed the drum on Natalie's stomach, searching for the baby's heart. He smiled when he found it, right where it should be, thrumming vigorously.

"It sounds perfect," he said. "Would you like to listen?" Once Natalie had finished marveling over the sound, he helped Andrew fit the stethoscope over his ears. He couldn't help smiling when he saw the young man's eyes light up with amazement and pride.

A surprising sense of jealousy hit him as he watched the scene. Andrew was only a cycle or two older than William. An unanticipated drawback to his life of traveling between the two worlds and spending his energy and efforts on building up the clinics here, had been the lack of time and the opportunity to meet and court any young ladies in his world. Being alone, and not starting a family, was the price Nathaniel had been paying for his choice for many cycles would that happen to him, too?

Time stretched interminably in the dark basement. There was no way for Quinn to even guess how long they'd been here.

William, Andrew, and Quinn all tended Natalie as best they could. Andrew had located a large storage container filled with water, and they'd used it to drink and to wet several small cloths that they wiped across Natalie's sweaty forehead to keep her comfortable, whenever she was sitting or lying down.

Most of the time, she paced the room, leaning on her husband as he supported her. Quinn stayed near William, alternately walking around and sitting down on some of the crates they'd dragged close to the makeshift pallet they had created for Natalie on the floor. They couldn't see much in the pale flickering candlelight, and they kept as silent as they could, whispering to one another only when it was absolutely necessary, even though it had been quite a while since any sound other than Ellen's light footsteps had come through the ceiling above them.

She could tell that William was nervous, and she did what she could to reassure him which wasn't much since this whole thing kind of freaked her out, too. But time kept passing, and nothing really changed.

Despite the stress of the situation, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she was beginning to feel bored.

And then, everything changed at once. Natalie had let out small groaning noises several times before, but the sound that came from her now was different louder and more urgent. William stood and flew across the room to her.

At the same time, there were new sounds upstairs. A loud bang shook the floor the front door hitting the wall as someone threw it open, followed by several pairs of heavy footsteps.

Tolliver's voice resonated through the basement ceiling. He was laughing a sound that turned Quinn's blood to ice in her veins. There was another man's voice, one that she didn't recognize. He was chuckling, too.

"So, what about it, Ellen?" Tolliver called loudly. "Have you finished slaving over dinner yet? Your husband has finally decided to grace us with his presence; he's just coming up the road now."

Tolliver's voice was different, less polished than usual slurred? She wasn't sure what to make of it. She looked over to William, to see if she could decipher his thoughts on it, but his attention was on something else entirely.

Andrew and William both had their arms around Natalie, gently guiding her down onto the blankets. Her breathing was heavy and rough. Her whole body twitched with every sound that drifted through the floor, and Quinn could tell that she was having great difficulty remaining silent.

Quinn knelt quickly, arranging pillows behind Natalie, trying to help make her as comfortable as she could.

William looked up at her, his eyes round with alarm. "The baby is coming any minute now," he whispered almost inaudibly, his voice cracking.

Panic twisted her insides. What were they going to do? They couldn't let Tolliver hear them, and at the same time, they needed to hear him, to know what he was saying. She stood and walked away from them, over to the spot directly underneath where she could hear the voices coming through the floor.

"Dinner is nearly ready, Tolliver. Perhaps you and your guest I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, sir would like to have a seat in the dining room? I can bring out some wine, Tolliver. It's not necessary to sneak sips from a flask in your pants like a peasant."

A chill ran down Quinn's spine. What was Ellen thinking, antagonizing Tolliver? And offering to let him get drunk? Either Ellen really knew what she was doing, or she couldn't be trusted the way Andrew and Nathaniel seemed to think she could be.

It didn't matter much, she supposed. Tolliver was definitely dangerous, and Ellen already knew where they were.

"At least you've preserved some of your skills as a hostess, sister." Tolliver was snickering as his voice drifted away, into some part of the house that was not above the basement.

Quinn listened intently until she could be certain that three sets of footsteps had exited the kitchen Tolliver's, his guard's, and Ellen's. She squinted through the dim candlelight to William. He was crouched down in front of Natalie. Andrew sat directly behind her; her head was in his lap, her hands clutched tightly to his.

Any minute, the baby would be here. Quinn dashed for the stairs, climbing them quickly, as darkness closed in around her. At the top, she pushed gently on the ceiling. The trap door moved easily at her touch, but no light trickled through the small crack she opened. She pushed harder, opening it all the way, and climbing out into the pantry before setting it back down silently. A thin ribbon of light shone beneath the door, but no sounds came from the kitchen.

Her heart thudded violently in her chest as she stood there, trying to decide what to do next. Before she'd decided anything, she heard the swish of one of the kitchen doors opening, and then the sound of someone one person walking into the kitchen. She crouched down on the wooden pantry floor and craned her neck until she could see out through the crack under the door.

She held her breath, straining to catch a glimpse of whoever had entered the kitchen. After a moment, familiar-looking leather sandals under the hem of a long cotton skirt came into view.

An unexpected wave of calm washed over her. She stood, and opened the pantry door just enough to poke her head out.

"Ellen," she whispered.

Ellen's face turned white with surprise, and she crossed the room quickly, stepping into the pantry in a way that forced Quinn to back up to the far wall.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Do you not realize how dangerous it is for you to come up here?"

Quinn's eyes met the older woman's straight on. "Andrew and Natalie are down there with us."

Ellen nodded. "Good. I was hoping they would realize that I'd gotten Tolliver out of the house for a bit and go down there to safety." Her tone was sharp, reprimanding. As she spoke, she was reaching down toward the floor.

"The baby is coming. Right now," Quinn said.

Ellen had already begun to pull up the trapdoor, and right at that moment, a low moan came through the opening. The door fell shut with a muted thud, and she turned steely eyes on Quinn.

"I'll do what I can to keep Tolliver away from this side of the house," she said. She turned and exited the pantry quickly. Her demeanor suggested that she was in charge and had everything under control, but in the second that the pantry was flooded with light before the door closed behind her, Quinn could see that her hands were shaking.

She nodded to herself, and reached again for the hidden handle of the trapdoor. Before she had it all the way open, though, there was the sound of another door in the kitchen, and more footsteps going in, rather than the sound of Ellen going out. She carefully eased the door back down, and then crouched, hiding as best she could, in the corner of the black pantry.

"I came as quickly as I could. What is Tolliver doing here?"

Quinn breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was Henry.

"Why do you think he's here? He wants my support in trying to trade Thomas for Linnea."

"Of course he does. And now we have to feed him?"

"I was just about to take in some glasses of wine." Her voice dropped even lower, "Natalie is about to have her baby."

"Did they make it safely ... down?" Quinn had to strain to hear Henry's words.

"Yes. And the others are with them."

For a moment, Quinn thought that they had stopped talking, but then Henry made a noise that sounded like a gasp. Disregarding the possible consequences, she stood and pushed the pantry door open just far enough to be able to look out. Henry's arms were wrapped around Ellen's waist, and she was stretched up, whispering in his ear. Her eyes were on the pantry, and Quinn watched them narrow at the movement of the door.

Her heart sank.

Ellen whispered something else to her husband, and he, too, turned to face the pantry.

For what felt like many minutes, they both stared, unmoving, and she looked back at them.

Finally, Henry lifted two heavy, crystal goblets from the countertop. "I'll take these to the dining room," he said, and disappeared through the door.

Ellen crossed the room to the pantry so quickly that Quinn had to blink. She threw open the door and stepped in, backing Quinn up into the far wall.

"You need to get downstairs, now." Her whisper was the most commanding sentence Quinn had ever heard, but she wasn't as intimidated by it as she knew she should be.

"What are you hiding from me?"

Ellen's pause was so minute that at any other time, Quinn would have missed it entirely. Then she rolled her eyes. "You're not entitled to know as much as you think you are, Lady Quinn. If Tolliver discovers you here, you have no idea the damage that will cause. Please, for the love of the Maker, go back down and stay there."

Ellen turned and walked out of the pantry. As the door swung back and forth on its hinges, Quinn could see her pick up a large ceramic bowl and carry it through a doorway into another part of the house.

For a moment, long enough to surprise herself, she considered not going back down into the basement. She didn't know what Ellen and Henry were hiding, and the whispering conversation she had just witnessed reminded her a little too strongly of the stranger's voice two nights before at Thea's house.