"Before we get too far, I need to know if Kit can come with you to Boston.”
Fifty yards downriver, Kit and Harry played fetch. Lennon walked beside her, the cabin a mile or more behind. “What’s in Manchester?” he asked.
“Right now. Before he can hear. I need an answer.”
Lennon looked at her. “Of course he can.”
“Promise it.”
“I promise.”
Beside her, the river seemed louder than it had last night, wild and lawless. The haze had cleared, the morning sun shone bright, and in the water’s reflection, she saw cold trees and sky, and she wondered if the Merrimack was a siren calling her south, or a snake chasing her there. She was glad to have Lennon and Kit with her; but she was concerned, and not just about Kit’s fate. Echo’s version of the story still rang in her head, and in light of his disappearing act, her decision to wait until morning to ask questions now seemed grossly irresponsible.
Surely there were other scientists at Kairos, which made it plausible for Echo to be one of those scientists’ children. So what else had his mother told him? Whatever Echo knew, he seemed positive it was bullshit, but didn’t the mere fact of the Cormorant’s existence corroborate her father’s story? For that matter, did she even want her father’s story corroborated? So far, she’d been more preoccupied with the validity of his claims, but what of the claims themselves? Say she got to Manchester, found the Waters of Kairos spinning, what then?
In you go, my dear.
With no clue what was on the other side, did she have it in her?
Maybe that was why she’d put off asking Echo questions: A small and timid part of her had hoped he would prove her father wrong. That some fact had been passed to him, which could be passed to her, and which she could use as evidence to turn back, give up, and go home.
“Nico. What’s in Manchester?”
“Nothing, Len.”
He had Boston. Kit, too, if it came to it. Whatever her story’s validity, it belonged to her. She would only share it with them if the need arose.
“I like that,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”
She turned to find Lennon looking at her with that almost-smile, and suddenly the possibilities of what, exactly, he liked seemed endless. A timely gust of wind blew his hair in a way that felt downright boastful— Look what I get to do, said the wind. And Nico wondered if this slightly nauseating, overly exhilarating, entirely new feeling she had was what the characters in her books meant when they claimed their hearts had skipped a beat.
“You like what?” she asked.
The almost-smile flowered; he looked away. “When you call me Len.”