CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My first escape attempt involves turning the cot on its side and trying to balance on its rail-thin frame to reach the window above. It doesn’t work so well.

Using a broken piece of the inkwell, I pry loose some stones from the cellar walls and toss them up, where they rattle against the glass before falling back down on my head, but they don’t have either the force to break the window or the intensity to attract anyone’s attention.

It’ll have to be the door, then. I examine the heavy wooden door and the wall around it, as well as the brass doorknob. I try to wedge broken pieces of the pen into the jamb but only manage to break the pen into smaller bits. The gap beneath the door is large enough to see some light radiating from the other side, and I shout myself hoarse, hoping that someone might happen to wander past. Finally giving that up, I sit with my back against the door, silently fuming with my head in my hands.

None of this would have happened if I’d just listened to Dodge and gone about my new, early 20th century life without any regard for the future. If I hadn’t been so determined to fix the past. Maybe there was something to Dodge’s rules after all, his warnings about not making changes to the timeline. Maybe my current incarceration is history’s way of protecting itself, of making sure that Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination still happens, that the Great War still happens, that the temporal anomaly—me—is dealt with. I’m going to die here, and it’s all my fault.

But, no. I leap to my feet with sudden understanding. The only reason I was sent here is because I’m destined to be the ancestor of the time traveler who saved my father’s life. I don’t understand precisely how it all works, but if time or fate or destiny is trying to protect the established timeline—if all this happens to keep things on their pre-determined course—then I won’t die here. I can’t. I have to have children and grandchildren. I still have things to accomplish, a life to live.

Fresh determination rushes through me. Time is on my side, not Madeline’s.

When you are prepared to cooperate, ring the bell for Hugh.

A rope hangs near the doorway, its upper end disappearing through a hole in the floor. That must be the bell Madeline referred to. That’s my opportunity. I just have to be prepared to take it.

***

I ring the bell three times before I hear something like the sound of a door opening somewhere in the distance and footsteps falling on a staircase. Peering beneath the door, I can see the shadow of someone standing just outside, working a key in the lock.

Taking a deep breath and getting into position, I mentally work through the plan I’ve devised, clutching in my hand the largest remaining shard of glass from the broken inkwell.

The latch clicks noisily, and the door creaks open to reveal Hugh, standing there with a pistol leveled at me.

“I see you have recovered from your unfortunate tumble. The mistress will be pleased.”

My eyes dart from the thin, mustached man bearing the weapon to the heavy door he’d propped open behind him. Beyond is a staircase leading upward. To freedom.

“The door at the top of the stairs is locked,” he says, jangling the key on a chain around his neck.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, holding my head high. “You can’t keep me here. There are plenty of people who know exactly where I am; they’ll come looking for me.”

“These people?” Hugh takes a stack of envelopes from an inner pocket of his jacket, and I recognize my own handwriting on the letters meant for Dodge and the Harvey Girls.

My heart sinks. “You… you…”

He nods toward his weapon and tucks the envelopes away. “You have information for Mrs. Barker?”

I hesitate. The shard of glass in my hand that had seemed so menacing before his arrival now seems small and pathetic when compared with his pistol. What had I thought—that I’d slice his throat? Even without the gun, he’d probably have just knocked it out of my hand before it got halfway to his neck. It’d been a stupid plan, not playing to my strengths at all. I wish that my parents had thought to make me enroll in self-defense classes rather than all those history courses.

“Well? The information?” Hugh repeats. He looks around to the scattered bits of paper and the ink stain on the wall. “Ah. I see. The mistress will not be pleased after all.”

“I’m not interested in pleasing the mistress.”

“You ought to be. She’s one of the cleverest women in this era and will soon be one of the most powerful. It was a mistake to take her kindness for granted.”

“Why? Because—” I stop, mid-syllable. This era? “You know, don’t you? You know where I’m from?”

“The mistress trusts me in all matters,” he says smugly.

Something clicks in my head. “Then you realize what an awful position she put you in, don’t you? If tonight goes as your mistress plans, she’s going to have a whole team of time travelers descending on this estate faster than you can say ‘rip in the space-time continuum.’”

Hugh’s face remains blank. “Why would that be?”

“It just so happens that my brother is one of the top men in the business. He’s an expert—one who’s been up and down the timeline, with access to the past, present, and future. When he doesn’t hear from me, he’ll be looking. And a divergence like this? A new advisor to the president—a woman, who pops up out of nowhere and demands such massive, widespread changes? That’s surely going to catch his attention. They’ll raid the estate and find me here, and your mistress will be in bigger trouble than she’s ever imagined. And since you’re her main accomplice, I imagine they won’t go easy on you, either.”

“I don’t believe you,” Hugh says evenly. “Mrs. Barker has already informed me that you intended to prevent the war. Such a divergence, as you call it, would not have gone unnoticed.”

I shrug, feigning nonchalance, though inwardly, I’m cursing that I didn’t think of that when throwing together this haphazard story. “I told you: I’m the kid sister of a top-ranking official. The worst they’d do to me is return me to 2133. A slap on the wrist. The worst they’d to do Madeline? To you? Not only for altering the timeline, but also for kidnapping one of their own? I don’t think you want to know.”

Hugh’s mustache twitches, as if considering all I’ve said. He lowers his gun. “These cellar doors… They sometimes stick, leaving the latch not entirely engaged. If that were to happen after I leave you here…?”

I hold back a smile, amused to find that his sense of self-preservation outweighs his loyalty. “If that’s the case, then I’d have to pass that information on to my brother when he arrives. Let him know that you weren’t complicit with your mistress’s kidnapping schemes.”

“I would be out of a job,” he says. “Without references. Certainly this organization of your brother’s wouldn’t leave me destitute after all I’ve done for his sister?”

I scowl. What a weasel. You’d think his freedom would be reason enough to do the right thing. What else could I offer him? After this is all done, I’ll be out of a job without any references, too.

“Hmph,” Hugh says, obviously sensing my hesitation. He turns to the door. “Perhaps when I return tomorrow—”

“Fine,” I say through clenched teeth. I don’t have a lot in this era, but I do have one thing that’s very valuable. “I can’t guarantee you another job or references, but I can offer you information.”

“What sort of information?” He raises an eyebrow.

“About the future. You can ask one question.” I know as I say it that this is a bad idea, but what choice do I have?

“Horse races.”

“What?”

“I enjoy horse races, and if I must leave my mistress’s employ, I’d prefer to return to Montreal, where I was raised. They have a number of tracks there, and if I knew which horses would win on a particular day, I could make my wager and earn enough to live there comfortably.”

“You think I know off the top of my head which horses win races in Montreal in 1914?” I shake my head, unwilling to take out my PVD and tip my hand. “I’m a time traveler, not a walking almanac.”

“If you’re truly a time traveler, you’ll be able to acquire that information. I do not need it immediately, but when the travelers descend upon the mistress’s estate, can I trust you to not leave me destitute?”

It’s absurd. But it’s the only option I have, and I have nothing to lose by making the promise. It’s not like I really expect Dodge to show up and set Madeline straight, anyway. It was all just a bluff for Hugh.

“Fine,” I say. “We have a deal.”

“Excellent. Now, if anyone asks, I was never here, and I never saw you or spoke with you. You managed to jimmy the lock on your own. Agreed?”

“Fine.”

“Very good.” He tips his head as he turns to leave. “I expect to hear from you soon.”