A flame flickered nearby, illuminating the deep wrinkles of Professor Lachlan’s face as he approached her. “You’re still alive,” he said softly, like he was talking to himself more than her. “It didn’t work.”
“I can’t say I’m all that sorry.”
Professor Lachlan leaned close to her. “You will be.” He used the intercom to tell Logan to check the breakers in the basement, and he began removing the artifacts from her one by one, beginning with her cuff. A moment later the lights flickered on again.
“Did you say one of the words wrong?” she asked, purposely poking at him.
“No. I said everything perfectly,” he told her as he took the final artifact back. “I was afraid this might happen. I was afraid it had been too long.”
“So your grand plan isn’t going to work after all?” She didn’t allow herself to hope. Not so long as she was still tied to the chair.
“Of course it will. There might not be enough magic left in the world for the ritual to work now, but there was before. So you’ll take the Book back to the boy I once was, back to a world where magic still had power and I was still young enough to use it.”
“Why would I ever do that?”
He studied her for a moment. “Because if you don’t, you’ll most likely disappear. If Ishtar’s Key isn’t in the past, I won’t be able to give it to you as a child.”
Her mind was racing. “Then I should have already disappeared,” she challenged. “Me bringing Ishtar’s Key back here, to this time, would have already changed my life. The date you gave me the stone would have already passed by now. Nibs—you—wouldn’t have been able to give me the stone as a young girl, I wouldn’t have grown up in this time, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Unless you’ve already done it. I don’t think this moment would change until you make the conscious decision to change the past.” He smiled, clearly pleased with himself. “I’ve seen every connection, planned for every contingency. It’s a particular talent of mine.”
So that was Nibsy’s power. No wonder he kept it such a secret.
Esta lifted her chin. “Maybe I’d rather disappear than let you win,” she said. “Did you plan for that?”
“Actually, I did,” he said. He walked to his desk and pressed a button. A moment later, the elevator rattled to life, the lift climbing toward them.
He pulled a gun from the drawer in his desk and aimed it directly at her. The barrel was tipped with a silencer.
“I won’t help you unlock the power in that book,” she said, pleased to hear that her voice didn’t shake even if she did. “I’d rather die.”
Professor Lachlan smiled. “I’m sure you would. But who would you be willing to sacrifice with you?”
The door to the elevator opened then. “You called, Professor?” Dakari said, stepping into the room.
“No!” she screamed, fighting against the ropes that held her. “Dakari, go—”
But it was too late. The gun went off, a soft clap followed by the louder sound of Dakari hitting the floor.
“No,” she cried, and her eyes were already burning with tears. She was still fighting against the ropes, and against the truth of what had just happened.
Professor Lachlan walked to where she was sitting and jerked her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “It seems you have a choice after all. You can choose to fade away. Choose to disappear and never exist. Maybe it’ll happen immediately. Maybe you’ll have time to watch everyone you’ve ever cared for die, just as Dakari has. Logan. Mari. Her entire family you’re so fond of. I’ll bring them here for you, make sure you can see them plead for their lives before I kill them. So they can know it was you who signed their death warrant. Or you can do what I ask and take the Book back to my younger self.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“You like to save people, don’t you? Think of it—you could rewrite this future and give Dakari a new life in a world without the Order. A life that wouldn’t end in a heap on my library floor. If you’re very good, you might even convince my younger self to have mercy on Dolph’s crew.”
She couldn’t stop the tears that ran down her face. She turned away from Professor Lachlan, unable to stomach him so close to her, and across the room Viola’s knives glinted in the dim light.
Jianyu. Viola.
Maybe she couldn’t save Dolph, but she could still save them. As long as she didn’t give up, she could go back and try once more to change things.
“Fine,” she said, keeping her eyes on Viola’s knives, so Professor Lachlan wouldn’t see the hate in her gaze. “I’ll do it. But I will fight you every step of the way.”
Professor Lachlan—Nibs—whoever he was—smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, girl, but know this: You’re playing against a stacked deck. I’ve already considered everything you might do, and I’ve already accounted for all the outcomes. Fight all you want, but the future will be mine.”
• • •
Professor Lachlan hadn’t lied about being prepared. He’d accounted for what seemed like every contingency.
Logan had her by the arm to ensure she didn’t use her affinity without taking him with her. The gun was just a precaution, they’d told her. In case she got any ideas. Not that she believed them. Once they were in the past, it would be easy enough for Logan to kill her.
They’d given her some sort of drug, timing it so that as they walked the six blocks to the park, it would wear off just enough to allow her to use Ishtar’s Key to take Logan back to 1902. She wouldn’t have a chance to get away before then, not without dealing with the gun.
She’d been given an exact date, one week after the day on the bridge. Once they were back, Logan had specific instructions about what to look for. If she tried to take him to any other time, he’d kill her. Or he’d injure her badly enough to make her want to cooperate.
Once they were back, the Strega would be an easy walk. There would be very little chance of her getting away, or for her to ruin Professor Lachlan’s plans for them to deliver the Book and the stones. And once Nibs had them, there would be no stopping him.
To make things worse, she didn’t really know Logan—not this version of Logan. She didn’t have the same memories he did of their shared history, and all she could go on to predict how he would act was the hope that the intrinsic nature of a person was steady and stable no matter what trajectory their life took. He might have been a pain in the ass before, but he hadn’t been evil. He wouldn’t have purposely hurt someone. She could only hope that was still the case.
But she wasn’t sure she believed it.
She kept her head down, her posture slouched, like the weight of the world—its past, present, and future—was on her shoulders. Let them believe they’ve won, she thought to herself. Let them think she was penned in. Even if she wasn’t yet sure how she’d ever manage to get out.
The Professor looked at his watch, and when the time came that the medication would have been out of her system, he gave a stiff nod.
Logan jammed the gun harder into her back, a cue that she needed to start. But she still felt sluggish and numb from the lingering effects of the drug, so it was harder than usual to find the right moment, the exact time she was supposed to hit. She pushed down through the layers of years, until she felt the familiar pull of that time. Strange, she thought, for it to feel almost as if she were going home.
But Esta forced herself to ignore the sappy sentiment. It took everything she had to guide them to the moment she wanted. In the distance, the Freedom Tower—the city’s one-fingered salute to the rest of the world—began to fade. The city dimmed around them and she felt that push-pull sensation, like she would fly apart and collapse in on herself all at once as she pulled them to the date she needed. The park receded and the city of yesterday began to materialize, and just as she was almost through, just before the present disappeared and the past was made real, Logan began to scream and tear at the bag he had strapped to his chest, the bag that contained the other artifacts and the Book.
Instinctively, she understood that this was the best chance she would have. She gave her arm a vicious twist, wrenching herself away from him, and Logan, who was still focused on the bag, let her go just as they landed hard on the damp cobbled streets of Old New York.
Her entire body was shaking with the effort it had taken to get away from him, and the cuff on her arm was warm. The neighborhood was eerily quiet for the middle of the day. In the distance, she heard the clanging of bells and smelled the heavy chemical smell of buildings burning.
Slipping through time always left Logan momentarily dizzied, and it did this time as well. He’d barely managed to pull the bag off and toss it away from himself when a group of darkly dressed boys came around the corner. Five Pointers.
Their eyes lit when they saw the two of them lying on the sidewalk, Logan still dazed from the trip, and their pace increased.
But before the boys could reach her, Esta pulled time slow and scooped the bag up. She brushed the grime of the streets from her dress, and with the world silent and still around her, she started to walk. She had somewhere she needed to be, a life she needed to save. She had to go back. She had to get to the bridge. Logan could fend for himself.