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TRAINING WAS unlike anything I’d expected. There were no flashy mind games, reflex tests, battle simulations or lessons in survival or self-defense. Instead, Ivory showed Ray and me slide after slide of bullet points, charts and graphs about studies concerning Uproars—historical documentation of their existence, famous travelers who encountered them, and geographical maps recording Uproar “sightings.” That last bit made no sense to me because, as far as I could tell, the Uproar didn’t look like anything. It was just a flash of bright white light. Outside of that, I had no clue what an Uproar would look like if I saw one or what I’d even do about it other than run for my life.
I sat there, bored, in a dimly lit room that was as cold as a cave and just about as scenic. Valcas had run off again after we’d left Sable’s place. Technically, we were still on her property—underneath her backyard—where her family had built an underground training facility. My spine had prickled in anticipation of adventure as we’d descended into a well that opened up to an underground staircase lined by moss-covered stone walls. That feeling went away as soon as Ivory led us to a conference room similar to the one at TSTA Headquarters where Mom showed Valcas and me the video recording and slides of Ray and Ivory.
Feeling Ray looking at me, I realized I’d stopped paying attention again. How he could remain so focused all the time was beyond me. I looked up at the screen, which was now bright white.
“Is that supposed to be a picture of the Uproar?” I asked.
Ivory snorted. “And this is why I like you—despite the fact that you stopped paying attention long before I ran out of slides.”
“Sorry.” I blushed. “How are we supposed to find the Uproar? It’s nothing but light. It sure packs a punch, though,” I said, remembering how it had knocked me to the ground twice at the dock.
Ray ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “I’ll bet it does. Like you said, the Uproar is something that can be felt, similar to the traces of past individuals brought into a different time period and then left there by travelers.”
“You mean like silhouettes?” I asked.
Ray nodded, grinning. His dark blue eyes sparkled as if he’d read something more in my response.
“What?”
“What’s it like to be able to transport someone else from another place and time?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. “The hard part was trying to figure out how to get them to agree to come with me.”
His mouth fell open. I furrowed my brow, completely confused as to why someone with Ray’s talents would be interested in something as simple as my experience with Romaso and Shirlyn’s silhouettes.
Ivory stood listening with her arms crossed. “Them?” she asked.
“Um, yeah. I traveled to seventeenth-century Venice to find a guy named Romaso and asked him to travel with me to twentieth-century England so I could find Edgar’s daughter, Shirlyn.”
Ray and Ivory looked at each other and smiled.
“So then,” I continued, “I got this bright idea to search into Valcas’ past, only I didn’t know what color his eyes were before the travel glasses changed them. After I figured that out, I planned to travel to his past once I found transportation. And I would have gone there alone, except that the presently existing Valcas thought it would be a good idea to try to run all of us over with a motorboat near Folkestone Harbor—”
“He did what?”
I started. Ivory’s eyes smoldered like charcoal. She looked absolutely outraged.
“Yeah.” I blinked, remembering. “At first, transporting Romaso and Shirlyn’s silhouettes was a huge mistake. We had to escape, and I was so distracted that we ended up in a Nowhere. From there I had to explain what was going on—Romaso’s memories from the day before had already washed away by then, and I somehow managed to convince Shirlyn to go along with me to Valcas’ past. Romaso just kind of followed along. The guard at the White Tower was surprised that I was able to bring two people with me from different places and times, and so that’s how I found out what a silhouette is.”
Ray grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Calla, do you know what this means? Do you know what you are?”
I gulped, and then slowly shook my head. “No,” I said quietly. “I just figured that was something any traveler could do.”
Ray dropped his hands and stared at me.
Ivory clicked off the projector, walked over and knelt down beside us. “Does Valcas know about all of this?” she asked.
“I think he knows about most of it—he saw me take off with both Romaso and Shirlyn. Why? What does it mean?”
Ray cocked his head to the side and wiped his palms on his jeans. “Most travelers are never able to transport individuals from other places and times. Fewer than fifty percent of us get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring others with us, but that usually only happens in extreme emergency situations. It never happens again, but the experience alone marks extraordinary ability.” He sat back in his chair and looked at me, mystified. “During your hearing, when you mentioned having interacted with silhouettes, I thought you’d been fortunate enough to have your one and only chance. But this...”
I stood there staring, hanging on to Ray’s every word.
Ivory smirked. “Well, now that we’ve got your attention, guess what? You, my sweet, are what the TSTA calls a Remnant Transporter.”