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I’D SUSPECTED that Valcas had already been at Folkestone Harbor that day, waiting for me. Now I knew it had to be true.
“You were recording?”
Valcas stepped closer to me, stopping when he was just inches away. He placed a hand on my shoulder as he pointed at the version of himself in the larger motorboat. “I recorded while communicating with you through the glasses.” He tapped his sunglasses. “If you don’t believe me, I can show you. Our recorded conversation is right here, inside this pair. Although, I must warn you, you looked and sounded rather scared.”
I ignored his last statement. What he’d said slowly began to make sense to me. I remembered my last Estrel-flyer flight with his past self, the green-eyed version of Valcas. I’d recorded the entire flight—I’d burned everything I saw, heard and felt into the travel glasses. But, despite being in motion during the flight, the travel glasses hadn’t transported me somewhere else in time and space. Motion was necessary for time travel; but, if the traveler was recording, then he or she could be in motion without traveling. Not only had Valcas figured that out, but he’d also discovered how to record with the travel glasses while using them to communicate with someone else...all while in motion.
Impressed, I looked up at Valcas. “How do you have so much control over all of the different ways to use travel glasses?”
He grinned. “I’ve been using them for a long time, studying them, trying to figure out whether there are more ways to use them.”
I hissed a breath through my teeth. What had I gotten myself into? Would I ever be able to master the travel glasses the same way Valcas had? I doubted it. But I could try.
“Okay,” I said, trying to figure out some way to digest all this information and combine it with what I’d learned earlier. “The glasses can be used to travel through time and space. That’s called transporting and it requires motion. The bright white light is the Everywhere and Everywhen through which a traveler can pass.”
“Correct,” said Valcas, nodding. “But let’s just call that traveling. Transport technically means to bring or carry someone with you, whereas traveling means going somewhere.”
“Okay, traveling,” I said, noting the subtle difference between traveling and transporting before continuing. “The glasses can also be used to speak to someone else wearing the glasses at the same time. That’s when you can see the other person, but not his or her surroundings. The other person looks like a cardboard cutout pasted on an all-white background.”
“Yes, that’s what it looks like to me as well.”
“Then, there’s recording.” I cleared my throat. “I, um, learned how to record at the White Tower.”
Valcas nodded again, this time blushing. I had no idea why.
“What?” I asked.
“What?” he repeated.
“You’re blushing.” I couldn’t hide the fact that I noticed it anymore. That was the third time today.
Valcas shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Why not? It kind of weirds me out. What about all this could possibly make you, of all people, blush?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, twitching the muscles in his jaw. “From what I just told you, you can be in motion with the glasses while communicating and not travel through time and space. That’s why it was safe for both of us to be wearing the travel glasses at Folkestone Harbor.”
I looked at him silently for a moment. “Okay, so now I understand that you can both communicate and record at the same time. Then, later, as you can with anything else already recorded in the glasses, I assume you can play it all back and watch the recordings while searching for them.”
Valcas sharply inhaled. “You are definitely getting the hang of this,” he said. “And quickly. Are you sure that you didn’t learn more about this from Edgar?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Like I said, I learned in bits and pieces from Edgar, Enta and you.” I bent down to touch the water below us, testing its solidity before crossing my legs and sitting down. I looked up at Valcas through my lashes. “How on Earth did you figure out how to use the glasses for slicing?”
“What makes you think it happened on Earth?”
I laughed. “Point taken. Really, though, how did you find out about it?”
“I stumbled upon it,” Valcas said as he sat down across from me, pulling his knees in toward his chest. “I found myself in a place like this one day while trying to escape from a fight.”
I raised my eyebrows, placed my elbows on my thighs and cupped my face in my hands. “You mean you ran away?” Now this was a story I wanted to hear.
Valcas pursed his lips. “You would have run too if you’d seen what was after me.”
“What was it?” I asked, leaning closer.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said. “But it was fast... and dangerous.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so all of a sudden you found yourself in a particular instant in another place in time, frozen in an inactive moment.”
Valcas nodded. “It was on a baseball field. The pitcher had just thrown the ball. His arm was outstretched and the ball was on its way to the batter, but had stopped, frozen in the air.”
“You traveled to a baseball game?” What a strange escape route, I thought.
“Yes. I didn’t have a recording of it to refer to before traveling, not that I would have had enough time to do so. I was still learning to travel with an unofficial object. Something somewhere in my subconscious must have brought me there that day. What, I don’t know, but when I got there I knew that somehow it was meant to be.”
“So it did happen on Earth,” I blurted out. “It sounds like you were distracted. When I escaped, or rather, took my leave of you at Folkestone Harbor, I was distracted too. I tried to travel to the White Tower, but ended up in a Nowhere instead, in an empty space with a still pool of water.”
“Interesting,” Valcas said, watching me. “We’ll have to discuss that further at some point.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, it was on Earth that I first learned of slicing. But I wasn’t alone.”
“Well, no,” I said. “There would have been all the players on each team, their coaches and all the fans.”
Suddenly, Valcas looked uncomfortable or emotional, I couldn’t tell which. “What is it?” I asked. “Who else was there?”
Valcas tilted his head and stared down at his knees for a moment before looking back up at me. “Your father.”