The physics department’s administrative offices were down on the first floor, close to the lab Winnie had so briefly seen when she met James. As head of the department, that was where Hawthorn had his personal office, along with the offices for Nightingale staff.
Scott unlocked the exterior door. As soon as they opened it, Winnie noticed a light was on—a small lamp on the receptionist’s desk.
The two of them looked at each other nervously. “Do you think—”
The door to Hawthorn’s office swung open.
It was him.
Hawthorn looked at them with surprise, then delight.
“It’s her, Scott—isn’t it? You’ve brought her to me!”
For a moment, Winnie thought she’d been tricked. If her own double could betray her—
But one glance at Scott showed he was as shocked as she was. And Hawthorn noticed.
She started backing toward the door.
“Stop right there,” Hawthorn said. “All it takes is one call, and Scott’s finished. I have evidence to back up my accusations, you know.”
Winnie closed her eyes tight for a moment in frustration—the papers they had on them, the ones they’d meant to use against Hawthorn—if the police came now, she and Scott would be in more trouble than Hawthorn knew. Scott had some of the papers in his satchel, and the bomb schematic was right in her pocket. If she were frisked, the police would find it.
Winnie’s heart began to pound even harder. If the night ended with her as Hawthorn’s captive, that would be awful.
But if it ended with Scott in prison?
That prospect was unbearable.
Winnie had been so sure their plan was a good one. She felt like a fool.
Now she didn’t know what to do, except try to stall and hope that some other idea for escape would take shape.
“What are you doing here so early?” she asked.
Hawthorn scoffed. “What, you think I would let Schulde start work before I do? There have always been jealous whispers, wondering how I lucked into my success. Well, there’s no trick to it. I am always working harder than anyone around me.”
Winnie looked over at Scott. She could tell he was thinking hard, trying to puzzle out some way for them to slip this noose. Her own mind was a terrifying blank.
“The real question,” Hawthorn continued, “is what are you doing here?”
“What does that matter?” Scott said quickly. “You’ve obviously spoiled our plans. So, what now?”
Hawthorn cocked his head. “I have a Faraday cage in my personal laboratory down the hall—very comfortable, I assure you. It has a bed, a toilet, anything she could need.”
Scott clenched his fists. “She’s not going in a cage.”
Winnie was scared, but she was also a scientist. Her interest was piqued. Why was it a Faraday cage Hawthorn meant to keep her in?
They had utilized one themselves, and so had Father, but only as a way of protecting Winnie from the electricity necessary for their experiments. Hawthorn seemed to think that not just any cage would hold her—it required a cage that blocked electromagnetic fields.
Even though she was terrified at the prospect of being a prisoner, Winnie still felt excited to learn that they’d been on the right track with their experiment. Her abilities were electromagnetic in nature, and required an energy field to “activate,” just like she had theorized.
Apparently, they were right in thinking that was all she needed. If her travel required additional equipment, Hawthorn wouldn’t be so worried about keeping her isolated from atmospheric electricity.
But there wasn’t anything for her to do with this information now. She and Scott were trapped.
“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be, Scott,” Hawthorn said. “We’re taking her to the cage now. Like I said, it’s comfortable, and I have no intention of harming her in any way. Why would I? She’s—special. And I need her. With James gone, I need her now more than ever.”
Winnie was scared, but she was also furious. How dare Hawthorn think he had some right to her just because she could do something he couldn’t. She wasn’t property. She was a person. Not a tool built for his use.
“Yeah, well, James might not have had any sort of powers, but he was special too,” Scott said, “even if you didn’t think so.”
“Stop!” Hawthorn said fiercely, slamming his palm on the receptionist’s desk. “I loved him like a son.”
The worst part was, Winnie believed it.
“I had no idea his body wouldn’t be able to withstand the serum,” Hawthorn said, in a softer voice now. “But, Scott, don’t you see? She can save him!”
Scott blinked in surprise. He looked back and forth between her and Hawthorn. If he was looking for answers, he was looking in the wrong place. Winnie had no idea what Hawthorn meant, although she was intimately familiar with the urge to undo a death you were responsible for—no matter how unintentionally.
Was Hawthorn just—crazy? If he was, what did that say about her?
Or was he onto something? Scott had already confessed to lying about how time dilation worked, but he also said he didn’t really understand it. What if Hawthorn knew something they didn’t?
“What do you mean?” Winnie asked. “Save him how?”
Hawthorn sighed heavily. He shook his head, then let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “If there’s a god, he’s laughing at us. This incredible power—and he gives it to you! You could control the very fabric of space-time, and you don’t even bother to learn how to sew.”
Ah. A new verse for Father’s old song. She didn’t work hard enough to master her gift; she didn’t deserve it. That had been the refrain all her life.
“My mother,” Hawthorn continued, “she called it her ‘intuition.’ But when Father tried to get her to help him pick investments, she acted like he was asking her to rob a bank! She could have had the world on a platter, but she never accomplished anything.”
What would Hawthorn make of Winnie’s mother? Not much, she supposed. Because it was Schrödinger who took home the Nobel Prize—for a groundbreaking paper that never would have been written without her.
“Say whatever you want, but we both know the truth,” Winnie said. “I got here. You have your state-of-the-art lab and government funding, but I’m the one who can travel between worlds.”
“Then what are you still doing here?” he asked smugly. “Either you have no idea how to get home . . . or you have a home that’s not worth going back to.”
Or both.
He was right on the money, and boy, did it sting.
“You have the animal instinct,” Hawthorn acknowledged. “But I can show you how to use it.”
Scott glared at him. His face was full of loathing.
“You really think you’re something, huh? You’re a murderer.”
“I already told you. She can bring him back! But if she won’t do it—if you won’t convince her—what does that make the two of you?”
What did Hawthorn know? Could she really bring back James?
Did that mean she could bring back Scott too?
. . . and her double?
She had to know.
“How,” Winnie said flatly.
Hawthorn scoffed.
“You’re not going to understand the mechanics of it.”
“Well, I guess you’d better explain it very carefully, then,” she said.
“You’re going to be a real delight to work with, aren’t you?”
“Just tell us!” Scott spit.
Hawthorn placed both hands on the receptionist’s desk. “When you came here, that opening created a connection between our realities. The space-time of our respective worlds—it’s stitched together at that point. It always will be. And that connection, it’s a sort of fulcrum.”
“Like on a seesaw?” Winnie asked.
“Yes! Very good!” Hawthorn said, like she was a puppy who’d learned a surprising new trick.
But Winnie was too distracted by this development to feel insulted.
When she had theorized that there was an inverse relationship between their timelines . . . could she actually have been right?
“So when we go forward in time—‘up’ on the seesaw—my world goes back?”
“The model of a seesaw is an oversimplification, but yes. When you crossed into our world, you didn’t just connect our two timelines to each other. You linked them to yourself. You and the two timelines are connected variables now. Change the position of one timeline, and you necessarily change the other. We can use this connection—we can use you—to manipulate the timelines.”
“How does that help James?” Scott asked.
Winnie knew the answer.
“When I return home,” she said. “I could spring forward. And that would send you all back.”
“You’re a quicker study than I’d hoped,” Hawthorn said, beaming.
She wished she weren’t.
She wished she hadn’t asked Hawthorn to explain.
She wished she didn’t understand.
Scott had been lying when he told her about time dilation, but he had accidently hit on the truth. Hawthorn never would have told her any of this if he’d had any inkling that there was also a death in her own world she would want to undo, but now she knew. And now she had to choose.
She could go back. She could save Scott.
But that would mean leaving all her messes for this world’s Scott to clean up. Leave her double dead. Leave James dead. Leave her double’s parents without a daughter.
Or she could go forward. She didn’t know how yet, but if Hawthorn said it was possible, she believed it. She trusted his expertise, if nothing else. It wouldn’t take a big leap. Just a week into her own world’s future, and they could go back to before she got there. Her double and James would be okay.
But her Scott would be gone forever.
And she would never see Mama again.
If she went through with it, would this Scott even remember what had happened? Would Hawthorn? What would stop Project Nightingale from continuing? What would keep Hawthorn from killing James again?
Winnie didn’t have any answers, but she knew the right thing to do.