With her legs folded beneath her, Elz sat facing me with her shoes off and her dress tucked snugly around her thighs. I sat relaxed, with an elbow resting on the back cushion, and one leg bent between us. My other foot was on the floor.

I took her fingers in mine and began playing with them.

“You said earlier that you fell in love with me in one moment on a water scooter. Well, I fell in love with you in one moment on a water scooter too, Elz. You were wearing a vest, bright yellow with orange straps and black buckles made of a material I’d never seen before. I know now it was a life vest, but back then, needless to say, it was baffling. You also wore black bikini bottoms, only at the time I thought they were legless bloomers.” Elz tried not to laugh.

Lord, she’s charming.

I smiled at her. “As risqué as your clothing was, what really got me was you, Elz. You were so adorable, laughing at something off to your right. My heart melted right there. You were so rare, and by far the sweetest thing my eyes had been blessed to discover. The sight of you, and the love that swelled within me snatched my breath from my lungs. I’ve never seen or felt anything more beautiful until tonight, when I turned you to face me on the dance floor and saw in your expression that you knew me and wanted me. I didn’t come here this evening expecting that, and as you know, it quite nicely carried me away.”

We exchanged guilty smiles over our embarrassing yet pleasurable dance floor memory, and she sucked her bottom. My gaze dropped there. As much as I didn’t mean to think such things, I couldn’t help thinking of what I wanted to do to that mouth.

Pulling back the reins of my imagination, I stole a glance at Jarrett and Jaymi, thankful they couldn’t hear my loud thoughts, and I went on speaking.

“I will admit that after seeing the sculpture, I assumed you must know something. I didn’t know what, or how much, and I dared not dream. To find out you knew exactly who I was and to experience your desire for me touched me more deeply than I can express.”

Her eyes were warm with sentiment, and I was extremely aware of her rapid heartbeat under the soft flesh of her breasts.

Beautiful! God, I want to bend and kiss them right now—feel that heartbeat on my tongue and—

I lifted my gaze and again reined in my imagination.

“Holding you on that dance floor, touching you…smelling you…tasting you, and on top of it all, hearing my name cross the very lips I’ve wanted on my own for so long…oh, girl, I was undone. I’ve never seen or felt anything that compares to it.”

I became aware of the cadence of my voice; it sounded gruff…low, betraying my impassioned heart. I swallowed and softened it to an intimate whisper.

“And when you kissed me with such hunger, I couldn’t close my eyes. I had to watch you—I just had to. My mind could only think of how that wild and out of control desire within you was for me.” My fingers tightened around hers. “And, cara, I believe you know how that stirred me as well. I thought, ‘God help me. I am finally in the arms of my beloved, and more excited than a man has a right to be.’”

She whispered, “Well, as you said, I, too, was excited, Devon.” Her cheeks warmed to pink.

“I know.” I gave her a smile, and her color deepened. “Hence the reason I couldn’t close my eyes.”

Charmed by the look on her face, I couldn’t help myself and leaned in for a kiss. Our lips touched, and I wondered if I’d ever get used to her being accessible to me and not hidden behind the glass, withheld from my reach. After a brief indulgence, I pulled away and once again shared our conversation with Jarrett and Jaymi.

“I can only say we were meant to be together. I’m just thankful I didn’t have to spend months or possibly years vying for your affection. It’s a blessing we fell in love at the same time.” A grin dug into my cheeks. “Well, give or take a couple of hundred years, right?” The room teemed with laughter.

“Evidently,” I said, “the glass opens the two hearts and unites them at that very moment one’s true love is summoned for the first time.”

“How can all this be possible, Devon?” Elz asked. “Is it magic?”

“No.” I explained to her and the others about King Solomon creating the two mirrors he referred to as glass walls. I clarified and said, “The way it was explained to me was that when using the wall to call one’s beloved to oneself, it’s easiest to compare the action to that of shooting a gun.

“You have the gun, the bullet, the gunpowder, and the flint for the spark. First of all, the mirror, with its glass-like fusion of metal, is comparable to the gun—the object needed to bring all the other elements together in the right working order. Next, the love is equivalent to the round, or what you call the bullet—moving through the glass to the target. Then you have the words of the edict, which act as the gunpowder—creating enough force to get that love to its target. And finally, the electricity within the human touch would be comparable to the fire, or spark of the flint—igniting the whole process. After that, of course, there’s always the target. But just as my good friend, Kyle Drake, experienced, that first shot may not always hit the mark you expect.”

Elz gave a thoughtful nod. “A very simple yet understandable analogy. But one thing I don’t understand is how mere words, in this case, the edict, could have anything to do with the way the metal in the glass works. I mean, how can words be compared to something as powerful and explosive as gunpowder?”

“Actually, Elz,” Jarrett cut in, “gunpowder has no power or explosive ability in and of itself. It has to be combined with the right agent to become the powerful and explosive force we all know it can be.”

Jarrett was leaned back into the cushion, his long legs stretched out before him with his ankles crossed. His drink was held sitting against his abdomen. He and I had discussed a great many things concerning this topic. We’d both been like a couple of sponges, learning from the other. Jarrett had learned of my life and my discovery of the book that led me to Elz, as well as some of the things Faramond taught me, and I’d learned as much as possible about the modern technology and the history of the previous two hundred years. Jarrett had shown great interest in such discussions, and this one involved chemistry, which he said he loved and majored in. I wasn’t surprised he’d cut in to the conversation, and I welcomed his input.

“Fire.” Elz nodded, agreeing with Jarrett’s claim. “One simple, tiny little spark can turn something so small that has no power of its own into a life-consuming substance.”

“That’s right,” Jarrett said. “Yet, if you combine an agent such as water with gunpowder, nothing happens to release that explosive power.” He looked at me. “But regardless, I do see the reason for Elz’s lack of understanding. Even though I comprehend the power of gunpowder, how can mere words, which have no substance, work with the metals in the glass to launch the love, which also has no substance, toward the target?”

Before I could answer, Elz cut in. “No, Jarrett, I think I get it now. It clicked when you said the word agent. I believe Devon is saying we must view words as invisible agents that can affect other forms of energy, just the way oxygen, which is an invisible agent with no perceptible substance, feeds the human body. Or even a flame by feeding it. Is that right, Devon?”

I grinned, getting to see a small glimpse of Elz’s quick and natural alchemist abilities, and it dawned on me that Jarrett had inherited them as well, along with Elz’s double portion of the Eros-factor.

Hmm…

Sidetracked, I got back to Elz’s question.

“That’s right, Elz.”

“But how could that work?” Jarrett asked.

I sat forward.

“Well, just as gunpowder needs the spark to cause an explosive reaction strong enough to launch a bullet toward its target, so also the words of the edict need emotional energy to cause a similar explosion strong enough to launch the energetic emotion of love on its way toward its destination.

“I don’t know all the details, but what I can say is that there are different elements to words. One of those elements is that words have definite meanings, and another element is, they form sound.” I shrug. “We all know sound is carried on waves that flow out into the universe. That is self-explanatory. Our minds have no problem accepting this fact since it affects one of our five senses, the sense of hearing. Moreover, we can time sound, measuring the speed at which it travels.

“After that, we have the much more complicated element of words, and that would be their meanings. To us, words have meanings. It all boils down to what our belief in the meaning of the word is. That belief is what we feed the universe. The universe doesn’t really recognize words—it recognizes the vibrations of feelings produced when speaking words. Feelings emit good and bad energy, which vibrates at different and various frequencies, and feelings come from emotional belief.

“For example, I could read aloud a string of words in one of the American Indian languages and it wouldn’t mean a thing to the universe because I wouldn’t have a clue as to what I was saying. I don’t speak any of the American Indian languages. There would be no emotion tied to the words I’d spoken—they would simply be uttered sound. But when I speak those same words in English, or any of the other languages I’m fluent in, I have emotion tied to the words I say, and the universe responds to the range of vibrations produced by those emotions.

“So in a nutshell, when using the glass to call one’s true love to oneself, that love, which is an emotional energy, will follow the Law of Attraction and naturally seek out its target. The two loves are drawn together like magnets. This is how the glass works when in search of one’s true love. No magic, just Solomon using his skill and the simplicity of a law God set in motion ages ago.”

“Amazing,” said Elz. “But how does the glass work with time travel?”

“Well, actually, I’ve been informed I am the only one the glass will respond to for that purpose. When I want to activate the mirror as a portal, I speak the correct words in combination with touching the glass as my life energy flows through my fingers, and a reaction occurs that carries my emotion into the universe. This process is faster even than when using the glass for calling one’s true love to oneself.”

“How much faster are we talking here, Devon?” Jaymi asked, entering the conversation.

“I don’t really know, Jaymi. But it’s fast enough that it defies time and space, and seems to arrive at all moments in time simultaneously, virtually making the division of time nonexistent; yet the glass will only deliver me to the destination I request.”

She accepted this with a fascinated smile. “Amazing. You know, it’s funny, but I guess I never thought of King Solomon using his wisdom for anything other than philosophy and having the Temple built and such. To think of him applying it in other ways is incredibly interesting.”

“Yes, I agree. But even building the temple took the mind of a creative engineer. When you consider Solomon using his gift for things other than what was recorded in scripture, you have to admit it makes good sense he would have. If you had such a gift, wouldn’t you get the most of it? Really, is there anyone in this room who wouldn’t? So why should we assume King Solomon didn’t? I mean, think about it. It is said he had greater wisdom than any man who has ever lived, which carries knowledge along with it. At that time, men had lived who were so intelligent they’d achieved great feats, such as the making of Stonehenge, the building of the pyramids, and so forth. Feats that Jarrett tells me even the most knowledgeable men of today still struggle to figure out; yet Solomon was said to be more knowledgeable even than these men.”

The room was in agreement, and we fell into a discussion of the importance of believing in the impossible.

Elz had been quiet, but she looked at me, a bit dazed and said, “It’s through believers of the impossible that technology has progressed to where it is today. As a matter of fact, after everything that’s happened tonight, I don’t think I’ll have too much of a problem believing in the impossible ever again. That said, I have to admit that while I believe it it’s still hard to comprehend something like time travel.”

I watched her carefully, and hoped she wasn’t having doubts about going home with me.

“It is for me as well. But I’ll let you in on a little secret—I’ve lived my whole life in the early part of the nineteenth century, and it’s hard for me to accept almost everything I have seen since I’ve been here. Things I would never have believed without seeing the evidence with my own eyes. There is air travel and automobiles, both of which I have experienced personally. And I have read articles about submarines, and rockets going to the moon and exploring outer space. There is the telephone system. And not only that, but cellular phones enabled by satellites orbiting the earth—a man’s voice is carried on waves through the air to be heard with almost no delay clear across the ocean in my own country, sounding just the same as he does in person.” I laughed.

“And consider your TV, or as Jarrett calls it, the telly, where an image, even a live one, travels through the air on a wave that is invisible. You can’t see it flying past you to hit the dish on your rooftop, but it does, and it materializes into the identical image and voice of whoever is being filmed. Jarrett told me it is an invention that exists in nearly every modern house around the world. Even so, he estimates that probably ninety-five percent or more of those who own one still don’t understand how it is possible. They just accept it because they can’t deny it. This is the case with so many of the inventions I’ve learned about since my arrival, in fact, too many innovations to mention.”

I leaned forward to retrieve my glass from the coffee table.

“All of these inventions have been accomplished in the last hundred or so years.” I took a drink and set it back down. “But I can promise you one thing without an inkling of doubt—if I go home to the year 1829 and tell everyone I have a theory that all these things will exist one day, if I’m not burned at the stake in the belief that I’m practicing witchcraft, people will at least say that I’m a fool. They will accuse me of believing in the impossible, call me a dreamer, and say that all these things cannot and never will be possible.”

“He’s right, you guys,” Jaymi said. “There’s no way those people would believe the technology of today, especially computer intelligence. Who knows, maybe the majority of us have been as wrong about our future as they were about theirs. Maybe someday time travel will be just as common in everyday life as TVs and cell phones are for us—” She cut her word short with a look of concern. “Devon, I have a question. If Elz travels back in time with you, will her family or I ever see her again? If not, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

Jaymi’s question drove me to look at Elz. I could see by the stretch of her eyes that she had yet to consider that possibility, and she, too, looked to me for the answer. I gazed into those exotic green halos around her pupils and, with an apologetic look, said, “To be honest… Of course!” I offered up a genuine smile. “We will come back anytime you want, my love. And, Jaymi” —I looked her way—“you can come and visit her, too, if you like.”

Jaymi gasped. “Are you kidding me? That would be wonderful! Fabulous! Amazing! Oh, all of the above! Yes, yes, I would so like!”

Laughing, Elz asked, “How would you describe it, Devon—time travel?”

“Well, it’s in no way akin to traveling someplace here on earth, where we get to experience the actual journey as we go. Aside from the fact that time travel is very beautiful with its unbelievable colors of light displayed before stepping into the mirror, the journey itself is very simple, and is akin to nothing more than leaping over the threshold of a door; you leap into the mirror and in that same moment you’re leaping right back out of it. You can’t tell by the act alone, only by the change in atmosphere once you’ve reached the other side. However, there is a slight queasiness and tingling of electric current you feel charging through you for a bit of time once you’ve reached that other side.”

“Well, even with that, I can’t wait.” Elz gave me the sweetest smile. I envisioned her in my arms in my time and couldn’t believe the evening had gone such as it had.

The room grew charged with enthusiasm, and the minutes marched by as we tossed around different scenarios of the vast range of adventures we could embark upon with such a treasure as Solomon’s wall.