CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Take you…?”

“I know what this is,” she holds out the device. “I know what its purpose is, and now it makes so much sense. Where you’ve come from, all the strange things you’ve said, that entire discussion with Dr. Wells at the tavern. You’re from the future.”

My mouth feels dry. This is not how this is supposed to go. But I can’t lie. Not to her. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Can’t tell me?” She settles her hands on her hips. “Or can’t take me with you?”

“Look.” I run my fingers through my hair. I’m completely unprepared for this conversation. “I can’t explain everything. In fact, I don’t think I can really explain anything else without breaking the rules—”

“There’s rules? What are they? Do people frequently time travel where you’re from? When you’re from,” she corrects herself.

“No. No, this… it’s a well-kept secret. Hardly anyone knows it’s possible and the few who do aren’t allowed to discuss it. I shouldn’t be talking about this. Not here. Not now.”

“How far into the future are you from?” Juliette asks. “At least tell me that much.”

It’s a simple question, or at least it should be. “Technically? About a hundred years.”

Juliette raises her eyebrows and whispers, “A hundred years. We must seem so primitive to you.”

“No, not at all. In fact—”

“Viggo,” Juliette says sharply. “Did you know that was going to happen? That he was going to—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then why are you here? Why here? Why now? What makes this time, this place so important?”

“I can’t say any more right now, but once all this is over…”

Juliette frowns. “So, you can’t say any more, and you won’t take me with you. How long do you intend to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

Juliette looks away, her frustration and disappointment apparent.

“I’ll stay as long as I can,” I promise. “And before I leave, I’ll tell you as much as I can. I swear. I wish I could say more, but…”

But what good would it do her to know what I know about her future? What good would it do to tell her that her life is in danger because of something her great-great-granddaughter did? Because she saved my life?

“You’re going to leave, then?”

“Not yet.” At the hurt in her eyes, I begin to wish I’d never have to. What would it be like, remaining here with her? But, no. Dodge is waiting for me back home in the 22nd century.

“Just promise me,” she says, unable to meet my eye as she holds out the Wormhole Device, “that when it’s time for you to go, you won’t forget to say goodbye.”

My hand touches hers as I take the orb. “I swear, Juliette, I won’t.”

The famous White City of the 1893 World’s Fair rises up before us as Juliette and I ride the crowded El Train to the Exposition. Since our discussion in her room, Juliette is quieter than usual, but every so often, as if she can’t even help herself, she leans in and whispers excitedly about some of the things she hopes to see there—the Women’s Building, the replica Viking ship, the moving sidewalk—and then, as if recalling our purpose, quickly adds, “After we’ve found a magician, of course.”

Eventually, I can’t help but suggest, “You know, we could spend the morning looking about and then hand out our flyers in the afternoon.”

“Could we, you think?” Juliette smiles as if I’ve just offered her the moon.

“Why not? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I’d like that. We ought to see Ferris’s Wheel, too.”

I cringe, thinking of how primitive the constructions of this time are, how creaking and shaky the thing must be.

“It’s perfectly safe, you know,” she says with a hint of teasing in her voice. “They have precautions in place—locks on the doors, metal screens over the windows. You’ll like it. I promise.”

We join the throng funneling into the fair from the train platform, and the enormous Transportation Building looms over us with arch after perfect arch standing out against the otherwise classical-style architecture.

“What do you think? Should we go see the Railways of the World exhibit?” I ask, offering Juliette my arm. The smile she gives me is warier than usual, a small difference that tears at my heart and makes me wish again that I could tell her everything.

The morning sun traverses the sky all too quickly, and when noon comes, we’ve barely seen a fraction of all that the fair has to offer. We skipped the Mines Building but lingered for far too long in the Electricity Building—built in the style of the Spanish Renaissance—as Juliette marveled over neon lights and Tesla’s alternating currents and the 82-foot “tower of light” made of shimmering bits of cut glass. From there, we ducked onto the wooded island and wandered the paths around the lagoon, enjoying the cool shade of the trees in the heat of the day and the less-crowded Hunter’s Cabin and Japanese Pavilions. There, we sit on a bench, watching the crowds pass as we rest our weary feet.

“What about that man with the top hat?” Juliette asks, pointing to a gentleman who’d just passed us on the walk.

“What about him?”

“He looks like he’d make a fine magician.”

I shake my head. “He looks too uptight to me.”

“What do you suppose his life story is? His goals, ambitions? Why is he here today?”

“I don’t know. He looks like a businessman to me.” I lean back and cross one leg over the other, breathing in the scent of summer flowers and the lagoon. A breeze ripples over my skin, and everything feels so peaceful, so right that for a moment, I forget the tension of our discussion this morning. I forget that I don’t belong here, with her.

Juliette frowns, obviously disappointed by my answer. “Well, what’s he doing here, then, if he really is just a businessman? On a weekday when he ought to be at work?”

“He’s probably here on his lunch break.” Then, in an attempt to make her smile—a desire that’s been growing stronger every day, regardless of how much I try to tell myself, logically, that it’s a dangerous pursuit—I add. “Either that, or he’s an undercover detective who’s made arrangements to meet an anonymous informant today regarding information about a murder case.”

“Yes!” Juliette beams at me. “That’s perfect. It’s obviously a long unsolved case, one very personal to him: the murder of his former lover. Though the informant doesn’t know that, of course.”

“Of course.”

“What about those women?” Juliette gestures slyly to a group of women—perhaps in their late thirties or early forties—all walking together with arms linked, clinging to their bonnets and laughing and chattering merrily.

They look like any ordinary group of women out enjoying a day at the fair, but with Juliette’s eyes twinkling at me like that, I can’t let her down. “Suffragists.”

“Suffragists?” Juliette nudges me playfully with her elbow. “Well, that’s hardly worth noting. Plenty of women are suffragists, myself included.”

“Oh, these aren’t just any suffragists,” I continue. “These are an elite group of suffragist spies—black widows, who’ve sworn a pact to marry themselves off to the most influential and wealthy gentlemen in society and then poison them to gain complete access to their resources.”

“Scandalous!” Juliette shrieks with laughter, and I’m overcome with relief that finally, it seems, she’s forgotten—if not forgiven—my secrets. “What about him, then? That fellow on that bench there. The one with the prominent nose. He’s been sitting there all alone since shortly after we arrived, just reading that pamphlet. He must have some story.”

I lean forward to glance around her, pausing briefly to admire the masterful shape of her profile before focusing on the man at the bench.

Even from this distance, I can make out his face, wearing a mustache that looks itchy, not quite right for him, as though he’s unaccustomed to wearing one. His long legs are stretched out ahead of him, and it takes me a moment to realize where I’ve seen him before, a moment to recognize the band on his wrist.

“TUB.”