He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and dragged his hands back over his closely cropped hair. “He has guardians watching every known passage. They likely were following us for longer than we even realized. They have to be Ironwood’s.”
Her brain had been so cluttered with shock, and foggy from traveler’s sickness, that she hadn’t even thought about Cyrus’s reaction to finding them gone. “How much trouble are we in?” Etta asked quietly.
“Unfortunately, if Ironwood wants us brought in for acting without his permission, a world of it. We’ll be held in one of the Ironwood properties in this time to await the old man and whatever punishment he decides to mete out—and he isn’t renowned for his forgiveness.” Nicholas let a rough smile break through the tension on his face. “Fortunately, however, he doesn’t yet know we pirates are damned hard to capture.”
THE LAST TIME ETTA HAD SEEN THE HOUSE WAS FIVE YEARS AGO, over seventy years in the future.
It had been freezing; the kind of day that switched from rain to sleet every other second, where water seemed to be coming at you from all sides. The last time she’d seen this flat-roofed, three-story beige brick house—this green door with its gold lion-shaped knocker—had been through a rental car window. Etta had been tired and annoyed and cold, pretending to be asleep to end the tour a little faster.
She could have smacked twelve-year-old Etta, because the longer they stood in front of the house’s gate, the less sure she was that they’d found the right one. She was definitely not sure that she wanted to ring the bell, at any rate.
“You said you’d been here before,” Nicholas reminded her. “If your instincts are telling you this is the place, I believe it.”
If her mother and Alice had brought her here three times, then they wanted her to remember it. How to find it.
But Alice…
“Will you be all right?” he asked quietly. “I can speak to her if it feels unbearable.”
The house faced Kensington Square, a short walk south from the palace and gardens. The neighborhood was quiet, beautiful—nearly untouched by war. The midafternoon sun disappeared as the sky grayed over with clouds, but the trees in the park stood out in flaming contrast, all gold and red. Men worked nearby, pulling up some of the fences and railings, collecting them in piles to be carted away. Here and there were small gardens—including one in front of the green door.
Etta shook her head. She was grateful for the offer, but if he was right, and she really couldn’t save Alice, then…This is my last chance to see her. The thought broke something wide open in her.
Nicholas opened the gate and gestured for her to enter. Etta set her shoulders back, stomach flipping between excitement and dread. Then she lifted the knocker and pounded out three sharp knocks.
For a terrible second, Etta thought no one was home. She leaned forward, her ear against the wood, when she heard a girl cry, “Just a moment!” and the sound of feet on the stairs. Etta stepped back. Something scraped—the peephole cover, maybe? She glanced at Nicholas, who stood at the base of the steps with one hand on his bag. There was an audible gasp, a cry, as the door flew open.
“Rosie? But what are you doing—”
Etta drank down the sight of her in one long gulp.
The girl’s long, auburn hair was loose around her shoulders, her face shaded by a green felt hat. The collar of her grayish-green dress had been unbuttoned down to the spot where a white patch was placed over the pocket on her chest, its red letters reading WVS CIVIL DEFENCE.
She was so young. Unbelievably young. Alice had freckles, a whole galaxy of them spread across her nose and cheekbones. Etta had seen pictures…but…but this Alice hadn’t yet lost the baby fat from her round face. It was her eyes that Etta instantly recognized—that pale gray she knew so well. Etta’s whole body seemed to seize, her voice too thick to speak, and she had to cross her arms over her chest to keep from throwing them around her.
“You’re not Rose,” said Alice slowly, gripping the door as if prepared to slam it shut.
“No,” Etta said, reaching out to keep the door open. “I’m not.”
“I HAVEN’T ANY TEA TO OFFER you, but there’s no milk or sugar for it anyway. Rationing and such. Very sorry.”
Alice led them into the front parlor of the house, motioning for Nicholas and Etta to sit on a stiff, overstuffed Victorian couch. She disappeared for a moment, but rather than let her vanish completely, Etta leaned into the hall to track her progress. She returned with glasses of water and a few crackers.
“Everything all right?” Alice asked her.
Etta forced her eyes away from her and onto the painting hanging over the fireplace—an impressionist’s take on a field of red poppies—and let a smile curve across her lips. It was like seeing another old friend. The thing had traveled, complete in its ornate gold frame, across the Atlantic to Alice and Oskar’s apartment on the Upper East Side. But that wouldn’t take place for another ten years.
Sheet music was piled neatly on top of a closed piano, and tucked beneath its gleaming wooden body was a small music stand and a violin case—Alice’s violin case—containing the violin that Etta would, decades later, hold and practice on for hours every single day. She’d forgotten this, that the war had forced Alice’s lessons to come to a halt; she’d only begun playing professionally in her twenties, after she grew restless with London.
“You’ll have to excuse me for being rude,” Alice said, sitting in a leather chair across from her. “But I’ve got to be off to my shift in a few minutes.”
“That’s okay,” Etta said, her voice thick with the need to cry. All those things she’d said to her at the Met before the concert…
Some things never changed; including, apparently, the way Alice’s face softened in sympathy.
“I just have a few questions,” Etta continued. “If that’s okay with you?”
“About Rosie?” she asked, studying Etta as closely as Etta was studying her. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I haven’t seen her in years.”
Etta shifted uncomfortably in her seat at Alice’s firm tone. Up until now, Etta had been convinced the coolness she’d detected from her had been mere wary politeness. Now she recognized it for what it was: outright suspicion. Etta’s appearance, so close to her mother’s, must have caught Alice completely off guard at the door.
She’s not going to tell us anything. Did she actually know anything at this point in time?
“Were you…are you close to her?” Etta asked.
“Hardly,” Alice said, and Etta knew it had to be a lie, just based on how she’d opened the door. “We went to school together until the professor—her grandfather—passed. She disappeared on and off, ran with a certain crowd, but she stayed with us occasionally. As I said before, I haven’t seen her in years.”
Etta shifted in her seat, drawing a look of concern from Nicholas, who’d been studying his water for the entire duration of the conversation, as if he couldn’t quite believe there wasn’t dirt swimming in it.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Alice said again, this time with more steel in her tone, “but who are you, and why are you here?”
Might as well have it out than keep burning time. “My name is Etta. I’m her daughter.”
Nicholas sprayed the water he’d just taken a sip of, subsequently pounding his chest and choking on what he’d managed to swallow. He spun toward her in disbelief.
“Daughter?” Alice said, her voice changing completely. She was practically chirping. “That’s wonderful! My goodness. You look so much alike it’s startling. I should have known. Etta—is that short for something? What century were you born in? It’s so confusing to meet out of order, you know.”
A flood of confusing, conflicting emotions—anger, excitement, hope, frustration—swept through Etta, and it took her a second to catch her breath and process this.
“Henrietta,” Etta said. “And this is Nicholas Carter.”
“Your servant, ma??
?am,” Nicholas said with a nod. He put a steadying hand on Etta’s shoulder and kept her firmly in place. Etta was grateful, as she felt she was about to float up out of her skin.
“But, darling, who’s your father?” Alice asked. “Henrietta…is it…is it possibly Henry?”
Etta felt the world bottom out for the second time in less than a minute. “Henry?” she whispered.
“Etta doesn’t know her father,” Nicholas explained. “I’m afraid the situation is rather complicated.”
He did the best that he could to explain what had brought them both to her doorstep—a far better job than Etta would have managed with the thousands of thoughts rattling around her head. She watched Alice’s expression transform again, from horror to amazement to something that looked like genuine fear.
“Then you’re like us?” Etta asked. “I’m not even sure where to start with my questions.”
“I wish!” Alice let out a faint laugh, looking as overcome as Etta felt. “Professor Linden—your great-grandfather—was cousin to my father, a great friend and mentor. Neither he nor I inherited the ability from the Linden side of our family.”
“A guardian, then?” Nicholas confirmed.
Etta sat back, stunned. In her heart, Alice had always been the grandmother she’d never had. Love had been enough to sustain that feeling, even knowing there wasn’t a drop of shared blood between them. But apparently they were from the same family; distantly, maybe, but both Lindens all the same.
Alice had aged like anyone else. And when Etta’s mother had escaped Ironwood, Alice had gone to find her. Etta felt the tears prick her eyes again, swamped with the now-familiar guilt, the frustration of knowing the truth too late.
Alice protected us. She was a guardian in every sense of the word.
“They had quite the little game going,” Alice continued. “The professor would ‘happen upon’ some relic and use my father to bring it into the museum. It was very hush-hush, of course.” She lifted a chain from under her plain uniform dress, showing them the coin hanging from it. “Rose brought this back from a holiday in Greece. Greece before Christ.”
“How did she end up with the Ironwoods?” Nicholas asked.
“The professor worked very hard to keep her away from the other families, especially them,” Alice explained. “I’m sure you know, but they were at war with one another over who should be making the laws for the families—and then it was all about revenge for the natural times that were rewritten and the loved ones murdered. The professor always said that the traveler lines were on the verge of destroying themselves. As the last two living Lindens, they simply hid, rather than take sides. Once Ironwood’s control over traveling was secured, and the professor passed away…Rose spent some time with a group that banded together to travel. They called themselves refugees?”
Nicholas set his empty glass down on the side table with a bit too much force. “Refugees, you said?”
Alice nodded.
“I’ve heard of a group like that,” Nicholas explained, giving Etta a sidelong glance. “Refugees, to us, are people who, after the timeline is changed, find themselves without a home to return to. I might have been prevented from leaving my time—exiled to it—but they lost their natural times. The years they were born to, the ones they had grown and thrived in, were lost.”
“Sophia mentioned that,” Etta said. “That when the timeline changes and a traveler’s natural time is affected by a big enough shift, they don’t cease to exist, but everything and everyone they’d known might be lost.”
“Precisely. It happened constantly during the war between the families. The timeline became so unstable, so unpredictable, that many began to fear what might happen if it continued. Some of the remnants from the Jacaranda and Hemlock families eventually came to Ironwood and pledged their service and allegiance. But there was a group that dogged him for years, trying to sabotage his business holdings and retaliate on behalf of their dead loved ones…Thorns. That’s what Ironwood calls them. They’re constantly trying to create snags in the timeline that will restore their futures. That’s a dangerous group for your mother to have aligned with.”
“The old man made it sound like she’d purposefully infiltrated the family and manipulated them.…” Etta trailed off, looking at him. “Is it possible that they were also trying to find the astrolabe and knew he wanted it, or that he was on its trail?”
“That’s a logical assumption.” Nicholas rubbed at his chin. “Perhaps they know where it’s hidden, too? Only…it seems the sort of thing they’d wish to use.”
The thought settled between the three of them, as heavy as a thundercloud. Etta braced herself for thunder, for the lightning bolt of dread.
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you, but…” Alice stood suddenly, gathering up the water glasses. “I’m sorry, I’ve really got to be going.”
Etta studied the girl, recognizing the evasion for what it was. “What do you know about the astrolabe?”
“Nothing,” Alice said, keeping her back to them. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about it.”
Not yet, not yet, please not yet. Etta felt almost desperate with panic. You can’t go yet.
“I’m just trying to get back to Rosie,” she tried. “I think this is the only way. If I find the astrolabe, I’ll find her. Please…whatever you know, however small, could help us.”
“You may be her daughter, but it feels like such…like such a betrayal,” Alice said, her voice small. “She didn’t want anyone to find it, least of all the Ironwoods.”
“Why?” Etta asked. Nicholas crossed and uncrossed his legs, as if suddenly unable to settle himself in a comfortable position. “At least tell me that.”
“She thought—God forgive me, she thought they’d use it for their own ends. That they’d damage the world irrevocably for their own gain,” Alice said. “It’s a family heirloom. It did belong to us, for whatever that’s worth, and we debated for years over what to do with it—to let it remain where the professor’s father hid it, or to move it. It was supposed to stay lost, but then Ironwood, somehow, started to get close. Rose didn’t remove it from its original hiding spot until he’d nearly found it. She and the professor should have just destroyed it, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. History is too important to them.”
Alice set the small porcelain figurine of a tiger she’d been fussing with back down on the fireplace mantelpiece, continuing. “Ironwood thought she’d be stupid enough to trick and use; and now I suppose he’s trying the same with you.”
Etta shook her head. “I won’t let him have it. I’m just trying to get home, back to her, and—back to you.”
She turned slowly. “Me?”
“Yes,” Etta said, standing up and crossing the room. “She travels to the future, and you’re there to help both her and me. You live in New York. There’s a really handsome Polish violinist in your future—”
Alice held up her hands, stopping her. “Don’t tell me any more. I mean it. I can see in your face that there’s something you want to tell me, but you can’t—I might not be able to alter the timeline, but you can, just by telling me. And I’m starting to find this story rather convenient.”
Etta looked around the room again, trying to find some proof that she knew Alice—the future Alice. Her eyes landed on the painting. “I know you bought this painting while you were walking along the Seine. You bought it because someone wrote a beautiful poem in French on the back. And I know your father loathes it, and you actually bolted it to the wall to keep him from taking it down.”
Alice reached up, pressing her fingers against the bottom of the frame. It didn’t budge. She turned back to them, shaking her head. “I want to help you, but…she’s protected me for so long, I feel that it’s my turn to do the same.”
It was so Alice. This woman had guarded them over the years like a lioness defending her cubs. It made Etta want to hug her that much more, even as Nicholas tensed beside her, frustration plain
on his face.
“I’m not interested in changing the future—her future,” Etta said. “For one thing, it would completely change my life. There is no way I’m letting Ironwood have access to my time, either.”
The couch squeaked as Nicholas stood and made his way to the window. He crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed the people passing on the sidewalk below.
“All right,” Alice said, wringing her hands red. “I don’t know anything about where it is. I’m sorry, but…I suppose…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that it’s the last of four. Long ago, each family had one. Three of them were either lost or destroyed by rivals in the other families.”
So, it was exactly as Nicholas—and Julian—had thought.
“This one is the last of its kind,” Alice said, “which is a blessing, considering what it’s capable of.”
“Reading passages, you mean?” Etta clarified.
Alice blinked. “No. Creating passages.”
“Creating them?” Etta asked, looking back toward Nicholas just as his gaze shot over to hers. Her own shock was reflected on his face. That couldn’t be right—
“Yes,” Alice said, eyes wide as she realized neither of them knew this. “My impression is that many of the passages are becoming unstable or collapsing because of traveler deaths, and—well, old age. As Rose explained it, what Ironwood and his rivals—the Thorns, as you called them—what they want is to gain access to years that have been closed to them, and affect events there. Whoever controls the astrolabe could potentially control the whole of time.”
Oh my God, thought Etta. No wonder Ironwood had been willing to sacrifice his sons and grandson in the search for it. This was the ultimate prize. The trump card of travelers. If his control wasn’t already complete, it would be once he had it in hand. All people, in all ages, could be affected by whatever Ironwood had planned.
Did this mean that the passages weren’t a natural phenomenon that travelers had found and tentatively stepped through centuries ago? They’d been made by the ancestors of these families for their personal use? No wonder there were years without passages, and that so many passages were uncharted; they must have predated when the families began to record the destinations, or they had simply been forgotten altogether.