He shook his head. “No, I’ll simply be orphaned by my time—thrown to whatever last common point there was between the old timeline and the new. My future, and the guardians’…they are at stake, as is yours.”
Could such a change ripple out so far, so wildly, from one act? Why should saving one life mean so many more—Alice’s and Oskar’s, and all of the millions and billions of people living and working in the world—might not exist, or would not exist as they had?
“These ašwaak—Thorns—they are no better. These travelers and guardians desire it for similar reasons—to undo everything Ironwood has built for himself, and restore the world they know,” Hasan said. “Rose was swayed by their passion, by how many of our family had been slaughtered by Ironwood for refusing to come to his table. Abbi was destroyed when Rose left to seek them out, but how could she not? Ironwood had taken her parents. She was furious that Abbi only wished to hide.”
So. Her grandparents—Rose’s parents—hadn’t been killed in a Christmas car accident after all.
“It’s so extreme,” Etta said, trying to reconcile this angry young woman with the one who had raised her. “I understand her motivations, but—changing the whole future?”
Hasan made a thoughtful sound. “At first, all the Thorns wished was to bring Ironwood to his knees—to restore the council of families, save their loved ones from service to him. The timeline they knew was the original timeline, you see. Can you argue that it is meant to be, more than the one that exists now?”
Meaning that she really had grown up in an altered timeline of what was actually meant to be. Everything she knew was a product of the changes Ironwood had made in his conquest of the families. So—which timeline deserved to exist? Hers? Theirs?
The full weight of her exhaustion hit her at once. Etta felt as though her head was stuffed with cotton, her knees suddenly hollow. The room tilted sideways a second before two hands caught her; they held her steady until the black spots cleared from her vision.
“Etta?” Nicholas’s face floated in front of hers.
“I’m okay,” she promised. “Just…”
Hasan’s face transformed, sharpening. “Who are you to be so familiar with my little niece? Remove your hands before I do.”
“Familar?” she repeated, just as Nicholas’s grip tightened and he said, “Her husband.”
Etta choked. Nicholas’s hands squeezed her arms once, in silent warning. He wrapped both arms around her shoulders—a mimic of a loving embrace. When she dug her heel down into his foot, he barely grimaced.
Excuse me? Excuse me?
If the lie lit a fuse in her, it had the opposite effect on Hasan, stamping out the flare of fury that had turned his handsome features almost ominous. Mostly stamping it out, anyway.
“I do not think Abbi would approve of this match,” he said.
“Why?” Nicholas said challengingly.
“She looks as if she desires nothing so much as to feed you to a lion,” said Hasan.
Etta managed to wriggle free. She wasn’t sure what it was—the way his expression softened, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen it, or the simple fact that Nicholas rarely did something without good reason—but she held her tongue instead of calling him out on the lie.
“Next time we’re on a ship,” she said, turning back to Hasan with a conspiratorial smile, “I’ll feed some important bit to a shark.”
“A sailor?” Hasan scoffed, turning to assess him again with this new knowledge. “A pirate, no doubt.”
“A legal pirate,” Nicholas said tiredly.
“The only pirates I know are those from the Barbary Coast,” Hasan said, eyeing Nicholas. “They are not so friendly to Europeans, you see. They trade in slaves, and their tastes are vast. They take from Africa. They take from Europe. A girl such as this would be prized: her skin, her hair, her eyes. A man would pay a price for her.”
Etta actually gasped. “What are you getting at?”
“I believe he’s trying to ask if you are my concubine,” Nicholas said with a humorless smile. “If you need rescue.”
“No!” she choked out. “Neither of us are even from this time, and the fact that you think he’s even capable of doing something like that—”
Hasan visibly relaxed, even as Nicholas put a calming hand on her shoulder. “One hears of such things—sees them—and so I worry. If Abbi is not here, then it falls to me to protect you. But if he is your husband, as he says, he shares in the responsibility.”
“I can take care of myself,” Etta muttered.
“This is the truth,” Nicholas told him, stooping down to pick up the letter. He glanced over it again. “But we’re in a hurry, you see. Ironwood has ‘sweet Rose’ at his mercy and is threatening to kill her, and very likely will, if we can’t figure out where she’s hidden something. Does this last phrase here mean anything to you? Bring jasmine to the bride who sleeps eternal beneath the sky?”
“My papa was very fond of riddles such as these, but I cannot say I have heard this one before.” Hasan’s steps were light as he made his way through the room, running his hands along each possession; all were clearly prized. He picked up the photograph of the tiger hunt and brushed the coating of dust from its glass face, continuing, “He is gone, but I have hope that I will see him again. Perhaps not as old as he was, but a young man, discovering this era for the first time. Perhaps he will not yet recognize me, but I will know him. And until that day, I will care for our family, and ask that you stay as my guests. When I am gone, you may use my home as your own.”
“Thank you,” Etta said. “But what do you mean, when you’re gone?”
They had…How many days was it now until the thirtieth? Only six?
“I must go to Baghdad to collect my wife, little cousin,” he said, an almost goofy look of happiness passing over his face. And once again, she tried to judge exactly how old he was, and came up with seventeen at the most. “Samarah will be greatly displeased to have missed you. She has gone to be with her sister and their new child. I will remain here to sell my indigo and pearls, and will fetch her as soon as the goods are gone and there is a caravan or others to travel with.”
“A merchant, then,” Nicholas clarified.
Hasan nodded, his smile slightly crooked with the swelling on his face. “It is natural. Abbi brought me many books, taught me many languages. English, Turkish, French, Greek. So you see, I cannot travel in your way, but he has helped me to go far on my own feet.”
“I’m glad we met you,” Etta said sincerely, struck all over again that he was her family; her concept of the word had changed again. “When do you think you’ll be leaving, though?”
“I would have left a week ago,” Hasan replied, “but some of the tribes make the desert a dangerous place to be alone. So, I wait—it should not be long now.”
“Indeed?” Nicholas said. “And what desert would this be?”
Hasan nearly dropped the photo, a surprised laugh tumbling out of him. “Perhaps that is where we can make another beginning? My new friends, may I be the first to humbly welcome you to the Queen of Cities, Dimashq. Damascus.”
NEITHER ETTA NOR NICHOLAS HAD KNOWN WHAT TIME IT WAS when they came through the passage, but after Hasan gently informed them that it was three o’clock in the morning, his initial hostility made more sense.
“Rest now,” he said, taking one of the candles with him. “Tomorrow, I will show you the house, the city, and we will try to understand Abbi’s riddle.”
Nicholas’s lips parted, his shoulders tightening as if he was about to protest this, but Etta put a hand on his arm and said simply, “Thank you. Good night.”
When the door shut firmly behind Hasan, Nicholas pulled away, crossing over to the bed in several rapid, stiff strides. Rather than sit down on it, he pulled the top blanket off, and without sparing even a glance at her, moved to the opposite end of the room to spread it out over a few floor cushions he gathered on the way.
Etta felt a shar
p twist in the pit of her stomach. What had she thought? That they’d be sharing the bed? That they’d pick up where they left off earlier that day?
Nicholas could put such a cool distance between himself and others. She felt him trying to do it now, letting the silence speak for him, keeping his back to her as he shrugged off his filthy shirt and folded it neatly. She was almost too aware of him now. He filled a room just by standing in it.
This was a completely different Nicholas than the one who had literally kissed the breath out of her. She’d felt his heartbeat chasing hers. He had been the warm wave that had carried her away from everything else, and he hadn’t needed to say a single word in order for her to know that he was as desperate for her as she was for him. She wasn’t inexperienced. She knew what that felt like.
Then it’s the same for you?
Nicholas had kept any number of things from her, and he was well within his right to do so. He showed only a fraction of what he felt, even when he was being insulted in the crudest, vilest ways imaginable. But alone with him, she’d felt him let go, and she’d recognized what a rare privilege it was to be able to find him beneath all the stiff layers.
Etta tried to run her hands back through her hair and failed; she turned to look for the old silver brush she’d seen on the desk. Her thoughts were still churning when she sat back down and began to work the brush through the tangled ends of her waves.
Nicholas was back up on his feet, pacing the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Etta could feel the weight of his thoughts take shape between them as he put out a few of the candles at the other end of the room.
She wanted to know what he was thinking, but was afraid to ask, on the off chance that his mood had something to do with how quickly they were approaching the end of this. There wasn’t enough time.
You are leaving, she thought, even as a small, traitorous voice whispered, but not yet.…
“Come here a second,” Etta said softly.
Nicholas stopped, his hands going slack at his side. He didn’t move.
“Please,” she said, kicking her shoes off and standing again. She wove through the discarded rainbow of silk cushions, the carpets soft and plush beneath her feet. She took up the basin of water Hasan had left behind.
Returning to her perch on the bed, Etta dipped the last of the clean cloths into the water and carefully squeezed out the excess. Nicholas hesitated, but moved toward her in the end, approaching like a wary cat.
Before he could protest, Etta took his right hand and held it firmly, picking up the cloth to dab at the broken skin he’d reopened across his knuckles. The cuts were already scabbing over, but she worked as delicately as she could to clean away the blood. His fingers squeezed hers, almost reflexively; his eyes were hooded as he watched her work.
“I wish you had gone a little easier on him,” she said.
“He came in here thrashing a sword around. Was I supposed to stand idly by and do nothing?” he huffed.
“Well, you weren’t supposed to try to rearrange his face with your fist.”
“I wasn’t,” Nicholas protested. “He lunged up into it several times. I was only in the way.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she informed him. “Will you please apologize to him tomorrow?”
“If you wish, but I’m not sure it’s necessary,” he said. “He didn’t respect me until he saw that I was capable of defending you. We’ve made our peace. And if you think I wouldn’t do the same again, let me relieve you of that notion now. If the situation calls for violence, I will use it.”
She didn’t want to pick a fight, and she sensed that he was trying to start one in order to push her away. It was enough for her to understand why he’d done it, even if she felt he’d gone too far.
I need to tell him. He understood the stakes of it all. Nicholas would see that they couldn’t just give the astrolabe back to Ironwood and wash their hands of it.
“I have to tell you something.…”
“Shhhh…” he whispered. “Not yet. Not yet.”
Agitation melted away from him as he exhaled and sat beside her. The stubble along his jaw rasped as he brought his cheek up to rest against her hair.
It’s not over yet.
It doesn’t have to be over.
Come with me.
Etta swallowed, forcing the words back down her throat. She was tired, and she felt her emotions far too close to the surface to be reasonable about this. The truth solidified inside her, a wisp of hope burning, re-forming, becoming as shatterproof as a diamond. The crazy, stupid truth was as irrational as it was selfish, and she knew that—she knew it—but it didn’t seem to matter.
As much as she respected and admired his beautiful, sharp mind, there was such a gentle heart stowed away beneath the stormy colors of his moods, his rougher layers. She didn’t want to leave it behind; she didn’t want to leave any part of him, and pretend like none of this had happened.
Come with me.
She turned, kissing the place on his neck where she could see his pulse fluttering.
Come home with me.
His fingers slid away from hers—to draw her leg across his lap, unwind the dirty bandage, and begin cleaning the wound on her calf.
“Why did you lie to Hasan?” she whispered.
Nicholas knew exactly what she was talking about.
“By his accent and manner of dress, I assumed he is a Mahometan.” At her blank look, he elaborated. “A follower of the prophet Muhammad.”
What she thought of as a Muslim. She nodded.
“I only know a little about their faith—stories, really,” he explained. “But I assume it matches certain tenets of Christianity, a rather important one being, of course, that unwed women are not to be left alone with rogues whom they are neither related to by blood or bound to through marriage.”
“I see,” she said mildly.
“I won’t pretend I’ve never done anything disreputable or had a dishonorable thought,” he said quietly. “It simply wasn’t a question for me. He would have brought you to another room, and I wouldn’t leave you alone in a strange place, where anyone could come in and harm you with me none the wiser. But…if anyone were to find out I’m staying here, rather than in a separate room, your reputation would be irrevocably damaged.”
“I don’t care about being judged by another century’s standards,” said Etta. “Especially one that I’ll probably never see again.”
“I know,” he said, tearing a clean sheet into a bandage to wrap her leg. “But it matters to me. Had I known the idea would be so unappealing, I never would have suggested it.”
Was that…hurt she detected?
“It’s not that. I just hate that it’s even necessary, you know?” she said. “That a woman doesn’t exist as a whole person. I was surprised when you said it. I thought you were joking, but only because I was thinking like a person from my time. Seventeen is a little young to be married.”
Nicholas pulled back, that guarded look of assessment sliding back into place.
“Most people don’t start considering marriage until they’re in their mid-twenties,” she continued. “There’s years of school, and most people want to find jobs and be somewhat settled first.”
“I see,” he said, in the same tone she’d used.
“But it’s not young for you?” Etta asked, sensing he was beginning to drift away again. “Really?”
“I’m nearly twenty,” he told her. “Of course it isn’t. But it’s not a thought I’ll entertain.”
Etta could see by the shadow that passed over his eyes that he’d said more than he wanted to. When he released her and stood, she felt the absence of him like the burn of empty lungs. His words had been lanced through with a trembling undercurrent, and she should have known better than to keep pushing him to understand why. She should have.
“Why?”
He turned, a flicker of anger moving through his features. “Must I really answer that? Would you have me catalo
g all my faults? All the reasons I’m unsuitable—” Nicholas caught himself, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut for a brief moment. “Go to sleep, Etta. Rest. We’ve much to do tomorrow.”
She stood.
There was this dream she used to have, when she was younger and her stage fright was at its crippling worst. The most terrifying thing was how real it felt; each night, she felt the warmth of the stage lights on her skin as she stepped out and let herself be blinded by them. It never mattered what song the orchestra started to play—it was never the one she knew, never the one she had mastered—and she could never seem to improvise, but only choke on her own frustration at her inability to play the right thing on demand.
It was that same desperate feeling that propelled her forward now. She reached for the right words, but came up with nothing but air. She might have understood who he was as a person, but she hadn’t experienced the life that had made him that way.
There was something about this that he wasn’t telling her. Whatever his secret was, it was like a chasm between them, preventing her from reaching him. Anything she tried—her words, her glances, her touch—spilled into it before it could even get close to his heart.
He had worked his breath into short, hard measures when she threaded her arms beneath his, wrapping them around his center. For the length of a heartbeat, he let her. And in the next, he was pushing her away.
“Don’t”—he swallowed roughly—“do not act as though this is more than it is—”
Etta reached for him and pulled him down to her level. He struggled for the excuse he needed to do it again, even as his hands tightened around her shoulders and held her in place. When she kissed him, there was nothing gentle about it. No hesitation. Nicholas stood rigidly, his body hard against hers.
But just when she was sure she had badly fumbled this, he moved with a harsh sound, his hands going first to her loose hair, then to the small bow holding the neck of her blouse together. He swallowed her gasp, lips wild and hungry as they moved from the corner of her mouth to her jaw, her throat. Blood beat against her skin, relentless, and she was being walked backward before she realized it. Etta was dizzy with the feel of him under her hands, grateful she could lean against something just as her legs went soft.