“We promised we’d save Chip and Alex,” Jonah muttered. “We promised.”
“Why aren’t we saving the princesses, too?” Katherine asked. “Why didn’t Gary and Hodge kidnap them when they kidnapped Chip and Alex? Just because they’re girls, not boys?”
Jonah was getting sick of Katherine thinking everyone was prejudiced against girls.
“Gary and Hodge kidnapped lots of endangered girls from history,” Jonah argued. “Remember? There were about as many girls as boys in the cave that day. Maybe … maybe the princesses aren’t in any danger. Maybe it’s just Chip and Alex.”
Katherine clenched her fists.
“This is driving me crazy, not knowing what’s going to happen. What’s supposed to happen,” she said.
“But this is no different from regular life,” Jonah said. “When have you ever known what’s going to happen in the future?”
Katherine glared at him.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m used to the future being the future, not the past being the future. Or—you know. It’s weird that the future already happened once, but we don’t know what it was. Er—will be.” She was getting so tangled up in verb tenses that she stopped trying. She gulped. “How can we save Chip and Alex if we don’t know what we’re supposed to be saving them from?”
Especially when we thought we’d already saved them, Jonah thought dizzily. His stomach churned. What if they’d “haunted” the queen before they noticed Chip’s and Alex’s tracers? What if they’d managed to convince her that her sons were dead? What if King Richard III did something differently because he’d seen the boys’ “ghosts” at the Westminster shrine? How come it seemed like everything they did messed up time?
“Maybe JB was right,” Jonah muttered. “Maybe it is dangerous for us to be here.”
“JB—oh!” Katherine suddenly sat up straight, practically banging her head on the wall. “He didn’t want Chip and Alex dead on the ground after all! He didn’t betray us!”
Jonah stared at her. She was right. They’d been so upset thinking that JB wanted Chip and Alex dead that they hadn’t given JB a chance to explain. Chip had cut him off and kicked the Elucidator across the room. And then they’d muted it.
Jonah dug in his pocket for the Elucidator. He expected it to be completely invisible again or, at best, still stuck on the words INVISIBILITY? Y/N. But it held a full sentence now, in tiny, barely glowing type:
WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME NOW?
TWENTY-THREE
Jonah immediately felt annoyed for all those hours they’d spent trying to get the Elucidator to say something besides INVISIBILITY? Y/N. When JB’s question faded into another one—SAFE FOR ME TO TALK OUT LOUD? Y/N—Jonah hit the Y with an angry stab of his fingernail.
“Thanks a lot,” he muttered. “So you could have communicated with us all along? You can do anything you want through the Elucidator?”
“Not while you had the Elucidator muted, during the system restore,” JB’s voice came softly out of the mostly transparent “rock” in Jonah’s mostly transparent hand. “You cut off all contact with the outside world.”
Jonah suppressed a shiver at that.
“But ever since the Elucidator reset, back at the cathedral—you could have talked to us then?” Katherine demanded.
“Did you want me to?” JB asked.
Jonah decided to leave that question alone.
“So talk now,” he said brusquely. “Tell us everything.” The word “everything” came out a little mockingly. Jonah was proud that he could make it sound like he didn’t really care whether JB talked to them or not.
“It’s hard with you right there, near the royal family,” JB’s voice was barely a whisper. “Will you give me permission to pull you out of time for a little bit?”
Jonah exchanged glances with his sister.
“All of us?” Katherine asked, peeking back toward the room where Chip and Alex were still talking to the queen.
Even across the centuries Jonah could hear JB’s frustrated sigh.
“I can’t pull Chip and Alex out right now,” JB said. “It’d be too … complicated. And they’re not really Chip and Alex at the moment. They’re Edward and Richard, two very critical players in history.”
“You promised we could try to save them!” Katherine’s voice rose a little too high. “Was that all a lie? Is it even possible?”
“It’s possible, it’s possible,” JB said soothingly. “The fact that you’re there proves I’m giving you a chance.”
“But you want to pull us out now,” Katherine said. “Some chance.” She grimaced. “Sure, Chip and Alex weren’t killed by being thrown out the window—but what happens when King Richard finds out where they are now?”
Jonah hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“I promise you,” JB said, his voice cracking with seeming earnestness. “Nothing bad will happen to Chip and Alex while you’re away.” A hint of steeliness entered his voice. “Now, please, before someone hears you—can I pull you out of time?”
Jonah raised an eyebrow at his sister. She frowned back at him.
Jonah wasn’t quite sure what thoughts were tumbling through his sister’s head, but his were a frantic tangle. Should we say just one of us can go, and the other one stays here to watch out for Chip and Alex? No—that would be too awful, not knowing what the other one was dealing with. Or what was happening with Chip and Alex. So should we refuse and never know anything? That’s not any good either. If JB’s really sure Chip and Alex would be all right without us for a while …
Jonah thought of something else.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “How can you promise they’ll be safe? I thought we weren’t allowed to know the ‘future.’” He said “future” sarcastically, just to let JB know that he and Katherine weren’t nervous at all.
Katherine was biting her lip now. Jonah began tugging on the ragged edge of his left thumbnail.
“You can know more now,” JB said. “Now that you’re not with Chip and Alex.”