“Wow. That’s quite an offer. What exactly are you running from, Hannah?”
“Everything,” she sighed. “Everyone.”
“Even the people who need you?”
Hannah looked to her sister, staring down at the pavement in a somber daze. The thought that Amanda might need her was a strange new concept, as alien as anything in the parade.
“I don’t know. Part of me wants to run away on my own. Change everything about myself until no one can find me. The other part of me’s sick of travel. Sick of change.”
Ioni fixed a sudden nervous eye on Theo. She took a step from the wall.
“We’ve been running for so long,” Hannah continued. “It’s taking its toll on all of us. I don’t think we can last like this another—”
“Hannah, listen. I need you to stay calm, all right? Don’t make a scene.”
“What?”
Theo suddenly fell into violent seizures, shaking hard enough to knock his mask off. His eyes rolled back. His skin glowed with a faint and sickly sheen, as if he’d become his own ghost.
Ioni rushed to his side and pressed her fingers to his temples, bowing her head in concentration. Soon Theo’s luminescence faded and the convulsions stopped. He fell into restful sleep.
Hannah jumped out of her seat, bouncing her saucer gaze between Theo and Ioni. “What . . . what did you . . . ?”
“He peaked a little too early. I’m buying him some time.” Ioni threw a tense glare at the busy pay phone. “You guys really need to get to Peter.”
Hannah noticed the dual watches on Ioni’s right wrist, and suddenly scrambled to recall her secondhand knowledge of the mysterious stranger who’d approached Theo and Mia in the Marietta library. Odd that Mia had described her as a short-haired blonde. Odder still that Hannah didn’t notice her watches sooner. She must have deliberately hidden them behind the ghostmask in her hand. Ioni had been wearing her disguise all along.
Hannah scanned the backs of her other four companions, still occupied with the parade.
“Don’t call them,” Ioni urged. “I only came here to talk to you.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Calm down. I’m not your enemy.”
“Why should I believe you? You lied to me. Pretended you were a stranger.”
“I am a stranger, Hannah. If I had an ounce of sense, I’d stay that way. This isn’t my struggle.”
“Then why are you following us?”
“There’s no ‘us.’ Just Theo.”
“Why him?”
Ioni looked to Theo and sighed. “It’s complicated. Suffice it to say that I have a special empathy for augurs, this one in particular. It gives me a modicum of comfort to help him through this rough patch.”
“Help him? You already hurt him!”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the one who told Mia to bring him to the health fair. We took your advice. If you knew what would happen—”
“I knew he’d get treated.”
“He got arrested!”
“And then he got treated,” Ioni replied. “In the augur game, it’s never a direct line from A to B. If you want things done, you have to make bank shots. Theo will learn that soon enough.”
Hannah shot her a baleful glare. “People got hurt.”
“People always get hurt. There’s no such thing as a perfect future. Someone always gets the pointy end.”
“Who are you?”
Ioni rubbed her weary face. “You can’t handle the answer. Not today. Just take comfort that I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. Once I’m done here, none of you will see me again for at least two years.”
Hannah looked to Theo. “At least tell me what you’re doing to him. Are you healing him?”
“There’s nothing to heal. These are just birth pains and they’re almost done. In thirty-eight minutes, he’ll be stronger than he’s ever been in his life.”
Hannah’s brow arched. “I want to believe that.”
“You’ll see soon enough. But listen, hon, it’s not all roses. By the end of the day, he’ll have a whole new burden. He’ll need you more than ever.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s been doing penny ante stuff up until now. Parlor tricks. Very soon he’ll know the true nature of his talent. Power like that can ruin a person, Hannah. You have to keep him anchored. You and Mia and Zack and Amanda, you’re his family now. Comfort him. Love him. Yell at him, if need be. Just don’t let him fade away into the futures. That’s where people like Theo become people like Azral. You do not want that.”
Ioni’s pretty young face twisted with hatred. She raised a stern finger.
“The time may come when you’ll be tempted to trust the Pelletiers. Don’t. They destroy worlds, Hannah. They destroyed yours twice.”
The actress felt a sharp flutter in her stomach as she tried to process all the new information.
“You’re right. I can’t handle this.”
“I said you couldn’t handle my story. I have every faith you can handle yours. I’ve seen you in times to come, Hannah. You’re magnificent.”
The actress flicked a hand in hopeless bother. “If you know so much about the future, then help us.”