“I just did.”
“Tell me something I can use to save someone I love.”
“Sweetie, I just did.”
Hannah clenched her jaw, exasperated. Ioni lay a gentle hand on her wrist.
“If I could fill your life with smiles and happy faces, I would. But the future doesn’t work that way. It’s a map that’s always changing. I can’t even guide you through the minefield of today without steering you wrong. All I can tell you is to be brave, be strong, be there for the people who need you. You do that and you’ll be okay.”
“If the future’s always changing, how can you be sure?”
Ioni bloomed a sage little grin. “There are some events in life that are so reliable, we don’t bother predicting them. The sunrise. The full moon. The rainbow after a storm. These are all things that can’t be stopped by mere mortals. You know what the augurs call them?”
“What?”
She took Hannah’s hand and breathed a soft whisper through her hair.
“Givens.”
Ioni kissed her cheek, then backed away. Hannah looked into her palm and found a small folded square of purple paper. A crude pencil drawing of a theater mask graced the front. A happy face.
Once Hannah glanced up again, the girl with two watches was gone.
She took a heavy gulp of air, then reclaimed her seat on the shoeshine stand. She fumbled with the seams of her paper construct until she gave up and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. Her hard drive was already overflowing with wild new data. She couldn’t take another byte.
Theo continued to twitch in somnolent anguish. Hannah stroked his arm with her fingertips, rolling Ioni’s words around her thoughts like boulders. You have to keep him anchored. You and Mia and Zack and Amanda, you’re his family now.
A cold flutter gripped Hannah’s heart when she caught Ioni’s glaring omission. Why didn’t she mention David?
The light on the pay phone turned green. The door swung open and a gaunt old woman exited the tube. Zack tapped Mia’s shoulder.
“You’re up.”
—
She fed enough coins into the slot to buy twenty-six minutes. A recorded voice asked her to close the tube door and kindly spare others from her business. Mia ignored it.
While she listened to the dulcet chirps of Peter’s ringing phone, she cleared her throat and peeled off her silly mask. As if he’d see you, she chided herself. As if he’d judge.
Zack paced her side like an expecting father, doubling her anxiety. She forced her gaze past him, onto the bulky gray bank machine that stood against the neighboring wall. It reminded her of a video poker console with its seven large buttons and crude pastel graphics. A dark glass beacon rested on top like a novelty fez. She assumed it only flared in the event of criminal tampering.
After two minutes and thirty rings, Amanda and David joined Zack in his fretful hovering. Mia shrugged in tense surrender, then hung up. Loose coins drizzled into the return tray.
“You sure you got the number right?” David asked her.
“Yeah. I double-checked.”
“Try again in a few minutes,” Amanda said. “He could just be—”
The pay phone rang. Mia leapt at the handset, plugging her free ear with a finger. “Hello?”
A taut male voice filled the receiver. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. Say it.”
“Mia. Mia Farisi.”
The voice loosened up. “All right. Just had to make sure. You guys in the city?”
“Yeah. We’re here. Can you—”
“And you’re together. All six of you.”
“Yes. We’re all together. Can you just ease my mind and confirm that you’re—”
“Peter Pendergen,” he replied. “You called my house a few weeks back and spoke to my son Liam. The two of you had a misunderstanding about the definition of ‘pen pal.’ Better?”
Mia sighed contentedly. “Yes. Thank you. And I’m sorry about that call. If I put him in danger—”
“No. He’s fine. My people would never hurt him. Listen, I’m being watched. I don’t have much time. You got a pen and paper?”
“Yeah. Always.”
He dictated an address in the Battery Park district of Manhattan and then, with a brusque impatience that bothered her, made her read it back.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said. “Come as quick as you can.”
“Okay, but can you bring whatever painkillers you have? Theo’s—”
He hung up before she could finish. Mia kept a dubious stare on the receiver.
“Everything all right?” Zack asked.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Nothing. He just seemed nicer in his letters.”
Amanda moved to the shoeshine stand, flanking Theo’s side while Hannah gently shook him awake. He blinked at the sisters in drowsy puzzlement, then surveyed the parade.
“What . . . what are we doing back here?”
“We never left,” Amanda said.
Hannah rubbed his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m confused. Last thing I remember, we were picking you both up from the roof.”