“I don’t know why it upsets me,” she said, fiddling with the ends of the ribbon he’d tied in her hair. Nicholas caught her hand, clasping it between his own. In that moment, she looked so ruffled that he feared she might very well fly out of the window. And of course there was that heady floral scent, driving him half mad, making him think of silky night air, and the moon hanging like an opal at midnight, and—
“Are all travelers like this?” she said, using her free hand to gesture toward the space around them. “Collectors? Tourists to different eras? Going off to have a laugh and pick up souvenirs to show off? Tokens from events”—she picked up a scrap of parchment—“I mean, someone bought themselves a ticket for passage on the Titanic, and there’s a box over there labeled ‘Pompeii’ that I’m not even going to open. Is there a point to it, other than to amuse themselves? Sophia claims they protect the timeline, but it just seems like they’re protecting their interests.”
It did look as though the room was just a collection of trophies from a scattered life. They had nothing in common beyond the obvious—they belonged to different eras. Clocks made in strange, clean-lined styles; swords mounted to the walls; porcelain trinkets; silk robes and garments beyond his wildest fancies; brittle broadsheets and newspapers, dried to yellow crisps—all stood beside each other, as if the mixture was the most natural thing in the world. It was either a hoard of the family’s treasure, or their own personal museum.
“Is that so wrong?” Nicholas asked. “Amusement is a privilege few are granted. It’s hardly a crime to seek it out. Even you’ve felt the awe of traveling. Do you not qualify it as a pursuit of knowledge?”
“Right,” she said. “But I can’t help but think that that’s not what the passages were meant for. There were generations of travelers who made them, right? How did they discover how to do it, and why did they stop?”
He released her hand, his mind already at work scraping up some sort of weak segue to a safer conversation. She was too clever by half, and Nicholas knew that she would see through his deceit too clearly when he took the astrolabe out of her hands. It was obvious to him now that Etta had no plans of giving it back to Ironwood; he had a feeling the plan she was keeping to herself was as as dangerous as it was daring—that she would try to use it to return to her time, and save her mother herself. And while he could admire her courage, and lament her recklessness, Nicholas needed her to see how foolish it was to believe she could ever escape Ironwood. As it stood, the old man would know that his leaving without permission was hewing to the spirit of their agreement—following her at any cost—so long as he returned with the astrolabe. But how could Etta be so certain of his forgiveness for this act of defiance?
She would hate him for double-crossing her, and he could live with that. But he could not live with knowing she was in constant jeopardy. That Ironwood had stamped out her bloom and buried her. This was the only way he could save her, her mother, and his future that didn’t end with one or all of them dead.
Etta would see that. In time.
Perhaps.
“Why do you think they went?” she asked, her eyes a soft, sleepy blue.
If the question had come from any other person, he might have dismissed it with a wave and carried on with his business; but it mattered to him that she sincerely desired his opinion, even knowing who he was. He recognized the want, as it mirrored his own.
Want. His exhaustion had boiled him down to his basest instincts. He wanted her lips, her touch, her esteem, her mind.
Inside her. Beside her. With her. Impossible, he reminded himself.
Perhaps it was a blessing that he couldn’t cross paths with himself, lest he be tempted to shoot himself before making the deal with Ironwood.
“What man can resist the temptation of riches waiting to be found?” he said, running his thumb along the carved edge of a dark wooden desk. “Or woman, for that matter?” he added, thinking of Sophia.
“Maybe,” Etta said slowly, turning to sort through the papers on the desk.
“You disagree?”
“No, not really,” she said. “I’m sure that was motivation for most of them, especially the ones who came later on. But the first travelers didn’t know what they would find, did they? That takes a lot of courage, to charge into the unknown.”
“Or blackmail and fear,” he said pointedly.
She laughed. “I don’t think that was it…at least, I hope it wasn’t. These were people who overcame the impossible; they figured out a way to break every law of science. They opened up whole worlds within their own. Maybe they saw themselves as explorers, or scholars. Or maybe they saw it as a kind of calling to find out what lay ahead and make adjustments.” The force behind her words increased as she spoke, driving her point forward. “Maybe Alice was right—they made too many changes, and everything got out of hand.”
“A calling?” He couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of his voice.
“Sure,” she said. “You don’t believe in that?”
“I believe in choosing your purpose and a direction to head—not that there is a path out there just waiting for me to stumble onto it.”