Etta could feel Sophia’s pulse flutter, light and warm, as the girl drew their hands toward her own throat again, skimming the exposed flesh.
“Here,” she said, “right here. They’ll bleed out like a stuck pig before they can squeal, and you’ll be able to get away. Remember that.”
Etta nodded, her throat too tight to speak as Sophia pried the knife out of her fingers and threw it hard enough for the tip to embed itself in the wall and stay there, shivering.
“They won’t expect it from you,” she continued, “and, fool that I am, I didn’t either. Good for you. I like a fighter. But it won’t do you much good against me.”
“Says the girl who can’t stop throwing up.” Etta barely recognized herself in her anger, and she knew herself even less in her helplessness. It left her feeling the way she’d felt while drowning, watching the surface of the water grow darker by the second.
Sophia rose, picked up the silver pitcher from the desk, and poured it into a small porcelain basin, then splashed water on her face, her neck, her hands. When she finished, she gave it a look of ire. “I hate this century. It’s so…rustic, don’t you think?”
“What century?” Etta heard herself whisper.
“You really haven’t done this before, have you? You truly had no idea. Remarkable.” Sophia glanced up, lips twisting. “Guess.”
She didn’t want to say it out loud, but it was the only way to know. “Eighteenth?” she guessed, thinking of the costumes. “You brought me back to the eighteenth century?”
Desperation raised the pitch of her voice. Tell me, tell me, just tell me—
“No one brought you anywhere,” said Sophia. “You traveled.”
TRAVELED. ETTA ROLLED THE WORD around in her mind like clay, letting it take shape, smoothing it out, trying it again in different form. Traveled.
To travel was to imply some kind of choice; to cross a distance willingly, for a reason. Etta had followed that noise, the screams, because she’d wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t crazy, that there was a source, a reason for it. And it had led her…
To the stairwell.
The wall of shivering air.
Except, no…that wasn’t the whole truth of it, not really. It had led her to Sophia, and Sophia had brought her to the stairwell, because…
“You were sent to bring me here,” Etta said, putting that much together. “You pretended to be a violinist…you got yourself involved with the concert.”
Sophia gave a little flick of her wrist. “Hand me that damp cloth over there, will you?”
Etta picked it out of the basin and threw it at her face, relishing the slap it made as it struck skin.
Sophia pushed herself up, her dress spilling out over the side of the narrow bunk. “Well you’re in a mood, aren’t you?”
Etta fought the urge to scream. “Can’t imagine why.”
The hammering and calls from above poured into the gap of silence.
After a while, Sophia spoke. “As amusing as it would be to watch, I can’t let you flounder. If you slip and reveal yourself to the others, it’ll be my neck waiting for the guillotine, not yours.”
As she dragged a flimsy wooden chair over from the door, Etta asked, “What do you mean, exactly—if I slip?”
Sophia settled back. She was small enough to stretch her body out in the bunk without bending her knees. She folded the damp towel, draping it over her eyes and forehead. “It’s exactly as I said. If you tell the men on this ship—or anyone else, for that matter—that you can travel through time, you damn us both by association.” She lifted the cloth, her eyes narrowing. “Do you honestly mean to tell me that you know nothing about this? That your parents kept it from you?”
Etta looked down at her hands, studying the red, bruised skin on her knuckles. The questions hung between them like a strand of diamonds, blinding.
She looked up, an idea blazing through her disbelief. “If I answer a question, you have to answer one of mine.”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “If you insist on playing games…”
“I don’t know my father,” Etta said. “I never have. He was someone my mom met only once, according to her. A fling. Now you tell me—why is that important?”
“I didn’t specify your father.” Sophia raised both brows. “The ability can be inherited from either parent.”
Then…
Mom. Oh, God—Etta had to brace herself against the desk to keep upright, her full weight sagging against it as her legs turned to dust under her. Mom.
…you can’t just pluck her off this path, not without consequences.
She’s not ready for this. She doesn’t have the right training, and there’s no guarantee it’ll go the right way for her—!
They hadn’t been talking about the debut.