She turned slowly. “Me?”
“Yes,” Etta said, standing up and crossing the room. “She travels to the future, and you’re there to help both her and me. You live in New York. There’s a really handsome Polish violinist in your future—”
Alice held up her hands, stopping her. “Don’t tell me any more. I mean it. I can see in your face that there’s something you want to tell me, but you can’t—I might not be able to alter the timeline, but you can, just by telling me. And I’m starting to find this story rather convenient.”
Etta looked around the room again, trying to find some proof that she knew Alice—the future Alice. Her eyes landed on the painting. “I know you bought this painting while you were walking along the Seine. You bought it because someone wrote a beautiful poem in French on the back. And I know your father loathes it, and you actually bolted it to the wall to keep him from taking it down.”
Alice reached up, pressing her fingers against the bottom of the frame. It didn’t budge. She turned back to them, shaking her head. “I want to help you, but…she’s protected me for so long, I feel that it’s my turn to do the same.”
It was so Alice. This woman had guarded them over the years like a lioness defending her cubs. It made Etta want to hug her that much more, even as Nicholas tensed beside her, frustration plain on his face.
“I’m not interested in changing the future—her future,” Etta said. “For one thing, it would completely change my life. There is no way I’m letting Ironwood have access to my time, either.”
The couch squeaked as Nicholas stood and made his way to the window. He crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed the people passing on the sidewalk below.
“All right,” Alice said, wringing her hands red. “I don’t know anything about where it is. I’m sorry, but…I suppose…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that it’s the last of four. Long ago, each family had one. Three of them were either lost or destroyed by rivals in the other families.”
So, it was exactly as Nicholas—and Julian—had thought.
“This one is the last of its kind,” Alice said, “which is a blessing, considering what it’s capable of.”
“Reading passages, you mean?” Etta clarified.
Alice blinked. “No. Creating passages.”
“Creating them?” Etta asked, looking back toward Nicholas just as his gaze shot over to hers. Her own shock was reflected on his face. That couldn’t be right—
“Yes,” Alice said, eyes wide as she realized neither of them knew this. “My impression is that many of the passages are becoming unstable or collapsing because of traveler deaths, and—well, old age. As Rose explained it, what Ironwood and his rivals—the Thorns, as you called them—what they want is to gain access to years that have been closed to them, and affect events there. Whoever controls the astrolabe could potentially control the whole of time.”
Oh my God, thought Etta. No wonder Ironwood had been willing to sacrifice his sons and grandson in the search for it. This was the ultimate prize. The trump card of travelers. If his control wasn’t already complete, it would be once he had it in hand. All people, in all ages, could be affected by whatever Ironwood had planned.
Did this mean that the passages weren’t a natural phenomenon that travelers had found and tentatively stepped through centuries ago? They’d been made by the ancestors of these families for their personal use? No wonder there were years without passages, and that so many passages were uncharted; they must have predated when the families began to record the destinations, or they had simply been forgotten altogether.
Or, some passages were secret, created for one particular family’s use alone.
“How do the Thorns fit into this?” Nicholas asked.
The notes of the symphony of lives, desires, and revenge suddenly swelled into a chorus of generations, blasting through Etta’s mind. She already knew the answer to his question. “They’re united in wanting to create passages to the past, to return to what they all see as the original timeline, to restore the centuries and years that orphaned them when Ironwood began to bend the timeline to suit his needs.”
Which wouldn’t be the future she had grown up in: days in the park, lessons with Alice, tea with her mom…For a moment, Etta wasn’t sure which was more terrifying: if Ironwood moved forward into the future, or if the Thorns interfered with the past.
“And those who were lost to them,” Alice added. “To save them.”
The way I want to save you. Etta pressed her fingers against her mouth, trying to seal in the whirlwind of sudden uncertainty whipping through her. How is what I want to do any different than what they want to do? Why does Alice deserve to live more than their loved ones?