He grimaced. “She’s not dead. She’s not even physically injured, but I think there’s other damage. As well as killing Les, the lomadh took Gráinne’s lover, and her boss, and of course destroyed the Tearsheet itself, which has been her home for ten years. She’s an unwed Irishwoman in Elizabeth’s London. The Tearsheet was her sanctuary. When I last saw her she was hysterical.”
“Of course she was,” said Erszebet quietly. She had gone quite pale and still. “It is a horrible thing to be torn from your security. This poor woman.”
Something didn’t add up. “How could you leave her in that condition?” I asked. For all of Tristan’s mysterious ways, I knew him well enough to know that he would not simply abandon Gráinne.
“She’s being looked after,” Tristan said, “at least temporarily.”
“Who’s looking after her?”
“Athanasius Fugger.”
There was a long pause while we absorbed that.
“You left her in the hands of a Fucker!?” Erszebet exclaimed.
“Why would he, of all people—” I began.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Tristan said. “He was there. On the scene. Close enough to see it, far enough away that he didn’t get—involved, or whatever you call it—in the Diachronic Shear. He must have followed me and Gráinne. He helped us up out of the ditch. He accompanied us back to the scene of the fire. Gráinne was losing it. Fugger puts an arm around her shoulder, draws her in, she’s sobbing on his shoulder. He looks up at me—there’s something very weird about his gaze—and says, ‘I believe it’s time for you to go back to where you belong. You know another witch who can do it. Go and reflect.’ And he nodded at the fire, then looked back at me in a very serious way. ‘I’ll see to her,’ he added, nodding at Gráinne, and then he turned his back on me. That was the last I saw of them.”
“‘Go back to where you belong . . . go and reflect . . .’” I repeated. “He knows.”
“They all know,” Erszebet spat. “All of the Fuckers. They always have. How do you think I have survived all these years without my own means? The Fuckers knew I was temporally indentured and saw to it that I remained alive and functional. They know everything.”
“Well, this particular one knew something, that’s for damn sure,” Tristan said. “In a weird way, I trust him to look after Gráinne, at least temporarily. It almost felt like Athanasius Fugger came to the Tearsheet to clean up my mess.”
“Our mess,” I corrected him.
“Les Holgate’s mess,” Erszebet said.
“Anyway, Gráinne’s part of that mess and Fugger’s overall vibe was like I got this, fool, get out of here. So I got out, with Rose’s help. I don’t know what Rose really thinks of this project either now, but she at least was calm enough to realize that there was no benefit to anyone, for me to remain. That’s why she Sent me back. I wouldn’t call it a working relationship yet.” Tristan sat back in his chair, wincing from the arm injury, and sighed. “Anyway, so let’s avoid 1601 London. Maybe go to early 1602 and see how Gráinne has recovered and if she’s still willing to work with us.”
Frank Oda had been gazing thoughtfully into space. “If Sir Edward Greylock’s existence has been obliterated across the multiverse,” he said, “that should mean the maple syrup boiler does not come into existence in any Strand.”
Erszebet considered this. “There is possibly some other Strand where another investor might be approached to fund it, but I would say you are most likely correct.”
“How long will it take you to calculate that likelihood?” Tristan asked Erszebet.
Immediately the standard look of contempt. “How can I tell you?” she said. “I have been tricked. Les Holgate stole my számológép.” And then a look of horror came over her face just as it occurred to myself and to the Odas: “Now we may never recover it.”
Tristan looked weary. “I missed that—what?”
“Your rude boss in Washington with the big table, he forced me into sending Les Holgate back to that DTAP by stealing my számológép, and now it is lost.” She was so distressed by this realization that she was enervated, and so seemed oddly calm. “This means I will never perform magic again.”
Tristan, exhausted, misread her meaning. “Are you saying you quit?”
She clearly had not been thinking that—until he said it. “I cannot work without my számológép,” she said harshly. “It is gone. Because of very bad people. So yes, I will quit. This is all hülyeség.” She rose from the table.
“Where are you going?” asked Tristan, not even turning to look at her. “Where do you intend to live and work and pass your time? You’re an immigrant without a legal identity and pretty much no marketable skills.”
She paused at the door. “Your boss is a terrible man,” she said, sounding on the verge of tears.
“He did a terrible thing,” Tristan agreed unhappily. “And a terrible price has been paid for it.”
“But your walking away right now does nothing for you,” I added.
“I cannot Send anyone without my számológép!” she said. “It is too dangerous!” For a moment, I could see the very-very-very old woman peering out from her stormy, youthful eyes.
“I might be able to help you with that,” said Frank Oda. “I was starting to get the hang of it. Give me a few days and I might have something to show you.”
Erszebet gave him a wearied, disbelieving look.
“Meanwhile,” I said, treading gently, “you do not need the számológép to Send me back to the 1640 Cambridge DTAP, and we are so very close to accomplishing this thing. Please do not abandon us quite yet. You will get your share of the money. We’ll find your passport in Les’s things. We’ll buy you new plane tickets to Hungary, if we must. You’ll never have to speak to Frink again.”
There was a long moment as she stood in the doorway, troubled. Then whatever was going on inside her resolved itself, and she nodded once, decisively. “All right,” she said. “I am not happy to be doing this, but I will help you complete the mission with the psalm book. But let us do it now, and be done with it already.”
I have already described the events of my DEDE enough times—for indeed, I had lived through them enough times!—that I need not recount them now in detail. I now knew what to expect so well, knew the nuances of all these people who thought that they were meeting me for the first time (although as usual Stephen Day, the printer, commented that there was something very familiar about me).
Having been clothed by Mary Fitch, hauled by Goodman Griggs, ferried by the handsome brothers, having conned Hezekiah Usher and Stephen Day, having avoided the lechery of the cooper . . . having done all of these things as efficiently as possible, I headed out on the Watertown Road in the soggy August air, sealed bucket under my arm, using the shovel as a walking stick . . . praying that this time, I would not see that fucking boiler-foundation.
I did not. The erasure of Sir Edward Greylock from Elizabethan London had likewise erased all his possible investments, including this one.