The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)

 

 

“In point of fact, you only haven’t yet destroyed it,” Blake countered, but Slate’s hand shot out and grabbed Blake by the shoulder, pushing him back in his chair.

 

“Who cares about the future?” my father said. “Tell us how you changed the past.”

 

“All in good time.” Crowhurst gave a signal, and the servants brought food around the table, many courses all at once in a service en confusion. There was a scalloped silver tureen filled with hot saffron soup, tiny china cups holding the pickled eggs of guivres, and a fat swan with gilded feet, roasted and sewn back into its own feathered skin. The centerpiece, set down with great ceremony, was a nest woven of willow twigs and filled with ortolans—whole broiled songbirds, blinded and drowned in Armagnac.

 

The sight of them gave me pause—they were banned in the modern era for the cruelty of their preparation—and when a man in livery offered me a second napkin, I declined. So did Slate. “I have one already,” he said, but I leaned across the table.

 

“It’s to cover your face while you eat the ortolan, Dad.”

 

He looked at me askance. “Why?”

 

Crowhurst answered before I could. “They say it’s to hide your greed from God, though I think it’s because stuffing a whole bird in your mouth looks rather monstrous.”

 

Slate threw his napkin on his plate. “There goes my appetite.”

 

I felt queasy too—or was that only nerves? But I wasn’t here to eat. “It’s very impressive,” I said to Crowhurst. “But I hope this isn’t the gift you mentioned.”

 

“Not at all!” His eyes twinkled; he took his glass and propped one elbow on the table. “The gift I have for you is much more rare than wine and songbirds.”

 

“Knowledge,” I guessed; in my lap, my fingers twisted in the lace of my dress. “That’s what I came for.”

 

“Alas, that’s not the gift, but the request.”

 

I froze in my chair, blinking—the request? But it was Blake who spoke. “And what is it you want to know?”

 

“The same things you do.” Crowhurst set down his glass and clasped his hands together. His face took on a grandiose expression as he looked around the table, taking us all in one by one. At last, his gaze settled on me. “Ever since my first revelation, when I was nearing the end of the race, I’ve wanted to discover the secrets of what you call Navigation. I’ve spent the last year exploring the limits of our abilities. So far, anything seems possible—”

 

“Anything, Father?” Dahut’s question was pointed.

 

“Almost anything,” Crowhurst amended without missing a beat. “But of course, there’s a holy grail in this quest for knowledge. The question we all want to answer . . . all of us who chart courses through time—”

 

“Changing the past,” Blake said.

 

“Yes. I’ve done it here, in Ker-Ys, it’s true. But myths are strange things. Malleable. Uncertain. And what I really want to know is whether I can change history itself.”

 

“What is history but a fable agreed upon?” I said softly—the words were Napoleon’s. But Slate grimaced.

 

“No, no, no,” he said, putting his hands on the table. “We didn’t come here to help you discover gold in California or buy stock in Apple or whatever scheme you’re dreaming up.”

 

“Oh, come now, Captain!” Crowhurst tapped the heavy crown on his head. “Money is easy. My dreams are much grander than gold!”

 

Kashmir shifted in his chair. “What gives you the right to try to alter myth or history?”

 

“The right?” Crowhurst looked surprised; he glanced from me to Slate, as though we would understand. “The three of us . . . we’re cosmic beings. We might even be gods.”

 

His voice was pompous, grand. Was it only delusion? But the changes he had wrought were very real; I could still taste the wine on my tongue, and smell the oily scent of the ortolan.

 

“Christ.” Slate picked up his glass and downed the contents. “You’re even crazier than I am.”

 

Crowhurst held on to his composure, though his eyes were stony. “Genius is often mistaken for madness, Captain, until the method’s proven. That’s why I need you.”

 

“You’re not convincing me.” Slate refilled his glass. Wine sloshed onto the table, but Crowhurst waved his words away.

 

“I wasn’t trying,” he said, meeting my eyes.

 

I swallowed. “Me?”

 

“Haven’t you ever wanted to shape the world, Nixie?”

 

“What the hell are you talking about? Slate said, but I ignored him.

 

Across from me, Blake sat rapt, his eyes full of wonder; beneath the table, Kashmir took my hand. I squeezed his fingers. “Is that your request, then?” I said. “My help?”

 

Crowhurst nodded. “It is.”

 

“Nixie . . .” My father had a warning in his voice, but I didn’t even glance his way.

 

“Then what’s the gift?”