NICHOLAS AWOKE WITH A MOUTHFUL of dirt and the sounds of fife and drums battering out a march nearby. Despite the rawness, the crustiness of sleep, he cracked one eye open to take in the gray, hazy light. The dirt beneath him had soaked through his robe and his shirt, and created a freezing cast over his skin.

Cold, he thought.

Pain, his body relayed back.

It was as if that one word was enough to wake it in him, the agony. His left hand burned as he flexed it, bringing it up to wipe the dirt from his face. Looking directly at the wound, he discovered, only made it bloom hotter and quicker. He turned the palm of his left hand up, staring in horror at the slices that ran from the base of his fingers to the heel of his palm, and the mutilated flesh of the burns that covered the rest of it.

Nicholas drew it closer to his face because—yes, there. The swelling had yet to subside, and the tender pink of the raw flesh seemed to burn its way down to his bones, but he saw the pattern in it. He recognized the looping lines and nonsensical symbols, the mysterious secrets they held. He carried a nearly perfect brand of the astrolabe on his flesh, and, if his past history with scars was any indicator, likely would for the entirety of his life.

The white light—

All at once, the memory pierced him and he jerked up out of the mud with a desperate gasp. He ripped the white robe, or what remained of it, off his person and threw it as far as he could manage with an arm that felt like mortar. It fluttered like a great white bird, sailing over the edge of the land, into the familiar gaping mouth of the river.

His right arm swung freely, with a strength it hadn’t had in weeks.

“No,” he breathed out. “It cannot be….”

The ring was missing from his finger.

Nicholas turned and turned again, his gaze passing over the trees around him to the lively sounds of war emanating from the Royal Artillery Park just beyond. From where he stood, he could make out the lines of drilling soldiers, their red coats made more vibrant by the odd, stormy gray light. He searched out the passage, strained to pick up its usual rumble.

He could not hear a thing.

Holy God.

Gone, as if it had never been there at all.

He paced through the small spread of trees in circles, as if expecting it to pop up like a snake disturbed from its hole.

He’d done it. The pressure at the center of his chest sharpened, unbearable.

It is finished.

And Nicholas wasn’t just alone now; he was alive. He was whole, as if the closing of the passages had burned the poison from his body, wiped the last weeks away like a stain on his life. He found himself instinctively reaching for his memories, to cradle them close on the off chance they might be taken. Carried off, the way the crimson and gold leaves falling around him were eased along by the wind.

Nicholas stood still, simply breathing, trying to grip the life around him. All of his decisions…they had all been based on hypotheticals, speculation. Knowing that death was walking two steps behind him, it had felt somewhat like trying to shape air. The actuality of what would come had never felt substantial until this moment.

He could not simply reach for Etta, or turn to Li Min or Sophia, or make certain Julian had come through it all unharmed. He could do nothing but stand there, his thoughts drifting through the growing void inside of him like clouds.

It had to be done. It had to end.

Perhaps Sophia was right, and he was a coward for giving up on his life, even to serve this end. He certainly was a coward for choosing this finality while he believed he wouldn’t live to see it affect him.

“You there!”

Nicholas looked up, meeting the gaze of a regular patrolling the edge of the Artillery Park. The man was young, younger than himself, and while there was suspicion embedded in his expression, there was also genuine concern.

“What business do you have here, sir?”

Nicholas straightened, clearing his throat. “I…came to appreciate the view. My apologies.”

“I see,” the soldier said, but a new tone in his voice left Nicholas wondering what, precisely, he saw.

Likely thinks I’ve escaped to freedom. The state of his clothing, his wounds; they all spoke to that very notion. The thought sent a prickle of alarm from the base of his skull down his spine. He hadn’t merely returned to this era, he had been swallowed by it, sent back to drown in all of its hypocrisies, its cruelty. To be…muzzled by it. What proof did he have to offer this man if he was pressed on the matter?

His freedom papers, which he had carried with him every moment of his life after Hall had procured them on his behalf, were gone. Unless the original timeline was severely altered to something beyond what he’d known, the only copies were with the captain, presumably out at sea or imprisoned, and in his former employer’s office in New London, Connecticut.

The all-too-familiar bitterness rose in Nicholas’s throat like bile, and he fought to keep his expression neutral. He had faced darkness, shifted the timeline, and traveled to the ends of the world, and yet—his word would never satisfy those who believed he should still be in chains.

But Nicholas did not cower. He did not turn and run, though his instincts begged him to reconsider. He was a freeman—here, now, and everywhere. Any man who dared to question the point would be met with equal malice.

“Move along, then,” the soldier said, returning Nicholas’s nod with one of his own.

And so he did. What spare gold Ironwood—Ironwood!—had insisted he carry on his person as heir bought him a clean shirt, a buttonless coat, a skin for water, and a bottle of whiskey—the latter both for courage and, moments later, to clean the searing wound on his hand. The fact that he remained standing long enough to bind it with a clean cloth and did not soil himself in front of the entirety of the Dove was a miracle in its own right. The Dove’s innkeeper was none too pleased to see him reappear, and all too happy to send him on his way again with the small bag of belongings he had abandoned in his hurry to follow Etta through the passage to London.

“Here it is,” the man said, tossing it to him. “Kept everything you and your party left behind. Wouldn’t dare to cross that man.”

Nicholas lifted a brow. It looked full, but he had no doubt what few valuables were inside had been carefully assessed and possibly taken. Still, he thanked the man profusely, shifting the bag to his left hand to dig in his pocket for one last gold coin.

The flash of color and sight and sound at that touch blew him back off his feet. A crack of thunder whipped through his skull. He saw the tanner in Charleston he’d purchased the bag from years ago, as if the old man were standing directly in front of him. The shop began to take form, as if dripping into place around him, smearing down over the tavern’s tired walls. There was the pressure, the insistent tugging at his core….

Holy God.

He dropped the bag to the floor, feeling as if his bones were on the verge of turning to sand. The Dove’s owner leaped back at the moment Nicholas did, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Thought I heard…a rat,” he said, his voice sounding far away. “In the bag. Just now.”

The man tilted his head toward the door. “Best be off, then.”

Nicholas stooped, hesitating a moment before picking the bag up again, this time with his right hand. When he was sure the world wasn’t about to shatter to pieces around him, he made quick strides toward the door and stepped out into the cold grip of the late-October air. His skin felt as if he had been sitting too close to flames, and rather than see his original plan through—wait and see if he might be able to convince a passing wagon to let him trade work for a ride in the direction of Connecticut—he wandered farther down the road, away from the Dove, from the Royal Artillery Park, until the only sounds were the birds in the old oak above him and his thrumming heart. He pressed his back against the tree, sliding down until he sat again, his palms turned up against his knees.

That was a passage.

Impossible.

With considerable care, he went about the work of unwrapping his burned hand again, laying it side by side with his right one. He looked at the mark of the astrolabe on his skin, the raw, blistered, and scabbed image of it. I saw the past.

More than that, there was no other way to describe it, except to say he had felt himself begin to go. The world had shifted around him, and if he had only reached out, held on, the darkness would have reached out and taken him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, because Sophia was not there to.

But…how to test this? He needed to prove himself wrong. Remus Jacaranda’s explanation for the astrolabe rose in his memory, creating a quake of horror in him: to create a passage, legend holds that you must have the astrolabe, but you must also have something from the time and year you wish to go.

He sorted through his bag, searching for something he might have procured in Nassau over the past year. The weapons were gone; the buckle from his shoe, sold; everything—

Everything except the thin leather cord around his neck, the one that held Etta’s earrings and a small, broken bead. He reached up with his aching hand and closed his fist around it, letting his eyes slip shut.

The first drip of color brought the turquoise of the clear, pristine water; the next, the ivory sands of the beach; the third, the unstoppable, vibrant green of the palms that had shaded him and Sophia on their spot at the beach. The air began to stir, pinching at each of his muscles, until, in the distance, that dark spot appeared, twisting, flying toward him. Nicholas forced himself to stay in place, to meet that darkness as it came alongside him, gripped him by the collar, and dragged him forward.

There was nothing to do save surrender himself to the sensation of being buried alive. The darkness was as oppressive as the nudging pressure that raced toward him from every direction, and the high whistle accompanying it trilled ceaselessly, even after he was launched forward into sunlight and sand, the briny scent of the ocean rising to greet him.

“Bloody hell!” he swore, staggering to his feet. The tide rushed in behind, crashing against the beach and sending up a spray of foam that whipped him back to his senses.

“Aye,” said a familiar voice behind him. “I think that’s about the right of it.”

Nicholas spun around, half-desperate with hope. There, standing less than three yards away, surveying the spot where he and Sophia had made camp, was Captain Hall.

His unruly whiskers had grown in, a stark contrast to the neat queue of his hair. The afternoon sun drove nearly all traces of silver from it, creating a crimson halo around his skull. Nicholas found himself choking on his next, surprised laugh. The Red Devil, alive and well and stalking toward him.

“What are you doing here?” he managed to rasp out. His legs had not quite steadied enough to gallop the distance between them as he wished. It was left to Hall to come to him, to take careful, obvious stock of Nicholas as he approached.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Nick, but we were to expect you in New London ‘shortly,’ or am I misremembering?” His voice, while not harsh, bore an edge beneath its cheerful note that Nicholas recognized all too well.

“Did you receive any of my letters?” Nicholas asked in a ragged voice. He thought his heart might blow like a grenade in his chest. “Everyone—Chase—are they all alive? Sound?”

Hall took a step back, startled possibly for the first time in his life. “There have been a number of shifts; I’ve felt them all pass like storms. But, Nick, nothing’s happened to us. Not in this timeline, at least.”

Nicholas pressed his face into his hands and laughed and laughed until he was so near to tears he practically choked on them.

“Nick, my God, come here, come—is it as bad as all that?” Hall said. “We were worried for you. Tell me what’s happened!”

When he steadied himself, Nicholas said, “I ran into…unexpected circumstances.”

“Unexpected circumstances?” Hall placed his hands on his heavy belt, the flintlocks and flasks swaying as he began to pace. “All along, I’m hearing stories, terrible stories—the kind that put a guardian ill at ease. The winds of change over the later centuries were foul enough for word to reach me at sea. Imagine my surprise again, lad, as I arrived here to question Ironwood’s guardians about whether or not they’d taken you into their custody, only to find them all a-fluster over that very same passage disappearing. And then, here you are, appearing right out of the air.”

Nicholas fell back, shaking his head, staring down at his burned palm.

“God defend us!” Hall said, seizing his wrist, turning his palm up. “Lad—what is this? What’s happened to you?”

Nicholas blinked fiercely, trying to reconcile the torrent of disbelief. Hall wrapped an arm over his shoulder. “It is over now. All of it. He’s dead. The passages have closed.”

His adoptive father took his meaning instantly. Shock coursed through him.

“You’ll tell me on the way, then,” Hall said. “And tonight you’ll dine with Chase and the crew. They’ll be beside themselves to see you well. Nicholas, I am beside myself to see you whole.”

The emotion that wove through his heart at the thought made his chest impossibly tight. He had dreamt of that moment. But he had dreamt of many others as well.

“That is just it,” Nicholas said, looking down the beach. “I’m not sure I can rightly say that I am.”

THE STORY EMERGED IN FITS AND STARTS OVER THE COURSE OF WEEKS, as the Challenger prowled the Atlantic for new prey. Nicholas supposed some part of him felt that, if he did not acknowledge what had happened, the past weeks would eventually be consigned to memory and stop haunting his waking hours.

Of course, he was never so lucky.

The Revolution continued as it had before; the men of the crew sang songs as familiar to him as the sky; his routine of work became the very plaster that kept him together. Everything had a rhythm, he realized; a recognizable ebb and flow. Love, separation. Work, rest. Pain, rum.

Hall granted him a wide berth, with a patience that somehow shamed Nicholas into feeling like a child. But even that had its limits. His questions—about what had happened, about what would happen—became more pointed. Nicholas found himself grateful for the ever-constant presence of the crew. It provided him with cover, a legitimate reason to not speak of it. As a guardian, Hall was the only one who had ever possessed a key to their hidden world. And now, he was the only one who knew the girl who’d emerged in the smoke and chaos on the Ardent, the very same one who had charmed her way into the hearts of men who no longer remembered her.

So he smiled with Chase; he allowed the gentle rocking of the sea to cradle him; he relished the feeling of warm sunshine spreading its fingers through his dark coat as he walked the length of the deck on watch. The sea, he knew, was his remedy. And time, no longer an enemy, simply existed in tandem with him, not to vex him. Only occasionally did he feel the tug of something else deep inside of him, the burn of the healed scars in his hand.

But sometimes, when he was tired after a day’s work, or deep into his cups, or when he let the strict discipline of his heart lapse, he was clumsy with his words.

“Looks like a packet boat in the harbor port,” Chase said, handing him the spyglass. “They might have news of the war for us, then.”

The crew was restless for a night on shore in Port Royal, but Chase had grown hungry to track the progress of the war, and the growth—or lack thereof—of the Continental Navy. They’d narrowly escaped pursuit by a seventy-four-gun man-of-war only days prior, and Chase was still stewing in the disappointment of the missed fight. His fingers drummed now against the rail like a war summons. Impatient for something he’d yet to articulate.

“When did you become such a Whig?” Nicholas asked, glancing up at his friend’s face. “Surely you’re not that eager to hear about Washington’s latest defeat.”

Nicholas was, in fact, rather curious to see if anything had been altered in the course of the war, due to the timeline shifting to its original state. But he was equally as frightened to search out the answers.

“He wasn’t defeated on Long Island.” Chase’s lower jaw, heavy with blond whiskers now, jutted out as his pale blue eyes narrowed on Nicholas. “It was a strategic relocation of his forces.”

Nicholas laughed, his first true laugh in quite some time. “Now you sound like Etta, turning over manure and calling it soil.”

Nicholas did not understand the rise of Chase’s brows, the suggestion tucked into his smirk. “Etta?”

The spray of seawater against Nicholas’s face did nothing to ease the rush of hot blood there, the clench of his heart. “That is—”

“Ehhhh-tah. Etta, Etta, Etta.” Chase toyed with the name, rolling it over his tongue. “Who is this lovely Etta? Oh, do not be cross with me about that—of course she’s lovely, if she caught your eye. Where is she? In Charlestown? Is that who was keeping you from us?”

Nicholas pressed his hand to his throat, pulling the tie loose to bring more air into his chest. Hall was a guardian, but Chase and the rest of the crew were not. And now there was no recognition at all on Chase’s face as he spoke, as he’d turned Etta into a stranger.

“I said to the others, a simple sickness would not have kept Nick from the fight, I did! Tell me, did she issue tender…ministrations?”

He closed his eyes, the feel of her smooth cheek against his own still so close to him. The gates were down now, and the flood of feeling and memory devastated him as any hurricane would. His mind had not let him dream of her, unless it was a nightmare—her mother slowly bleeding to death, her wrenching sobs, the future she returned to alone. He was caught by those thoughts, hooked clean through his center, and he could no more escape being wrecked by them than he could avoid Chase’s concerned gaze.

“Nick,” Hall called from behind him. “A word, please.”

Chase put a hand on his shoulder, but Nicholas dodged it neatly, his eyes fixed on the black ribbon that gathered the captain’s faded red hair. He trailed several steps behind him to the cabin, and let the man shut and lock the door behind him. Without needing to be prompted, Nicholas took one of the seats in front of the imposing table that served both as a place to eat supper and a place to spread out the charts and maps.

The captain pressed a glass of amber liquid in his hand, and came around to lean against the desk. Nicholas sniffed at it, but was too wary of the knots lingering in his stomach to drink it just yet.

“You look worse than when I found you,” the captain said at last. “I cannot bear to see you this way. If you won’t tell me what’s the matter, I’ll keelhaul you until you’re picking barnacles out of your teeth.”

“I’ve healed,” Nicholas said, his eyes on the map of the colonies, on the narrow harbor of Manhattan. “Even my hand.”

“However, the bruising runs deep,” Hall said. “You told me of your travels, the auction, Ironwood’s death. But nothing of what you intend to do now with your…newly acquired gift.”

“And I never shall,” Nicholas said.

“My dear boy,” Hall began, crossing his arms over his broad chest, “am I wrong to say that perhaps something unexpected has happened? That, if we were to take account of the night of the auction, we might discover that you walked away with…”

“Don’t,” Nicholas begged, his voice cracking. “Don’t put it into words. I cannot understand it any more than I can understand the stars. I cannot…It cannot be.”

He could not hope for it. If his resolve cracked just once, he would scour the earth for the means to open a passage to Etta, to her future. And that would defeat the very reason he had destroyed the astrolabe in the first place.

I cannot be selfish. No man is meant to have everything.

His life had merged with the very thing his family had hunted and killed for. This ancient thing—the astrolabe—born again. As stubbornly resistant to death, it would appear, as Nicholas.

Was Etta alive? Was she safe in her future? Sophia, Julian, Nicholas, Li Min…all of them flung across the centuries, forever out of one another’s reach.

But not mine.

Nicholas batted the thought away, gripping the arms of the chair tight enough for the wood to creak.

“But you worry for the others, don’t you?” Hall had read him flawlessly. “It weighs on you, not knowing their fates, when it is within your power to.”

My power. When he considered the weight of that, his heart seemed to thunder as the passages had.

“It is not as easy as that,” he managed to say. “The passages were the source of strife, the heart blood of it. I would need to open them again, to spend years searching out the others, and by then, anything might happen to the other travelers.” The skin of his palm was still stiff, thicker than it had been before. He clenched his fist again, trying to hide the markings burned into it. “I understand so little of what’s happened. The terms of it are beyond my fathoming. The ancient ones who toyed with us extended their natural years by consuming the other astrolabes. Is that what’s to become of me?”

“Did they bear a mark like yours?” Hall asked. “Or did they consume the power of the astrolabes some other way?”

Nicholas could not recall any such markings on the ancient man, though he vaguely recalled markings of some kind on the Belladonna, who—he was sure of it—had drawn them all to that temple for some purpose other than an auction. The true picture eluded him, but he could guess. He wondered if, perhaps, the alchemist’s daughter had survived in the same manner the son had.

He did not care. He didn’t care a single whit about them. Nicholas had taken stock of himself and found, in the aftermath, he was a selfish sort after all. He wanted Etta beside him. On a ship, in a home, in a city, in the jungle—he didn’t care, so long as her small hand had possession of his own, and he could lean down and kiss her whenever he damned well pleased, which would be often, and always.

He’d been quick to scorn the sickly poets and playwrights who wrote of dying from love, but he saw now that this was a form of grief. A loss that stole some small bit of gladness from him every day until what was left of his heart was as cold and hard as flint.

As cold and hard as Ironwood’s.

One could survive without a heart, but a life like that was stunted, like an unopened flower, never receiving the necessary sunshine in order to bloom.

And it was not just Etta. There was Julian, there was Sophia, there was even Li Min, who now owed him two farewells. That was a family of sorts, wasn’t it? Perhaps not the most graceful example, but it bore all the necessary ingredients of one: care, concern, friendship, guidance, love.

“I used to dream of traveling, of what it might mean to me—that I might master skills enough to find a place for myself in the world beyond what this time was willing to give me.” Nicholas stopped, testing Hall’s reaction, afraid of the disappointment or hurt he might see there.

Instead, the captain nodded.

“There is good in it, Nick,” he said. “There is wonder. You can sit and ponder the nature of morality and corruption, like all the old, moldy philosophers. But it was never the passages themselves that were evil. It was the way they were used.”

“But that’s my point. The fact that they exist—that they existed—and that some of us have this ability…it does not mean we have to travel,” Nicholas said. “We do not have to risk causing further instability.”

“You’re thinking aloud,” Hall noted, “but you’re dancing around the heart of the matter. You recognize that there is an inherent threat in their existence, that just by being used, they open the timeline up to change. And yet…?”

“These are families,” Nicholas said. Etta’s words that night on the mountain had never left him; they’d only crystallized in his mind. “You did not see the massacre. I don’t know how many of us survive now, but it seems a crueler thing to keep apart those of us who did. I never felt the Ironwoods were my own, but I have people now I consider near enough to be my own blood. If others are stranded in their natural times, trapped there…How do they go about living their lives, knowing they will never again see the ones they love?”

“I suppose Miss Spencer is included in these ponderings,” Hall said, innocently enough. “Perhaps you might make one more passage, to her time? It would allow easy access to return when you feel the call of the sea, or wish to see this old man.”

But as soon as that warm thought settled, guilt rose to dash it to pieces. “I cannot. It’s…Isn’t it self-serving? And in truth, I’m not sure I’d be able to reach her at all. To create a passage, I would need something from her time. She is not just from the future—she is from the far future.”

There was nothing in his possession that had originated in that place, not even Etta’s earring. The Lindens seemed to be collectors of the first order, if the home in Damascus had been any indication. There might be something there he could use. So there were two passages needed, at least. How quickly this could spiral beyond his control.

Hall’s brows rose sharply as he stroked his beard, considering this. “If there are as few travelers left as you say, then would it not be easy to establish rules and hold others accountable? It was always my understanding that the greater portion of traveling was done innocently, for the experience of it, or to see the guardians who had to remain in their natural times.”

“What you’re speaking of is a new system of order,” Nicholas said. “Simply considering it is overwhelming. The judgment about where and when to open a passage would fall to me, time and time again.”

“And I’m grateful for that,” Hall said. “For there is no traveler alive who would torture himself and labor over each decision the way you will. There will be sacrifices, no matter what you decide. You may spend your days tunneling through the years to link travelers to their families, and never know the life of a captain. You may risk persecution for what they’ll discover you can now accomplish for them. Or you may choose the dream of your youth, and one day, perhaps, learn to live with knowing your choice has affected more than just your life.”

Nicholas took a sharp breath in. “I did not ask for this. I never desired it—I only wanted to live my life as any man would.”

It was too much power for any one person to hold. Was this not the exact reason he had fought so hard to keep Ironwood from seizing control of the bloody thing? To make a decision to act in his own self-interest, to save only Etta—how was that different from the selfish ends Cyrus Ironwood would have used the astrolabe to pursue?

He would not simply be able to stop after searching for the other travelers. He knew his heart too well, and thanks to Hall’s searching, he knew where his mother had been sent after she’d been sold from Ironwood’s service. He knew where she was buried. He had been gone, traveling with Julian, the very year she wasted away and went to her reward.

I can save her.

No—no—not without risking the stability of the timeline. Bloody hell, he needed to get out of there. Hall was chipping away at his logic, and soon he’d have none left to counteract the greed in his soul. He started to rise, but was startled by a knock at the door.

One of the ship’s boys slipped inside at Hall’s “Enter!” with a bundle of letters clutched between his hands.

“From the packet boat, Captain,” he explained, then dashed back out before Hall could utter a thank-you.

“Am I really as frightening as all that?” the man wondered aloud, cutting the string that bound the letters together. He sorted through them quickly.

“Positively ferocious,” Nicholas said wryly, noticing for the first time that the man had spilled ink down his shirt again. “Is that the one who struck you with the spoon on the Ardent?”

“No, that wicked little imp refused service—” Hall’s jaw clenched suddenly, the words falling away.

“What is it?” Nicholas asked, leaning forward.

“There’s a missive in here for you,” Hall said, holding up a small yellowed envelope, then turning it backward to show the black wax seal. A single B, surrounded by creeping vines and flowers. He felt himself shudder.

“Yes, that’s the correct response,” Hall said. “This is the Witch of Prague’s mark.”

Nicholas took it from him, hesitating only a moment before breaking the seal. The smell of earth and greens rose off the page; a look at the date told him the letter was over three hundred years old. The brittle, withered quality of the parchment seemed to confirm this. How it had found its way to Port Royal was anyone’s guess.

“Honestly,” Nicholas repeated, his pulse thrumming in his veins. Hall’s eyes never left him as he read, but he could not bring himself to say the words aloud.

The short letter concluded with As always, your business is greatly appreciated. Please visit again soon.

Wordlessly, he passed the letter to Hall, who devoured its contents like a man knowingly swallowing sour milk. His brows seemed to inch up his face with every successive line.

Nicholas’s mind was a whirlpool, one that threatened to draw him into its depths and drown him forever. This had all been a game between a man and a woman—between a family. No one, save the Belladonna and the Ancient One, held all of the cards, but the truth had been scattered across the generations, waiting for someone to fit it together. He saw a thousand points of light connecting one traveler’s life to the next as if they were stretched out in the room before him.

He understood, too, the source of Rose’s great plan, its mysteries and contradictions stripped away. She knew—she must have known—that whoever destroyed the astrolabe would take its ability into him- or herself. That was the reason she had allowed Etta to be taken into the past, why she hadn’t destroyed it herself or merely hidden it for her to find. In Rose’s heart, the only one worthy of the power was Etta, in all of her goodness.

Hall leaned back in his chair, a whistling breath escaping his teeth. For a long while, they merely stared at one another, ignoring the ship’s bell as it rang for the next watch.

“I knew from the moment our lives crossed, Nicholas,” Hall began softly, “that yours would eventually lead to a road I could not follow you down. You have been on it for many years, with you none the wiser. Tell me, aside from saving the others, if you knew that it would not alter the timeline beyond repair, if you released yourself from the prison of right and wrong, what would you do? No—don’t argue it with yourself. Just tell me.”

“I would save my mother, purchase her freedom, set her up with a comfortable life,” he said without hesitation. “But it’s impossible. I can’t risk an alteration.”

“Impossible,” Hall agreed, reaching out to take his hand, his eyes lit from within. His words spilled out of him with the force of a river dammed for far too long. “But tomorrow you leave this ship. You travel five years into the past, where you found—will find—me in Norfolk, force me to swear to God to keep this infernal secret, and then, my boy, we do precisely that.”