IT WAS A PASSAGE, OF COURSE—an oddly quiet creature of a passage that sat just in front of the painted sky. The air shimmered and distorted the peaceful image as the Belladonna passed through it, and the usual drumming sounded off.

Both Nicholas and Sophia turned to look at one another expectantly.

“Oh, no, we’re here for you and your beautiful beloved, not me,” she said. “You test the waters!”

“I only wished to ask if you knew where it led,” Nicholas said brusquely. “I always intended to go first.”

She made a strangled sound of frustration, throwing her hands up. “And subject me to a lifetime of shame and guilt because that witch turns you into a pig and roasts you, before I can get through the passage to save your hide?” Sophia sniffed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, with all of your miserable, obnoxious honor.”

“I would have to say most men wouldn’t enjoy being transfigured into a pig and eaten,” he said. “But if something were to happen, it might as well be to me. You have the better knowledge of where passages are located, and could continue on—”

Sophia rolled her eye and stuck out her hand. Nicholas stared at it, until Sophia let out a huff and grabbed his wrist, dragging them forward. The whole experience was so bewildering that Nicholas hardly took notice of the passage’s usual stormy assault against his senses.

They were launched out of the passage at a run, their steps slowed only by the presence of a heavy Oriental rug and the ragged growl of a large white wolf, curled around the base of an imposing structure of iron that looked like it would better serve as a drawbridge than a desk.

Nicholas backed up as far as he could without brushing the passage, eyes skimming the space around them.

The room was small and without windows, but here and there were drapes slung down over the walls, and rows of glass bookshelves and cases, as red and rich as tides of blood. More alarming, however, was the lack of a door—at least a visible one. There was no indication of where or when they were. No telling sights or sounds. Beyond the dust and smell of age, the only scent he could detect was that same earthy one as before, heightened greatly.

Nicholas sent a wondering look up at the rows of dried herbs and flowers hanging low over their heads, pushing the bundles out of his way to better see the Belladonna. Before she sat behind her desk, she retrieved a jar of foul, bitter-smelling liquid from her shelf and dropped the dagger into it. The mixture bubbled over like a hellbroth.

Sophia took a step closer to the nearest case, where a heavy sword was displayed. The long, heavy blade was chipped and dull along its killing edge, but the gold hilt was pristine, embellished by two golden chimeras. While he marveled, Sophia’s first instinct, naturally, was to lift the glass and make as though to take it out.

“If you touch that sword, I will use it to slice off your fingers, roast them, and feed them to Selene,” the Belladonna informed her, not looking up from the glass she had dropped the blade into. Beside her on the floor, the wolf looked up from the bone it had been gnawing and gave a snort of confirmation. Nicholas looked away quickly, attempting to not identify it as a human femur.

“What sword is that?” Sophia asked, still eyeing it.

“Arthur’s Caliburn,” the Belladonna said.

“Excalibur?” Nicholas couldn’t stop his brows from rising. A legendary sword—one that didn’t exist. So far as he knew.

“How has someone not bought this off you?” Sophia asked. “Ironwood would probably love to use it to behead his most hated enemies. His murders could use a little poetry.”

The Belladonna’s veil rustled and crimped, as if she’d smiled at the word Ironwood.

She knows who we are, Nicholas thought with a growing sense of unease.

“One of my scavengers fished it out of a filthy lake for me,” the Belladonna said. “However, I’ve never been able to prove the provenance of the object to your Grand Master’s standards, and so it remains. Until it one day needs to be found. No, beastie, take that thought of stealing it from your mind—” Sophia’s hand immediately lowered. “I’d hate for you to join my cadre of thieves.”

Without lifting her eyes from Sophia, the Belladonna pointed to a large, drooping net hanging from the ceiling. It was filled with human skulls, all boiled and polished as smoothly as pearls from the sea. At the sight of it, Sophia scowled and moved on to examine the next case, which contained a line of eight bejeweled and gold-trimmed eggs of various sizes.

“Imperial Fabergé eggs, lately of Russia,” the Belladonna said, pulling a grape from a nearby plate of them and popping it into her mouth. “I’m willing to bargain, if they’re of interest. It’s become damned difficult to auction them with the instability of that period.”

Instability. Nicholas seized upon the word, storing the information away. Where there was instability, there were likely changes to the timeline.

“Maybe I should have let you go first,” Sophia muttered to Nicholas, greedily eyeing a bowl of pristine apples that seemed oddly out of place. “I could be eating a fresh pork dinner right now.”

“That does sound rather appealing, I must say,” the Belladonna said, tossing a grape to the wolf, who snapped it out of the air. The animal gave a curious sniff in Sophia’s direction, but lowered its head and resumed its watch over them. “There’s King John’s treasure in the corner over there, next to Cromwell’s head, and a panel of the Bayeux Tapestry, if you’ve yet to finish wasting my time.”

At her interested hum, Nicholas grabbed the scruff of Sophia’s shirt, cutting off her path. “We’ve business here, mind you.”

“Oliver Cromwell’s head, though,” Sophia said pitifully, as if this might convince him.

He stepped forward, winding through the rows of shelves that separated them from the desk. Sophia followed reluctantly, shaking off Nicholas’s grip. To his complete and utter lack of surprise, there were no chairs for them to sit in. They presented themselves to the Belladonna like a mustering militia.

“Now,” the woman said. “Tell me what it is Ironwood seeks, and I shall tell you my fee.”

Sophia made a noise of disgust. “We’re not here on the old man’s business.”

The woman settled back in her chair. “Are you not Sophia Elizabeth Ironwood, born in July of 1904, lovingly”—the word was impaled with sarcasm—“pulled from St. Mary’s Orphanage in 1910 after you were caught pickpocketing for the third time—”

Sophia put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, they didn’t catch me the other hundreds of times. Three is hardly a bad score.”

Nicholas couldn’t be sure why the other woman had said it, other than to awe them with her knowledge, or disarm Sophia.

Rescued, orphanage, pickpocketing.

Christ. Julian had vaguely mentioned to him in passing that Sophia had not had a lady’s upbringing until Ironwood brought her into the family. But this…it went beyond humble origins. And as he himself knew, when you were forced to learn survival as a child, the instinct became etched into your soul.

The Belladonna smirked and her attention fell over him so heavily that Nicholas felt as though he’d gained another shadow.

“Everyone present knows of my origins; it’s not necessary to reiterate them to prove some mysterious point. We’ve come because we wish for information,” Nicholas said finally.

“Is that so?”

“We’re looking for what the last common year is,” Sophia explained. “To find someone orphaned by the shift, which I’m sure you are well aware of.”

The Belladonna leaned forward, resting her arms against the desk. A quill fluttered in its cup, and two grapes escaped their plate to find freedom on the floor. She stroked the veil covering her mouth, the way a man would stroke a beard. “Indeed? That is certainly within my knowledge. Who is this person you seek?”

“It’s Hen—” Sophia began, but Nicholas gave a curt shake of the head. He would rather not have the woman turn her eye onto Etta; the darkness of this place, the way it seemed alive with its own curiosity, made him want to protect her from this stranger’s interest for as long as possible.

The older woman turned her gaze back toward Nicholas. The small silver bells sewn into her mass of hair tinkled.

“Well,” the Belladonna continued, “your desperation reeks worse than your intriguing stench. You are clearly without earthly possessions, and neither of you was close enough to Ironwood to have new, useful secrets to trade. So perhaps our business has concluded before it began.”

Sophia took a furious step forward, reaching for whatever sharp weapon she had strapped to her belt. The wolf jumped to its feet, baring its teeth as the girl came toward her, but Sophia growled back, glaring at the animal until its lips relaxed and its ears rose to their usual position.

Nicholas’s heart began to beat back against the thoughts of no running through his mind. They had not traveled through centuries of swamps and storms to arrive at a denial. This search could be simple; they wouldn’t have to chase down every passage in every century for a lead on Etta’s whereabouts.

“Is there nothing else you want in exchange from us?”

In the silence, an idea seemed to shape itself from candlelight and shadow. Nicholas noted the moment it struck the Belladonna, how her hands laced together and her veil shifted, as if masking a smile.

“Many of my auctions are for items that are priceless. They defy valuation. As you may know, I select winning bids based on what they can offer me. A secret, or a favor they’re willing to do. Here, we can negotiate—in exchange for the information you seek, I’ll ask for a favor,” the Belladonna said, her chair creaking as she leaned back. “It will be of my choosing, to be completed sometime in the future.”

“I won’t do anything…”—Nicholas struggled to find the right words—“…scandalous. Immoral.”

One eyebrow rose. “Goodness. What an imagination you have. By favor, I mean a task. Perhaps to find and retrieve something for me. Carry a message. Assist in my own travel. And so on.”

That…did not sound entirely intolerable to him.

“So he has to serve you?” Sophia demanded. “No questions asked?”

“For a time, only insofar as it pertains to the task,” the Belladonna said, flicking her long nails at the girl.

“Slavery,” he said, the dull burn inside of his chest growing. Intolerable. He should have guessed this underhanded “business” of hers would strive to bind the wings of his soul.

“Nothing so foul,” the Belladonna said, her voice sharp with offense. “It’s indentured servitude, and only a day or two’s worth. Your task pays off your debt to me. Once our business is concluded, that bond will be broken.”

Sophia grabbed his collar, yanking him down to her height and startling him out of his tangle of thoughts. “Forget this. We’ll try the Jacarandas instead, like we planned.”

And risk them not knowing? Risk running in circles long enough for this starting point to disappear? They’d failed to master time on this search, and now it was threatening to best them. Etta was hurt and alone, and the thought of taking a moment longer to debate this was intolerable. If anything, it was Sophia’s infernal pride speaking for her again, her entitlement. Nicholas hadn’t expected the answers to be handed to them. This was a business deal, and he had to believe that Rose Linden wouldn’t send him into the jaws of a literal and figurative wolf. The woman’s methods were patently ridiculous, but she was still his ally.

“Everyone has a master, whether you realize this or not,” the Belladonna said. “Luckily, I am a benevolent one. Mostly.”

How very bitter that truth was when swallowed. Some were bound by loyalty and vows, others by an obsession with wealth, and others were owned by other men through no fault of their own.

There was something else that Hall used to say—that life itself was uncertainty, and the only remedy to its madness was to act boldly. This was a risk, yes, but it was tied to a tantalizing reward. At least this was presented as a choice; at least he was retaining some measure of free will. Nicholas could tolerate this debt, so long as he felt the information he would be receiving was proportional to the work.

“There’s no we,” Nicholas told Sophia, detangling her fingers. “This is the answer.”

Find Etta. Salvage her future. Fix those things he’d ruined.

And to one day live a life of his own making, be left to his own ends, whatever shape that might take now.

“You won’t say what the task will be before we agree?”

The Belladonna’s eyes narrowed, glancing toward a grandfather clock behind him. “I haven’t yet decided. But you’ve thirty seconds to agree before the offer is rescinded and Selene escorts you out.” She reached over and used one of her grotesque nails to tap the lip of the jar containing the thin silver weapon, marking the seconds.

Nicholas’s instincts were murmuring in displeasure about the lack of time to weigh the costs of this. Perhaps if he could make the deal more tolerable, sweeter, he could find that boldness that good faith required…

“I have a single condition,” he said, meeting the Belladonna’s feline gaze. “Before I agree, I would like you to answer a different question first.”

Are you in league with the devil? He shoved the thought aside. Will you devour my soul like a tart?

The Belladonna snorted, puncturing the silence that followed. “Yes. All right.”

“Are the Thorns still in possession of the much-sought-after astrolabe, the one that used to belong to the Lindens?” Nicholas tried to be as specific as possible, so she could not twist her answer, or tell him the fate of a different astrolabe.

After a moment, with obvious reluctance, she said, “In the last report I received, yes, a Thorn was still in possession of the astrolabe.” Her veil ruffled as she took in a breath, sucking it against her lips. “Earlier, you mentioned the Jacarandas—I do not suppose you mean Remus and Fitzhugh, the traitors?”

Sophia glanced over at Nicholas before asking, “So what if I did?”

“If you are hoping to find the Thorns, the group’s last known location was in San Francisco, in 1906. They appear to be on the move, however,” she added, “and I’m not entirely certain of where they’ll settle next. And if I am not certain, those two toadstools have no hope of knowing, either.”

Nicholas’s brows rose. That was more information than he ever could have prayed for. He dared to test the limits of his luck by asking, “Do the Thorns have other times they frequent?”

“They do, but I’m certain they are investigating the changes to the timeline and will not be returning to any of those periods at present.”

Nicholas felt the knotted muscles in his shoulder ease. He gave her a curt nod of thanks, feeling more secure in his decision to proceed now.

The metal desk creaked as the Belladonna leaned her weight onto it, but before she could speak, Selene let out a sharp whine.

A warning.

Through the wall to his right, Nicholas could have sworn he heard voices shouting the word Revolyutzia! in the instant before the room blurred like fogged-over glass and began shaking violently.

Thunder stole through the air, deafening and absolute. The jars and display cases rattled, heaps of glass smashing into each other as whole shelves collapsed. Sophia stumbled hard into the edge of the desk with a startled cry. Nicholas jerked backward, but caught himself in time to avoid the section of ceiling plaster that smashed near his feet.

“What the devil was that?” he demanded. A mortar strike?

More voices now: “Za Revolyutzia!”

The Belladonna shook the dust from her hair and gown not unlike Selene, and began to sniff inquisitively at the air. Satisfied with whatever she’d discovered, she glanced at the small silver watch pinned to her hip. “Calm yourself, beastie. This room has withstood any number of revolutions and riots. The only entrance is the passage. We are quite secure.”

There were only a few moments of silence before the sound of heavy footfalls seeped through the walls, slashed through by the steady, racing sounds of shouts and gunfire. Voices were muddied, in a language he couldn’t speak—“Ochistite dvorets!”

The Belladonna rose, her gaze sweeping around her room, breath hissing from her. She stooped to pick a small silver bell and rang it. The longer it went without answer, the harder she rang it, until finally she heaved it at the passage. The young boy ducked as he entered, just missing a dead-on strike to the head.

“Clean up this mess,” she told him. “And take an account of anything beyond repair.”

The boy was sensible enough to wait until the woman looked away before sticking out his tongue.

“That’s another year you owe me,” she told him without taking her eyes off her desk. “Such ingratitude. And after I rescued you from my brother.”

The already-pale child turned the shade of chalk. With a nod, he went back through the passage, setting off its usual thunderous roar, and returned a moment later with a broom and pan.

“Now, where were we?” the Belladonna said pleasantly, ignoring the irritated sweeps of the boy. “Oh, dear—”

She picked up one of the skulls that had fallen from the netting, stroking the curve of its empty eye sockets lovingly. “I was rather fond of her. She used to bring me daffodils.”

“That was the timeline,” Sophia interrupted, her voice hollow. “It shifted again.”

Because someone used the astrolabe, or—? Nicholas had never experienced the sensation of time aligning from one version to a new one; by the time he’d begun to travel with Julian, it had settled into some stability under Ironwood’s rule.

But the woman had mentioned revolutions, riots, implying that one might very well be happening outside of these walls. Could it be that the explosion they’d felt had been the actual cause of the change, and not someone acting in an earlier year?

Which meant…what, exactly, for Etta?

“We weren’t orphaned,” he said slowly, trying to reason this out on his own. “Are we in the last common year, then? Was that the change itself, and not just a ripple?”

“Yes. But if that’s your attempt to get me to reveal our year and location, you will be sadly disappointed,” the Belladonna said, “I shall neither confirm nor deny we are in a year after both of your birth years.”

Meaning, by her sad attempt at a wink, they were.

“A change this large would impact the information we’ve discussed as part of the deal,” Nicholas said. “To locate the person in question, we’d need to know this year as well as the prior change. To ascertain if she’s been orphaned again, to this very year.”

The Belladonna’s jaw worked back and forth beneath her veil, eyes flashing. “All right, beastie. I suppose it’s time to move this shop again, anyway. But know, my dear child, that you have asked and received far more of me than any man. I will not be pressed further.”

“Understood. The transaction, then,” Nicholas said, trying to clear the dust from his mouth and throat before he swallowed it. “How do we complete it?”

Nicholas had noticed in passing that she wore an abundance of gold and silver rings on each of her fingers. They stacked up past her knuckles, some as thin as veins, some seemingly as thick as the finger itself.

Now the Belladonna drew one off her ring finger and rose on creaking bones, shuffling through the fallen plaster and glass to the other side of the desk, carrying the whole room forward with her. Nicholas took the small gold band from her, surprised to find it so cold after being on her finger.

Under her gaze, he slid it onto the ring finger of his right hand, and waited. Not a permanent mark on his flesh, thank God, for he’d enough scars for a dozen men. But a sign of ownership all the same, however temporary.

Something inside of his heart began to sound in warning, like a ship’s bell at the edge of a storm.

No. I have come this far, and there is still too much ahead to stop now.

“Our agreement is thus: a favor of my choosing for information on the last common year and the Thorns,” the Belladonna said. “‘I swear to abide by our agreement, or my life will be forfeit. That is my vow.’ Repeat it.”

He did, and no sooner did the word vow leave his lips than the ring seemed to flare with heat, tightening around his skin. Nicholas took a generous step back as he pulled away from the woman’s clawlike grip. Not wanting to alarm Sophia, he clasped his hands behind his back and attempted to pull the damned thing off, or at least twist it to relieve the sudden pressure.

It did not move.

Selene retrieved her bone once more, her teeth clacking against its battered form. The Belladonna returned to her seat, sinking slowly into it.

Sophia leaned both hands onto the desk and said, “Let’s have it, then.”

The Belladonna’s veil rustled again. How someone so old could have the laugh of a young girl, he would never know.

Horror was a beast of a thing. It devoured everything it encountered. Hope. Faith. Expectation. Nicholas felt a chill stinging along his spine.

“Ma’am…?” he began, forcing his voice steady.

“Sweet beastie,” she said, “for all of your talk, for all of your thinking you were clever enough to weight this deal in your favor, it never once occurred to you to specify that I needed to provide the information before you completed my favor. ‘The future,’ of course, can mean centuries or seconds, minutes or hours.”

Nicholas gripped the edge of the desk so tightly he heard his own knuckles crack. “That is dishonorable—unconscionable!”

Sophia was more plainspoken. “You deceitful witch!”

The Belladonna’s eyes were so harrowing, they nearly sent Nicholas’s soul retreating from his body. “Such a thing to say.”

“That is outrageous!” Sophia hissed. “They stole it from me! They beat me to take it—they left me with—”

She pressed the heel of her hand against her eye patch and swore again, spinning away, stalking back toward the passage.

“Hardly a tragic tale,” the Belladonna called after her, “when it has created the woman you are now. You’ll be of great help to him in this task. One eye will be enough.”

Sophia stopped just for a moment, her posture rigid. “I don’t need any eyes to tear you to shreds.”

“You made it sound as though you weren’t entirely certain what you would ask of me,” Nicholas managed to get out between gritted teeth. A deal is a deal. He never, not for one solitary moment, would have agreed to this favor had he known it would eat up the one currency he didn’t have: time.

“I’ve only just decided you were right for this particular one. It should not take you long, provided you are as industrious as I’ve heard.”

Another faint stirring at his core. He squared his shoulders, meeting her delighted gaze.

“It’s quite simple, really,” the Belladonna said. “I would like for you to kill Cyrus Ironwood.”