Wayfarer

Nicholas looked up toward them suddenly, as if searching through the mist and snow. Etta ducked before she realized she was doing it, her heart slamming in her chest as she leaned into the hard, jagged ground. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The one thing she had never doubted, never once questioned, was the constancy of her feelings for Nicholas; it was the part of her heart that kept a steady beat, that drummed a song only she could hear. By leaving Nicholas behind so she could chase the astrolabe with the Thorns, had she damned him to this choice, to survive the only way he could—through twisted loyalty?

The snow built around them, flake by flake, blanketing the black rocks and their twisted formations, smoothing them over until their wrinkles and crevices disappeared. When the idea came, it wasn’t new; it was repurposed.

“How long would it take us to get back to San Francisco from here?”

Julian felt around the pocket of his coat for his journal. “If we hurry, maybe three, four days? Why? You want to try to link back up with the Thorns?”

“From there, how long to get to the auction site?” Etta pressed.

“If we use the direct passage that’s in Rio de Janeiro…maybe three more days?” He thumbed through the pages again, checking his math.

“Then there won’t be enough time,” she said, sitting back on her heels, rubbing her muddied hands against the rough wool of her coat. “Especially if we’re going to find a hundred pounds of gold. You didn’t happen to notice any Thorn stockpiles, did you?”

“They spent everything that came in on food and water,” Julian said. “Your father might have a reserve or two somewhere, but I’m not sure how we’d locate them and still make the auction date.”

Etta nodded, recalculating. “And there are no other Ironwood reserves?”

“He’s already cleared out the others—”

There was a sharp whistle from below, from the longship, as the men climbed aboard with the overstuffed leather bags. Nicholas followed suit, cupping his hand around his mouth to call out some order that was lost to the wind. Ironwood, it seemed, had already climbed aboard.

“Look at that,” Etta breathed out, her heart giving an excited kick. “Did that look like more than a hundred pounds of treasure to you?”

“No,” Julian said. “A hundred and a bit extra, maybe. But there’s definitely more than that in the cave. They’re not moving this cache, then, or clearing it out, are they? They only took what they needed.”

“Which means we can take whatever he’s left for our entry fee,” Etta finished.

If Sophia doesn’t beat us to it.

“And then what?” Julian asked. “Etta…I know you don’t want to believe her, but Soph is never more truthful than when she’s aiming for the heart.”

“I know,” she said, unable to take her gaze off Nicholas as he walked beside Ironwood back toward the vessels. One hand was tucked behind his back, and it reminded her of the way he had walked the length of the Ardent’s deck, so completely in his element.

Henry and the others had only known that destroying the astrolabe would revert the timeline, and prevent any new passages from being created to replace those lost by age and collapse. They had no idea that it would close all the passages, and strand everyone back in their natural times. She had to think he wouldn’t want that—that Henry would come up with another, middle way.

Until she was able to figure out what that could be, she would have to try to keep the astrolabe in one piece. Once they confirmed that what Sophia had said was true, then she and the Thorns could turn their attention back to using the astrolabe to reach history’s many linchpin moments, and nudge the timeline back to its original state by influencing them. It would send the Ironwoods lurching into panic, destabilize the old man’s rule, destroy him with the knowledge that the astrolabe would remain just out of his reach forever.

It would be slow, dangerous work that might take years, but they could do it. She could do it, if Henry could not. It was a stark, disorienting reversal of their original plan, but Etta took comfort in the stabilizing thought that this, this would help her make amends for everything her family had done to contribute to the world’s suffering across history.

They could start again. They could be better.

“I know,” Etta repeated. “We’ll get the astrolabe and try to regroup with the Thorns again to decide what to do with it. We can’t destroy it, though, not until we know for sure what the consequences will be.”

They did not have to sacrifice their families for the good of history and the future. Those two things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. There was a way to have both, and she would find it.

“And what of Nick?” he asked. “I hate leaving him with Grandfather—not because of what Sophia said. Being the heir is a curse, not a blessing. It just feels like, as much as he can handle himself, he’s standing in the open mouth of a crocodile.”

Etta drew back from where she’d been watching over the edge of the cliff. She felt light all of a sudden, as if she’d left something crucial there. “He’s safe for now. We’ll find the astrolabe, and then we’ll come back for him.”

If there was a path back to him in all of this, she would find it, or she’d carve a path where none existed—meet him halfway, as she always seemed to. There was a place for them, for all of them, to live with their families, and love and care for one another, but it couldn’t exist in the world they lived in now.