Wayfarer

If any still exist at all.

Her mother, as far as she knew, was not here. Nicholas was not here. The only name she had that might be able to help was a lawyer named Frederick Russell, and what news he had about this supposed trust, this apartment, might turn out to be bad. Alice and Oskar had done well for themselves, but neither was astronomically wealthy. This fund would not last forever.

But it might last long enough to get her through school. Until she found a job to support herself.

Don’t be afraid, she told herself. It will be okay.

She would do what any traveler would in a foreign place and time. She would blend into the life around her, to the best of her ability. She would disappear into it, observing, learning, living.

Etta would wait.

The only question now was…for what?

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.