Wayfarer

Etta inhaled a deep breath through her nose, letting the smell of wax and wood polish settle her. Henry Hemlock sat behind the desk, his feet crossed and propped up on it.

The others turned to look at Etta and Winifred, and then back at Henry, shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Henry Hemlock, however, continued on with what he was saying. “I hear you, Elizabeth. I do. The last thing I want is for your children to go to sleep worrying you won’t be there in the morning. So many of us lived through that time and suffered for it. I’ll take another look at the postings and see if anyone is amenable to a switch.”

The woman’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“We shouldn’t delay in meeting them, sir, if the situation is as dire as the message seems to convey,” said the man with long silver hair. “We must help them and secure our advantage before making any changes to our personnel. In fact, I think I should go round up John and Abraham before meeting the rest of you there.”

Henry grinned. “Perhaps leaving the fur behind.”

The man laughed, stroking the tufts of it. “I think I’d make quite a statement stomping down the Seine.”

“And cause a disastrous change for a laugh, I suppose,” Winifred said, with ice in her voice.

Etta counted more than one set of eyes rolling in that room.

“You’d try to shoot a star down from the sky for shining too brightly,” the man groused back.

“All right,” Henry said, taking his feet off the desk and standing. Everyone in the room, except Etta, pivoted to follow his path back and forth as he began to pace. “That’s enough. You know how I feel about this sort of sniping. Remember there’s a true enemy out there to aim at.”

“Yes, of course,” Winifred breathed, the very essence of sweetness, even as her grip on Etta tightened.

“I don’t think we’ve considered the fact that he, too, could be dead, and that Ironwood might already have the astrolabe,” the Japanese man interjected, leaning over to poke at an open letter. “Who else could they mean by ‘shadows’? Who else has the resources to hunt the brothers the way he describes?”

What? Etta felt the moment tilt sharply beneath her feet, the realization its own earthquake.

“If it were so easy, we would have done so decades past,” Henry said, turning his gaze onto Etta. “You seem surprised. Almost as if, perhaps, you’d expected to find the astrolabe with us?”

Etta said nothing, only turned her face away, to stare at the place where the wood floors met the carpets. There was a kind of lure in his dark gaze; his focus tracked her every shift and breath. The weight of it registered so strongly, it felt as if he’d put his hands on her shoulders and was stubbornly trying to turn her back toward him. She didn’t want him to have easy access to her thoughts, not when her mind was racing like this, trying to keep pace with her thundering heart.

It had been two weeks since the two Thorns, along with Sophia, had wrested the astrolabe from her in Damascus. They should have been able to create a passage directly back to the rest of the Thorns here in San Francisco; but from what she’d understood of their conversation, not only had they not brought the astrolabe, they’d disappeared altogether. And there had been no word at all from Sophia, who’d gone with them.

“All we’ve seen are the Ironwoods he’s sent out to try to rewrite our changes in small ways,” Henry said. “Were it in his possession, Cyrus wouldn’t have hesitated to use it, to reset the timeline back to his own. It’s greed and greed alone that compels his family.”

“Let’s not forget,” the silver-haired man said with a chuckle, “we both have Ironwood on our mothers’ side.”

“No,” Henry said with a quick smile, “let’s. But my point stands. We must trust in Kadir’s ability to get to safety, and in our own to ensure we can get to him in time and retrieve the astrolabe from where he’s hidden it. I’m sorry to cut the celebrations short, but tell the others to make ready to travel in the morning. And we’ll need to leave at least some travelers to support the guardians staying here to watch the children.”

“A wise decision,” Winifred gushed.

Etta tried not to gag.

The others nodded, and, sensing they’d reached the end of the conversation, rose as one. They brushed past Etta, one at a time, each stealing a last look at her. For a second, she could have sworn the man with silver hair gave a little shudder.

“Please have a seat, Henrietta. Winifred, thank you; that will be all. Ensure we’re not disturbed.”

The older woman bobbed a slight curtsey, giving Etta’s back a parting pinch, hard enough to make her jump forward a step. Etta waited until the woman had vanished through the door in a swirl of dark skirts before turning to Henry and spitting out, “She doesn’t travel through passages, does she? She sacrifices a puppy and flies through the centuries on her broom.”

He gave a sharp cough into his hand.

“I assure you, your great-aunt is quite loving,” Henry said, only to stop and reconsider. “That is, she’s quite loving in her own way…every other Sunday. In May. Won’t you sit?”

Great-aunt. No way in hell.

Etta didn’t sit; her hands curled around the back of the chair so tightly, its joints creaked.

“The first thing I want you to know is that you are safe here,” he said, not breaking his gaze. “You have nothing to fear from myself or anyone here. I’ve taken measures to ensure your safety from Ironwood, as well. Unless you choose to go looking for him, he will no longer concern himself with you.”