A Sword in Time

by Cidney Swanson

  Littlewood released a tiny sigh of relief.

  Nervous little fellow, wasn’t he?

  “However,” continued Nevis, “I’ll need to have a look around your facility as well as getting background checks on anyone who has regular, unimpeded access to your lab. You can provide me with a list of names?”

  “Names? Me? A list?” Littlewood pulled out a handkerchief and patted his brow. “I mean, yes. Yes, of course. Only too happy to cooperate.”

  “In addition, I’ll need to know what it is you’re doing that creates the large power surges.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Another nervous laugh.

  Nevis frowned. Maybe he should add Littlewood to his list of individuals who bore further investigation. “We’ll also need you to liaise with local power authorities prior to granting your approval to operate. They will need a schedule of times you’ll be drawing large amounts of power. This will provide the additional benefit of allowing the substation to analyze your usage and experiment with ways of lessening the threat associated with heavy usage.”

  “Happy to cooperate. Whatever I can do. I don’t suppose . . . would you like to have a look around the lab now?”

  Why the hell else was he in this miserable backwater? Aloud, Nevis said, “Now would be good.”

  “Please. Follow me,” said Littlewood.

  Littlewood provided a tour of his laboratory facility, using language Nevis wasn’t familiar with to describe activities that he couldn’t make heads or tails of. At some point, Littlewood apologized for the technical language.

  “Research scientists all work in such narrow fields of study. Even physicists can barely talk to other physicists outside their precise area of interest.”

  Nevis had no trouble believing that. Supposedly, he’d been assigned this job because he’d spent two out of his four college years as a physics major—he’d later changed to business after a disastrous encounter with an upper-division course in electricity and magnetism, which meant he hardly qualified as a physics specialist. The real specialists within the bureau were doubtless doing more important things than gathering power grid data across the hinterlands of the nation.

  Littlewood was concluding his remarks on a piece of electrical field shaping equipment that, perhaps—maybe, he said—drew significant power at times.

  “I’ll want a schedule of your intended future use,” said Nevis, his tones clipped. “And names and contact information for those background checks.”

  “My students. Yes. Yes, of course.” Littlewood mopped his brow again.

  There was something going on here. Nevis couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was definitely off with the Nutty Professor.

  25

  • DAVINCI •

  Florida, July

  The flight from Santa Barbara to LAX on a noisy propeller plane with no first-class seating was short and crowded. DaVinci felt completely at home. The flight from LAX to Miami was in first class, where DaVinci could extend her seat into a lie-flat bed. She felt even more at home—so much so that she slept the entire flight. When she awoke and deplaned, she felt almost refreshed. At least, more than she had in the past six days. But her good mood quivered at curbside when Jillian pulled up in a car DaVinci didn’t recognize. And she was blinking back tears by the time Jillian jumped from the car to give her a sad smile and a hug, carrying a cellophane-wrapped basket, like students sometimes gave DaVinci’s dad at the end of the school year.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” mumbled DaVinci, reaching for one of a dozen crumpled tissues that made her carry-on look like it was stuffed with snow.

  “Never apologize for tears,” said Jillian.

  “That doesn’t sound like Applegate wisdom.”

  Jillian’s mouth turned up at the corners. “That was classic Branson. Oh, and speaking of Branson, he sends you his love, along with these.” She passed DaVinci the basket, which was stuffed full of every size, shape, and color imaginable of . . . gummy bears. What was with the gummy bears?

  DaVinci accepted the basket and then blew her nose. “I don’t suppose Branson is single in this historical time line?”

  Jillian’s laugh came out as a tiny snort.

  “A girl can dream,” said DaVinci. She blotted her face one last time, exhaled, inhaled, and noticed the oppressive heat for the first time. “Florida in July, huh? Wow.”

  “Come on, I’ve got the AC blasting inside,” Jillian said, opening the passenger side door. The interior looked expensive and smelled like leather. “In Florida’s defense, the state has so much to offer once you get past the heat. You won’t believe some of the foods I’m going to introduce you to. When we get to Wellesley, I’m getting you a Cubano.”

  It sounded vaguely like her BFF was offering to hook her up with a Latin lover, but DaVinci couldn’t work up more than a pair of raised eyebrows.

  “It’s a sandwich,” explained Jillian.

  DaVinci’s stomach growled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything other than a handful of strawberries in first class. Normal DaVinci would have accepted the airline’s offerings of steak, potatoes dauphinoise, and crème brûlée, and then asked if seconds were an option.

  She glanced over at Jillian. Jillian was biting her lip, both hands gripping the steering wheel. It was time to make more of an effort.

  “Thanks so much for flying me out,” said DaVinci. “A sandwich sounds great. I could probably eat a whole warehouse of sandwiches.”

  A slight exaggeration, but it achieved her goal: Jillian smiled and relaxed her grip on the wheel, saying, “You haven’t changed at all.”

  Icy fingers seemed to play across DaVinci’s shoulders.

  You haven’t changed at all.

  If only that were true.

  26

  • DAVINCI •

  Florida, July

  By the time Jillian had driven them both an hour south to Wellesley, Florida, it was five in the evening, and the food truck serving Cubanos had a line fifteen customers deep, which meant that it was 5:50 before Jillian and DaVinci made it to Dr. Littlewood’s secret, off-campus laboratory, where the two were joining Everett for dinner.

  As they strode to the entrance, DaVinci scrutinized Jillian’s eager expression.

  “Oh my God. You’re glowing. Actually . . . glowing,” she said to Jillian.

  Jillian ignored the remark, although a slight flush joined her glow. She murmured something about a tricky new lock code on the door.

  By the time the two entered the lab, Jillian’s expression had reached beatific levels of glow. And who could blame her? Everett Randolph was swoon-worthy. Long dark lashes covered his eyes as he hunched over a computer, but when he heard Jillian’s greeting, he looked up, and his Caribbean-blue eyes sparkled with delight.

  Those eyes. That gaze. That was totally a gaze that said, “I would take a bullet for you.”

  Which he had done. He’d taken a literal bullet for Jillian. Well, for all of them, to stop Khan from shooting anyone. Oh the irony.

  Everett kissed Jillian, and DaVinci stood holding the sandwiches and feeling vaguely like an awkward younger sister while the embrace drew itself out into a total big-ass Hollywood kiss. The kind that made DaVinci feel all melty-warm with a side of be-fruitful-and-multiply.

  She gave herself a mental shoulder-squaring and approached the kissing couple, savory Cuban sandwiches presented at arm’s length, which had the effect of making her feel like a Girl Scout hoping someone would buy her cookies.

  “DaVinci!” Everett released Jillian (he even did that with silver screen grace) and gave DaVinci a hug. A chaste and brotherly hug, vaguely disappointing in the face of the be-fruitful imperative she was currently trying to banish.

  “Sandwich?” she said.

  Everett smiled with appropriate gratitude, but he didn’t take the sandwich. Instead, he strode to a desk, producing plates (actual plate-plates) and cloth napkins from a drawer.

  “Everett insists we do dinn
er properly,” Jillian murmured to DaVinci.

  “Like Branson, much?” replied DaVinci.

  Once the three were seated and dining, DaVinci took a moment to examine her feelings, which boiled down to (1) Everett was gorgeous, but (2) she did not in fact want him for herself, although, (3) she wouldn’t say no to a DSLR camera to photograph him in high-contrast lighting because . . . those cheekbones.

  Jillian spoke animatedly about the long line at the food truck, and eventually, the conversation drifted to what Everett had been working on that day.

  “I’ve been reading up on the Margites,” he said.

  When Jillian and DaVinci gave him blank stares, he added, “It’s a vanished work of Homer’s that predates The Iliad and The Odyssey. Aristotle praises its comedy, and scholars ever since have been regretting its loss.”

  “Oh,” said Jillian, eyes wide. “You’re preparing for another trip to the library.”

  “So,” said DaVinci, “if it’s lost, how’s a library going to help you?”

  “Not a library,” said Jillian solemnly. “The library.”

  “The Royal Library of Alexandria, also referred to as the Ancient or Great Library of Alexandria,” said Everett, after dabbing carefully at the corners of his mouth.

  “Wait. The one that burned to the ground a couple of millennia ago?” asked DaVinci. Everything clicked. “Oh. Oh wow. You’re going back and snatching lost works from the Alexandrian library.”

  Everett nodded, an eager smile spreading across his face.

  “Wow,” repeated DaVinci. “That’s . . . ingenious.”

  Everett, giving Jillian’s hand a quick squeeze, said, “It was Jillian’s suggestion. Dr. Littlewood is trying to plan ahead for the day when we can’t keep the secret of time travel anymore. He worries something terrible that people will disapprove of the machine because of the potential for its use in questionable ventures.”

  “We want to be able to show it can be used for good,” said Jillian.

  “Huh,” DaVinci said. “How . . . noble.” It was noble. With a side of dangerous. But then again, this was the guy whose duplicate self had made the ultimate sacrifice for his country back in 1918. It put the bullet-taking and time-traveling-for-noble-purposes in perspective. It also made her want to type into her phone: note to self—no dating noble soldiers.

  “So you go back in time,” said DaVinci, “and grab things the, uh, world of scholarship is missing?”

  Everett nodded.

  Jillian added, “Someday, it may help us argue the only proper application of temporal studies is historical research.”

  “In essence, we’re providing a means by which to justify the study of the temporal singularity,” added Everett.

  “Yeah,” said DaVinci, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “Listen, I know I had no right . . . I know there’s no justification . . .” She broke off as her slight discomfort became definite discomfort, flushing her pale cheeks.

  “No one is criticizing your actions,” said Jillian. “Think about it. I would be the first person in line if anyone deserved criticism for how the machines have been used up till now. Remember how I attended culinary school?”

  DaVinci took a bite of her sandwich, hoping to avoid further discussion.

  Jillian, with Applegate radar for “uncomfortable,” changed the subject. “Do you like your sandwich?”

  DaVinci nodded and focused on the food. Sour pickle and melted cheese, roast pork and ham, all wrapped up in buttery bread. Unfortunately, if someone had drawn a Venn diagram just then of “people with appetites” and “DaVinci,” there would have been zero overlap. Where had her appetite run off to? Same place as the rest of her life, no doubt.

  Everett, meanwhile, lacking Applegate radar, was continuing the discussion of time travel.

  “In a pinch, we could probably get by speaking Latin in ancient Alexandria,” he said. “But we discovered Dr. Littlewood’s security guard—the Roman abandoned here by Dr. Khan—speaks first-century Greek. After that discovery, well, it was too wonderful an opportunity to pass up.” He brushed a strand of hair from Jillian’s face, smiling softly at her.

  At the gesture, DaVinci felt a hollow sensation in her belly. She took another bite of her sandwich, even though she was plenty aware that the feeling in her belly had nothing to do with hunger. Who would’ve guessed that yearning made its home in the stomach?

  Everett, still gazing at Jillian, was sporting another of his star-of-the-silver-screen expressions. Yeah, he was beautiful. Totally yearn-worthy, even if she didn’t want Mr. Gorgeous for herself. The thing was, though, this yearning had nothing to do with Everett’s appearance. Not really.

  It wasn’t how he looked—it was how he looked at Jillian.

  That, whispered DaVinci’s heart. I’ll have what she’s having.

  DaVinci rolled her eyes at herself and looked away. She didn’t need to start cataloguing new things missing from her life. She already had plenty of old things missing. Refocusing her attention on her friends, she quickly realized the discussion had returned to the topic of ancient documents.

  Nodding at DaVinci, Jillian said, “Right?”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied. The response had to be at least vaguely appropriate.

  “I knew you’d like that part,” said Jillian. “It will change the way people think about the relationship of Hellenic Greeks to their art forms.”

  DaVinci was considering making a generic remark about the art of ancient Greece when the laboratory door slammed shut. She startled and turned, expecting to see Dr. Arthur Littlewood.

  But this wasn’t Littlewood. Oh. My. So not Arthur Littlewood. Not unless Littlewood had suddenly gotten twenty-five years younger, grown a foot taller, and gained fifty pounds of solid muscle. With a side of hunk.

  “Oh hello,” she whispered. And then covered her mouth. Her expression of approval was not intended for the public arena.

  Arena. Yes. That was where this guy belonged. He must be the Roman. DaVinci swallowed. He definitely belonged in an arena fighting off ten gladiators with swords and maces. And maybe a lion. And DaVinci wouldn’t have put odds on the lion.

  “This is Quintus,” Jillian was saying. “Quintus, this is DaVinci Shaughnessy-Pavlov, a friend of mine and of Everett’s, and also an acquaintance of Dr. Littlewood’s.”

  DaVinci was examining the musculature of Quintus’s forearm. He could probably strangle that lion one-handed.

  “DaVinci,” whispered Jillian, drawing DaVinci’s attention back from the imaginary first-century BC arena.

  DaVinci raised her eyes from the Roman’s forearm to his eyes. His meltingly, achingly, shockingly beautiful eyes. “Ungk,” grunted DaVinci.

  Ungk? Really?

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, quickly covering. She held out a hand.

  Quintus, his light brown eyes narrowed and glued on her like he was assessing her for “potential threat in an arena death match,” finally took her hand for approximately one-hundredth of one second. No shake. No squeeze.

  Awkward. He was gorgeous but awkward as heck.

  “So you’re the one who speaks Greek?” she asked. Her confidence was returning rapidly now that she knew she wasn’t the more socially clumsy of the two of them. At least she knew how to freaking shake someone’s hand.

  “Yes,” replied Quintus.

  After a final penetrating stare, he turned his back to her and asked Everett, “Do we travel to Alexandria tomorrow morning?”

  DaVinci blinked. Her own eyes narrowed. Quintus-the-Barbarian wasn’t just socially awkward. No, he’d crossed the border into the Land of Rude.

  Still. With those bulked-out shoulders and that well-muscled derriere, she was going to have to draw him. Although getting far enough past that gruff exterior to acquire his permission—well, that was going to be loads of fun. She would probably have to stealth-sketch him.

  His latissimus dorsi rippled under his thin cotton shirt. Wow. Yes. Drawing needed to be happening. Stat. Cont
é crayon, maybe? Or—no—not Conté. Charcoal. Yes. Charcoal on a toothy, ochre-tinted paper. Just as DaVinci was wondering if Jillian knew of any 24-hour art supply stores, the muscled shoulders in question shifted and Quintus turned. His eyes met hers, and his brow wrinkled like he knew she’d been checking him out. Her face flushed. Hastily, she looked away.

  As soon as Quintus had returned his attention to Everett, Jillian caught DaVinci’s eyes. She raised her brows hopefully, pointedly shifting her gaze from DaVinci to Quintus and back again. DaVinci was familiar with this look. It did not indicate an interest in having DaVinci capture Quintus’s musculature on toothy, ochre-tinted paper.

  DaVinci rolled her eyes and mouthed, Please. She might not require Everett or Edmund levels of polish in a guy, but her standards were well above the bar set by a certain rude ancient Roman. How could Jillian, the politest person on the planet, even suggest Quintus as dating material?

  Leaning in, DaVinci murmured to Jillian, “Drawing Gruff and Grumble? Yes. Dating him? Nope.”

  Jillian responded with a tiny right-shoulder-only shrug, whispering, “Never say never.”

  DaVinci snorted and then muttered, “Never with a side of never, drenched in never sauce.”

  No, the only interaction DaVinci required with the hulking Roman was a little small talk leading to a little permission to sketch him.

  27

  • QUINTUS •

  Florida, July

  Quintus had seen eyes like DaVinci’s once before. Eyes of pale green, like the waters of Rhodanus, where it calved from the glacier. Wide-set eyes of a shade rarely seen in Rome, arresting enough to catch unwanted attention, even in the face of a girl of eleven. Quintus still had nightmares haunted by those empty green eyes.

  But the eyes of the girl before him today weren’t haunting or empty. This girl—young woman, rather—stared at him boldly, almost as if amused by him. Which aided Quintus in shaking off his dark memories. Stiffening under DaVinci’s fearless gaze, he turned to speak to Everett about the day’s work.