“Agreed. But I’ll only answer if you promise to keep undergarment preferences out of it.”
He knew exactly how raw I felt, and how telling him so much so fast had surprised me. Instead of taking advantage of it, he helped me steer my emotions back to safe waters.
“Bikinis,” I said, smiling. “Just so you know.”
Chapter 9
Dune, Early December
Hallie said, “So yes or no?”
It had been just over a week since I’d blown my cover, and Hallie and I had spent it playing an extended game of either/or in the hall outside her room. We’d talked about everything.
Except the Infinityglass.
Today we’d hit on all the major religions before she asked me to eat a late breakfast with her.
“How could I refuse? No, I mean, I really can’t. Not you. You’re the boss.”
She popped up off the ground and held out her hands like she was going to help me up.
“Are you serious? I outweigh you by at least a hundred pounds.”
She rolled her eyes and held out her hands in a more exaggerated way instead of answering, so I gave in. She pulled me up so easily we had an accidental chest bump. The grin she gave me when we made contact was full of suggestion.
Talk about conflict.
The Infinityglass started as a thing, then a person, and then morphed into a vibrant personality, but the past two weeks had humanized Hallie in a way I hadn’t been prepared for. I still didn’t know enough about her, but now it was on a hundred different levels, and they didn’t even include the scientific angle. This was probably not good.
“How do you feel about bacon?” She pulled a strand of dark hair around her finger, twisting and untwisting.
“Passionate.” I followed her down the stairs.
“I knew you had good taste. Speaking of passions, you never told me how you got interested in the Infinityglass in the first place.”
I followed her into the kitchen.
“My dad. In the bedtime stories he told me, the Infinityglass was shaped like an hourglass, and the sands inside were powerful. They could reverse time, stop it, speed it up. It could transfer abilities between people who had a time-related gift. It had unknown magic that could be used to cure all the world’s ills.”
She turned away from me and opened the bread box. “The perfect fantasy story.”
“I know how goofy that sounds, especially now that I’ve met you. Unless you’re full of sand.”
“I’m full of something, but it ain’t sand.”
She was joking, but the set of her shoulders told me that something I’d said bothered her. “The stories are a good memory of my dad. I always imagined going on an adventure with him to find the Infinityglass, kind of the way people chased the Holy Grail.”
She popped four pieces of bread in the toaster and said, “I fart in your general direction.”
“What?”
“Monty Python. Holy Grail. ‘I fart in your general direction.’ You need an education, big boy.”
“I know Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The girl continued to impress while simultaneously throwing me off my game. “I just can’t believe you know it.”
“I never leave my house, remember? Movies—good movies—are my friends.” She took jelly out of the fridge and honey from the cupboard, put the jars on the table, and leaned against the edge. “I have to apologize. We’re out of bacon.”
“You don’t have to make me breakfast,” I said.
“Sure I do. My humanity stole your quest potential. I feel like I owe you.”
“The quest just looks different than I thought it would.” A lot different. “It’s more complicated than I expected it to be.”
“It sure is.” She stared at me for a long time.
I stared back.
The toast popped up and we both jumped.
“I’m sorry I’ve put it off for so long. So you’ll understand my head space: loyalty is an issue.” Hallie buttered the toast before offering me two pieces.
I took the bread. “I don’t blame you, and I’d feel the same in your situation. But if we approach this logically, you have to tell me what you do know, or I can’t help you discover the things you don’t know.”
“And vice versa.” Hallie sat down with her toast and got busy tearing off the crusts, focusing on them instead of me. “Let’s start with basics. Do you know what Chronos does?”
“What the world thinks it does, or what it really does?” I asked.
“The world doesn’t know about Chronos.”
“Mine does.”
“The Hourglass?”
I nodded. “For a long time, we just referred to Chronos as The Powers That Be. We thought you were like … an absentee-landlord governing body. According to Liam, that’s what Chronos used to be. Protectors of time. He left when your mom took over, and I guess things changed a lot after that.”
“They changed even more when Dad got involved. He didn’t think she was making the most of her resources. I can promise governing was the last thing on his mind. Even less so now.”
“What is?” I flipped open the top of the honey to pour some on my toast and waited for her to continue.
“Industry. He locates artifacts, artwork, jewelry, etc., and we go get them. Most often, they’re related to time, but not always.”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s how he knew what horology was.”
“Dad belongs to at least three different horological societies. Anonymously, of course. Where do you thinks he gets his tips on what to steal?”
“The things he sends you to steal. How does that work?”
“First, I gather intel on the jobs. I learn work schedules, security systems, weakest links, things like that. I do it all by changing my appearance.”
“You case joints. Like a burglar.” A stray drop of honey landed on the edge of my plate. I slicked my finger over it and licked it off. “And now I’m imagining you in spandex, scaling the side of a building.”
Hallie didn’t respond. I thought I’d offended her, somehow, but when I looked up, she was staring at my hand. “Hallie?”
“What?” she asked, startled. “Sorry. What did you just say?”
“Um … nothing.” I put down my toast and wiped my finger on a napkin. “The jobs. Chronos. I thought your dad didn’t like for you to leave the house.”
“That’s where the time gene comes in. I have … there’s a guy who can teleport. We do jobs together, or we used to. Dad trusted him to make sure I stayed in line. Turns out, trusting him was a stupid choice for both of us.”
I tamped down the desire to tell her about Poe. “How?”
“He sided with my mother. She and my dad are still married, even though it’s a really weird arrangement. I’ve seen pictures from their wedding and from when I was a baby. I remember how things used to be. They were either really good actors or they were happy at one point. Sometimes, I think I was nothing more than a phase to her.”
“You and your mom aren’t close?” I asked.
“Not even in the same galaxy.”
Sadness or anger drew down the corners of her mouth. Then I realized it was grief.
“She called me a couple of weeks ago, dropping a bunch of hints, and that’s one reason why your revelation at Lafitte’s didn’t surprise me. I’d heard of the Infinityglass before. I used to get bedtime stories, too.”
Another thing we had in common.
“At first, I thought she was just looking for something that Chronos had retrieved. But she used one of the few soft spots I have for her against me, reminding me of the stories, and told me I was the Infinityglass. I wanted to call her a liar, but … things have changed for me. Recently. Another reason you didn’t surprise me.”
“You have symptoms beyond the ripple sightings?” I asked. “Besides the possession?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate. “Any answers I get from her now will have to be bargained for, and it’s not wort
h it.”
“She knows what you are, and she won’t help you? How could a mother do that?”
“Because she wants something from me.” Hallie picked up her toast. “She always does. I don’t know what it is this time, and I don’t really want to find out. It won’t be good. It won’t be loving, or in my best interest. Nothing she does ever is.”
“Then don’t get answers from her. Get them from me.” It was the boldest I’d been about the Infinityglass since the night at Lafitte’s.
She exhaled. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Then let’s take it upstairs.”
I put my plate in the sink and exited the kitchen, leaving her with a curious expression and a mouth full of toast.
I set up my laptop, an external drive, and notebook on Hallie’s vanity.
It was the first time I’d actually been in her room. A confection of pastels, it was huge and relentlessly neat, with toe shoes hanging from pegs on the wall. I didn’t understand why she needed so many different pairs. There were also wigs and tutus.
She had every game system known to man, including a couple of throwbacks, like an Atari console and a Sega Genesis. A tall wooden shelf held hundreds of movies in various forms, Blu-rays, DVDs, even some VHS tapes. I tapped one and raised an eyebrow.
“Not everything has been released in the most modern formats. If you think that’s a lot, my digital collection would blow your mind.”
“I collect music the way you collect movies.” I opened the minimized window on my laptop screen and showed her.
“Seven thousand songs?”
“My physical collection would blow your mind. It’s a sickness. But I like to read, too.”
“So do I. Real books. When I was younger, my dad used to take me to the bookstore on Saturdays. Garden District Book Shop at first, but then Octavia Books.” Melancholy sneaked into her voice. “I could spend hours in that place; it was so open and full of light. They even had a pet dog that lived in the store. Those were the good old days.”
Now when she wanted to leave her house, she had to climb down the side of it.
“Maybe you could take me there sometime.”
“Maybe.” She shook off the sadness and leaned over my shoulder, her hair swinging forward, so close it brushed against my cheek. “All right, wise one. Enlighten me.”
I had two thoughts. One, if I turned my head a fraction of an inch, my lips would line up directly with hers, and two, she knew it.
I scooted the stool closer to the vanity to get myself out of the reach of her lips before clearing my throat.
“Here we go.”
Hallie
Dune was easy to tease. The good kind of easy, though. He felt safe and right. I saw how a pattern could form, the push and the pull between us. Not where my brain should be.
“Let’s start with the basics,” he said, scrolling through a list of documents. “Tell me what you know.”
“Right now I’d prefer that you tell me stuff, not that I tell you stuff.”
“We both have information.” He turned around, too big and too ridiculous, perched on the tiny stool that matched my vanity. “I thought we were going to engage in an exchange.”
“So you’re going to just blindly open up and give me anything I ask for?”
“I don’t have time to have trust issues, Hallie, and neither do you.”
“There’s always time for trust issues.”
“If we’re going to help each other, we have to put everything on the table.” He rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans and stood. “I’ve met Poe. Last fall, he came to the Hourglass, to give us an ultimatum from your mom.”
“You know Poe?” The admission made me dizzy. “What kind of ultimatum?”
“She wanted us to find someone.” His frown told me there was more to the story and that he was weighing whether or not to tell it. “She turned Poe into her sock puppet to get it done, and she claimed it was all for Chronos. She used him.”
Not surprising. My mother consistently proved she felt she was entitled to say or do whatever she wanted to get her way. “Who did she want you to find?”
“A man named Jack Landers. She stole a digital storage device called a Skroll, and she needed him to open it.”
“What was on it?”
“Information about the Infinityglass,” he said. “But the Hourglass stole it from her, and I broke the encryption and downloaded the information on it. When we turned Landers over to your mom, she took the Skroll, but it’s missing some info.”
I tapped the hard drive that sat on my vanity beside Dune’s laptop. “It’s all here?”
“That and more. Everything I’ve gathered over the years, and even some things my dad found before he died.”
“My whole life encapsulated in one external drive.”
“Not your whole life. Nothing could contain you.” The fierceness in his voice surprised both of us.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said cautiously. “If I want to know what’s on that drive, I guess it’s my turn in the sharing circle?”
“It’s a very small circle.”
Small, but suddenly not as cozy as I’d like.
His fingers tapped on his track pad. “Will you talk to me about your … symptoms?”
I searched his eyes. Trusted what I saw. “I started seeing rips, but apparently everyone else with the time gene does, too.” He nodded confirmation. “My energy levels are insane. I don’t need to sleep or eat. I do, out of habit, but it isn’t necessary. All my senses feel sharper. And I heal really fast. Insanely fast. I can also hold any form I change into a lot longer. Things like my vocal cords and hair color have always been either impossible or complicated. Not anymore. No effort at all.”
“Show me.”
I thought for a second, and then morphed into Zoe Saldana à la Star Trek.
“James T. Kirk who? Spock who? Bring me a sexy Samoan.” I slipped back into my normal skin. “Are you okay? You kind of look like you swallowed your tongue.”
“Fine. I’m fine.” He rubbed one hand over his face, picked up a pencil, and started scribbling in his spiral notebook.
“The possession, or whatever, isn’t connected to my transmutation ability. It’s new, part of the Infinityglass thing.” I tried to sound casual as I asked the next question. “Do you have a theory on how the Infinityglass part of me kicked into gear?”
He tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the vanity. “It could be … hormonal.”
“Excuse me?”
“That wasn’t meant as any kind of insult; it’s just a known trigger for some people. Usually, it’s puberty.” Dune gave me the once-over, and then started scribbling in his notebook again.
“Yeah. I passed that a long time ago.”
“Obviously.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Or the genetic stressor could be an object or a million other things.”
I could tell from his expression and the speed of his pencil on the paper that he was thinking a hundred miles an hour. I was also pretty sure I knew what the trigger was, but I couldn’t go there yet. I had to talk to Poe.
“What happened with the rip is another side effect, like your senses or sleeping or energy level. I can’t stop thinking about all the variances. For us, back in Ivy Springs, the rips progressed. At first, only travelers could see them, and they could be interacted with. Then they became scenes, and the travelers existed outside them. Then anyone with an active time gene could see rips, whole scenes. Rip worlds. Time started blending: rips with humans but no interaction between the two.”
“But I interacted with rip people. Stepped into someone else’s life. Has anyone else done that?”
“I don’t think so. Here’s a list of everything everyone has seen.” He leaned back so I could see his computer screen, and then pointed to a desktop folder titled “IG.” “I’m going to send you this file. It contains all the basics about the Infinityglass, from when I thought it was an object. If you want to look ov
er it, we can talk about it, see if any of it applies to you.”
“You mean, slick as glass, gritty, curvy, immalleable?”
“If those are the ones that work.” He shut his laptop and slipped it into the case. “Have you decided whether or not I’m a nice guy?”
“My only other option for answers is my mother, and I’d trust Darth Maul before I’d trust her.”
“You’re killing me with the nerd references. But you know that, don’t you?”
My phone buzzed with a text from my dad.
The job is on.
I grinned. “The verdict is in, and I think you’re a nice guy. You’re also my best bet for information about the Infinityglass.”
“So we can continue our search tomorrow?” he asked.
My grin got even bigger. “Actually, I have other plans for tomorrow.”
Chapter 10
Hallie
I went to the side entrance of the house to wait for Dune.
Because I was excited to see him.
I used to meet Benny at the same entrance when I was a kid. I didn’t want to throw a Benny-shaped shadow over Dune, and I didn’t think I was. Benny had been my friend. Dune was … different.
I wanted to punch myself in my own face. The last thing I needed to indulge in was a crush, especially one that had exploded on me like a shaken champagne bottle.
“Hey, kiddo.” Carl, who’d been head of security for as long as I could remember, stood and brushed biscuit crumbs from his shirt. “Is something wrong?”
“Take a load off,” I said, briefly placing my hand on his shoulder. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“New kid?” He sat, but kept his posture straight and his feet flat on the floor. Ready to jump in front of me at any second, should the need arise.
“We’re going on a job.”
Carl knew exactly what that meant.
“First one for this guy?” When I nodded, he picked up his Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate and took a slow sip. “And you think he’ll be good in the field?”
“We’ll find out. All Dune has to do is take a little trip with me.”
“To where?”
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