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“This is a really bad idea,” Ethan says, sitting on the edge of the half-pipe beside me with our legs dangling over. Lex has gone off to gather the last bits of what we are going to need for the rift. His friend Nobel stripped Ethan of his Tether and Babel Stone ring earlier, and now we are alone.
I swallow and lean back on my palms. He’s right. It’s stupid. A suicide mission. The repercussions will be… well, let’s say not pretty. Best-case scenario, Lex pulls it off, saves Stein, and we end up with what? Two Lexes? What if he alters everything that happens after her death, including finding me, and it’s all erased or, worst case, potentially punches a hole in the fabric of time? All valid points that I’ve made only to have him dismiss my warnings with one word.
Dox.
I don’t realize I’m chewing my bottom lip until Ethan reaches up and pulls it free with his thumb. “I know,” is all I can say, because he’s absolutely right. And if there were any way to stop him, I’d do it. But there’s not. There’s no card I can play that he won’t trump. “We just have to hope the Dox works.”
Ethan doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the tension radiating off him. I want to be angry at Lex for the choice he’s made, but I can’t. Not really. If it were me, if Ethan were the one dead, I’d burn the world to the ground to get him back. It’s neither the right choice nor the rational choice. But that’s love for you. Leaning over, I rest my head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around me.
“We could stop him. Steal the Dox,” he offers. But I know it’s no use.
“He’d find some other way. Or he’d just go. He was never very good with restraint,” I say with a faint smile. No one ever told Alexei no, not his whole life. He was the Tsesarevich. He got what he wanted, period. It’s a trait he’s never outgrown.
“It’s just so monumentally stupid.”
I let out a deep breath. “It’s what I would do.”
Ethan snorts. “No. You’d do what’s right. You always do.”
“No, if it were me, and it were you, I’d do it just the same.”
He tips my chin up so I’m looking into his eyes. Instantly, I’m melting. The room is hot and my stomach is tight. My breath catches as he gazes down at me. Something about the way his eyes droop, the way his cheeks flush with color, makes my heart race. I’m shaking all over. All I want is for him to lower his lips to mine, but it’s as if he’s frozen. I don’t know how long we stay that way, locked in that moment, before I can’t take it anymore.
Closing the distance between us is as natural as breathing. His arms are around me, and my fingers are clasped behind his neck. He tastes salty and sweet. At first, he just lets me kiss him, but suddenly, his calm breaks like a dam and he’s kissing me back. Desperately, deeply. His hands are everywhere—in my hair, on my face. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in him. Slowly, the urgency wanes, leaving us in a soft embrace. I pull back first, only to gasp for air.
His lips are swollen, and he’s looking at me from under his lashes.
“I just had to do that. In case I don’t get another chance,” I mumble, half apologetically.
He grins wildly. “Oh, you’ll get another chance. I’ll make sure of that.”
He leans forward again but before our lips touch, a train whistle sounds, driving us apart.
“Anastasia?”
It’s Gloves in his weird wheelchair.
“It’s Ember. And yes?”
“If you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you. In private.” He eyes Ethan, who shrugs.
Ethan presses a quick kiss to my forehead. “I’ll go find your brother.”
Once the room is clear, I slide down the ramp. Gloves motions to the ratty couch.
“I wanted to talk to you, too,” I begin, folding my legs under me as I sit, leaning against the arm of the sofa. His chair blows a column of steam and clicks to a stop as the engine dies. “My brother. Why did you bring him here? Why target us?”
He takes a deep breath, folding his gloved hands in his lap. Oh, I get it. Gloves.
“You and Lex are special. Hmm, perhaps we should go to my office so that I might begin at the beginning.”
I wave my hand in a “go on” gesture, and then follow him into a smoke-filled room. He motions for me to take a seat on an old bench.
“I would appreciate your discretion with the information I’m about to give you.”
I hesitate. The idea of keeping secrets doesn’t sit well with me. “I can’t promise. But, I’ll do my best. I do need you to tell me the truth about Tesla and why you broke off from the Institute.” The party line has never sat well with me. They told us it was because they were selfish and wanted to pillage history, but the more I begin to understand Tesla and what he’s capable of, the less sure I am about his motives. About any of their motives.
He nods, as if that’s good enough. “Tesla had an assistant. The first Rifter. He discovered her abilities after a freak lab accident. Once he realized what she could do, he was like a man obsessed. Long story short, he found us. The originals. There were five. He mapped our family trees, using our genealogy like a map to discover the source of our abilities. And he found a common thread.”
He pauses as footsteps pass by, and then he goes on. “A royal thread, as it happened. He began experimenting. Trying to gather as much sample DNA from the line as possible. He also identified people with high potential for the gene. Your family was on the short list.”
I shift, bringing my legs up to my chest. “So why Lex? Why not Mother or Father?”
“Tesla convinced a like-minded man to help him. A man from your time. A man with access to you and your family. A man of science.”
“Rasputin.” The name slithers past my lips like a ghostly snake, sending shivers up my skin. He was my friend. Confidant. The only person I trusted other than my own family. Violent memories crash to the front of my mind. Him taking blood from Lex and me. Trying to cure Lex’s hemophilia. The transfusions. Him brushing my hair. Singing folk songs. Bile rises in my throat like acid.
Him being dragged away in chains. Mother ushering us away with tears in our eyes.
“Yes. He was working for Tesla.”
I don’t know what to say, so I settle for biting down on my lip. “Of your siblings, Tesla felt only you and your brother showed enough potential to warrant training. By this time, I, along with a few of the others—disgusted by his growing obsession—had gone our separate ways. But we had a spy. She told us about his plans for you and your brother. She died getting us that information.”
I sit back and let the sofa engulf me. There are too many words, and, at the same time, no words at all that can help any of this make sense to me.
“Ember, we tried to get you both. It was our intent but—”
“But what?” I croak out.
“But you stopped me.”
I shake my head, racking my brain for some memory of seeing him that day. “I don’t remember that.”
He waves his hand, dismissing my claim. “Yet you did. You brought your brother to me. Told me to take him. You called me by name.”
He lets those last words hang between us until I can fully absorb them. “Wait. That means I knew you. Me. Not the past me, but right now me. I was there.”
He stares at me, as if silently challenging me to put the pieces together. It’s like with the first key. At some point, I go back to that day, and I make sure Lex is taken by the Hollows. Why would I do that? It doesn’t make any sense.
“But it’s a Fixed Point. Flynn told me. I can’t go back and change what happened.”
With the flick of a switch, his train engine growls back to life. He tosses a handful of coal into a chamber under his seat, and it bellows steam from the pipes in the back. “Which can only mean one thing. You aren’t changing anything. You will go back again because you always have. Your actions are part of the Fixed Point, so maybe it’s not naturally occurring. Maybe, just maybe,
you create it.”
“But, if that’s true, then I can change it. I can make things different this time,” I blurt out without really thinking. I would never choose to separate myself from Lex. Not if I could help it. But if I don’t, what if he dies? What if Tesla gets us both? Then, none of this—right now—ever happens. A sharp pain explodes behind my eyes as my brain struggles to process everything. All the possibilities and repercussions. A paradox.
“But, what I wanted to say to you is this. I know you don’t trust us, and that you probably have every intention of leaving here as soon as possible. But, you are welcome to stay for as long as you like.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“And as for changing your past, well, I suppose you can try,” Gloves says as he spins and chugs away, quite literally turning his back on me.
The migraine in my head is pounding like a jackhammer, and I feel pure rage bubbling up inside me. In five long strides, I cross the room, and slam the door behind me as I leave. Then, not quite ready to let go of my rant, I stomp off to find my brother.
Tesla Journal Entry: April 30, 1893
The Tesla Institute is fully functional now. It is my crowning glory. The computer is slower than I would like and not as clever as I am, which sometimes prevents it from reaching its full potential. I have considered using a human interface, but that would mean the loss of one of my travelers, and I am loathe to do that. Two have already been injured to the point they can never again leave this place. Like Rasputin, they have become too disfigured, too much machine to blend in with any time period. They will be my teachers now, help me groom my travelers.
I am sending Flynn to retrieve the Romanov children, one at a time if need be, but I am hoping to get at least the boy tonight. It is a good thing that Rasputin is so unrecognizable, so as not to scare or shock the boy. It was he, after all, who orchestrated the death of the family. He who betrayed them. But that is forgivable, because it was before he truly understood their importance—before he understood the secrets they carried in their blood.