One of our first lessons with Minnie Gatling had been trying to trace the influences on Hitler. We researched every moment from his birth to death, but being sure what could have happened if a single outside influence had been removed—the father who abused him, the ancestor who passed down a genetic proclivity toward mental illness—those lines grew blurry fast.
Which was the reason for the hard and fast never interfere rule. Even if it meant letting a madman murder six million people for no reason at all, because what if the alternative turned out to be even worse? With all of our advances, everything we knew, we couldn’t predict the future.
“You want to get out of here? It’s Pey’s birthday, and she left passes for us in case we wanted to meet everyone at Stars in My Pies.” Analeigh looked hopeful—whether because she wanted to go out or wanted the two of us to get back to normal was hard to say. Maybe both.
I stood, stretching my muscles, still sore from riding that bloody horse. I had changed out of my ancient Egyptian garb, and the decontamination shower had washed the sand and dirt out of random places on my body. “Sure. Is Sarah there?”
“Probably. She and Oz went with his dad to dinner, but if she had anything to say about it, I’m sure they’re free now.”
The mention of Oz’s dad twisted my lips in a grimace. Yet another reason to be happy he hadn’t been my True. His father was a Historian and an Elder, and as stern as they came. The man saw everything with these beady black eyes. Like some kind of hawk or vulture.
“I could go for some pie.” It wasn’t real pie, like the kind we’d seen in diners on observations, because we only had synthetic milk, but it was good enough.
Analeigh frowned. “You should shower first, because you smell weird.”
I froze. “Weird like what?”
“Like … livestock?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Where were you really, Kaia? There are no cows in the Archives. Or on Sanchi. Or in Genesis.”
So much for the decontamination shower. I should have used the shampoo instead of forgoing a hair wash.
I wandered away from the table comp, touching several dots with a slippered toe until I found Oz’s. I poked it, trying to bide my time before answering Analeigh’s question, but also curious. Instead of recording him in Stars in My Pies, as expected, the bio data claimed he’d been in early eighteenth-century London for the past twenty minutes.
Nothing significant came to mind, as far as events of that time and place, but we were all off duty today. He shouldn’t have been anywhere, except with Sarah.
With my own transgressions hogging my head space, I almost pushed Oz’s weird travels aside. But something stopped me. Jonah had known saving Rosie Shapiro wouldn’t change anything significant, but if there was a way to track history forward as well as back, no one had told me. My brother warned me that everyone at the Academy couldn’t be trusted—that the Historians had a secret.
And Oz’s dad was an Elder.
Jonah had traveled alone, and I’d caught Oz doing the same thing. My brother and I shared a double dose of stubborn, so maybe Oz presented a better alternative for finding out whether it might be possible to predict the consequences of saving Caesarion’s life.
When I closed Oz’s dot and turned, Analeigh stared at me with her eyebrows raised, arms crossed over her chest. All of the secrets felt heavy on my shoulders. To unburden myself meant weighing down my best friend and that felt selfish.
“I want to tell you, Analeigh, but it’s better if I don’t. You’re a terrible liar and this isn’t your problem.”
I tried moving around her but she blocked my path.
“Kaia. I am freaking out. You found your brother’s cuff and the first thing you did was break major policy to go see him. Jonah ran off without a word, never said good-bye to anyone, and now you’re disappearing, and keeping secrets, and …” Tears filled her big green eyes. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to leave. I want us to take our certifications and stay here. Together.”
My throat tightened. “I don’t want that, either. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. Just not right now. Give me a few days to try to figure it out.”
Her eyes were serious as they lingered on mine. It was the look Sarah and I jokingly referred to as her “mom” expression. “Promise me, Kaia.”
“I promise.”
I flashed her a wobbly grin that reflected none of the ache gnawing me open from the inside and fled the room, heading for the safe solitude of the shower.
I didn’t want to end up like my brother, living outside established rules, an outcast from the System—not at all. True Companion or not, Caesarion lived in the past. Even if he could be saved, he could never be mine forever. I wanted to fall in love with a boy and get married, have children of my own, and continue my work at the Academy, and there wasn’t anything I believed in more than the calling of the Historians. It was important and, more than that, I loved it.
But I wanted to know Caesarion, too. And I wanted to be a good daughter and a good friend. And to make sure future generations of humans had a healthy society to grow up in. And yes, fine, I wanted to save the ancient boy I was meant to love from the unfairness of his world.
Jonah’s cuff and his chip allowed me to be both selfish and remain at the Academy, at least for now. Hopefully, my luck would hold until I could figure out whether I could alter Caesarion’s fate without upsetting the fate of the universe.
Or until Octavian killed him.
*
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of tired. I might be coming down with something.” I avoided Analeigh’s gaze by snuggling into my bed and rolling toward the wall. I’d shoved the chip back in my wrist while I’d been in the bathroom, the sound of running water covering my muffled groan.
I needed to grab some clear, adhesive bandages from the infirmary so the wound wouldn’t get infected in between travels. Some healing salve wouldn’t hurt, either.
Analeigh paused for a moment in my bedroom doorway, looking torn between giving me space and being terrified I’d disappear like Jonah had if she let me out of her sight. Finally, she sighed softly and flipped the lights off on her way out of the suite.
The shower had given me time to think and for the first time in days, a boy other than Caesarion filled my thoughts. My mind turned over Oz’s secret comings and goings, and no rational explanation came to mind. If Oz had gone rogue, traveling alone and observing without authorization, someone had to stop him. Someone should stop me, too, because I didn’t have the willpower to cease and desist on my own, but since no one had, that left me free to follow Oz.
The halves of me—the one in love with my calling as a Historian, and the one connected to Caesarion—were at war, but if Oz was taking chances that could affect us all, the Elders needed to know.
First, I needed proof. The suspicions I had, based on his bio info reflecting odd times and places, wouldn’t be enough. He would claim a system error, and I could end up drawing attention where it would be potentially disastrous—onto myself. His father being an Elder, they would believe Oz in a game of He Said, She Said between the two of us.
With everyone out at Stars for the next hour or two, I could travel back and follow him to England earlier tonight. Try to get answers. Traveling alone twice in the same day counted as reckless, but I had to know what he was up to. If he could help me.
I didn’t want to waste time figuring out clothes, so I ran to the wardrobe closet and grabbed a generic black trench coat that fell to my knees, knotting it securely around my waist. My leggings and black flats showed, but with my glasses and hair twisted into a knot under a kerchief, no one in 1714 England would spare me a second glance.