Param sank gratefully to the ground. “I’ll wait here while you do it,” she said.

“We’ll both wait,” said Rigg. “Because I don’t know when Umbo will try to reach me and speed me up again.”

“Wake me when it’s done,” she said. And, once again, she was asleep in moments.

It worried Rigg, how exhausted she got from what was really not that very much walking. What if Citizen’s spies—the few people in this city who knew what Param and Rigg looked like—spotted them, and they had to run? Param used to have recourse to becoming invisible, but now that Mother had told them how slowly she moved, and how to damage her while she could not be seen, invisibility was not going to save her.

If only I could hide her, the way she hid in the secret passages of the house, never having to be invisible, to go into that impossible sectioning of time that made the world race by her while she crept along.

It was getting toward noon. Rigg was beginning to get sleepy himself—this was the time he had trained himself to sleep for three hours in the afternoon, to earn the ability to wake up only five hours after going to bed and have much of the night to work with. But in his years in the forest with Father, he had learned to fight off sleep, when that was necessary, and he did so now.

But not very well, because he twice caught himself waking up. Impossible, because he certainly had not slept. Only he must have. Was it for a second or a minute or an hour? Had Umbo tried again to let him shift in time, and failed because Rigg was asleep?

No. The shadows were exactly as long as they had been before Rigg dozed. Only a moment, then.

He stood. Then sat back down immediately. A few blocks up the street, the vanguard of a mob was scurrying across the intersection—the solo scouts, the people in the mob who appointed themselves to see what was ahead, so the rest could be warned if soldiers were coming.

Please don’t come down this way.

They didn’t—but it was a large mob, and it seemed like it was taking forever for them to get across the street.

They were still crossing noisily when the paths shifted again. Rigg would have no choice but to walk out into the street—not far, but far enough to be visible. Maybe the mob wouldn’t care; maybe they would turn and race toward him. Either way, he’d make it quick.

He almost went out into the street alone, leaving Param to sleep. But then his wish to find a hiding place for her popped back into his mind, but with a plan attached. Could he push her back in time with Umbo and Loaf? Then she would be in a place where no one expected her, no one was even looking for her yet.

He had taken objects from the past, but had he or Umbo ever put something back into the past? Even if they had, maybe it only worked with things and not with people. When Rigg traveled back in time, he still existed in the present, where Umbo could see him, could watch as he did whatever it was he did to him to let him slow down the paths and find the people who made them.

Yet he was also really in the past. He thought of that terrible time at the lip of the falls, trying to reach Kyokay but unable to get past the man who clung to the cliff right over him. The man’s body had been real to him—he could touch it—and therefore his body had been really present to the man as well.

What if Umbo had stopped what he was doing to him while Rigg was still touching the man? Would he have stayed in the past with him? Would he have disappeared?

And even if Rigg wouldn’t have disappeared, what if he had handed the man something—or put someone else’s hand in his? Would that thing, or that person, have stayed in the past?

The only way to find out was to try.

He took Param by the hand and tugged at her. “Get up, come with me.”

“Let me sleep,” she said. “You do it.”

“Come now,” he insisted. “Who knows how long Umbo can maintain this at such a distance?”

Complaining, staggering, her eyes barely open, Param came with him.

Rigg looked for Umbo’s path—he couldn’t focus on both Loaf and Umbo at the same time, even if they were walking together. And there he was, racing along his path, over and over. Then, the more closely Rigg focused, Umbo went slower, slower, until he was walking at a hurried pace, but in real time.

Rigg stepped in front of him. “Stop,” he said.

Umbo stopped. So did Loaf, who now also became visible because Rigg was seeing Umbo’s time as well as his own, and Loaf was with him there.

“Can you see her?” he asked them.

Umbo looked at Param and nodded. So did Loaf.

“Meet me an hour after noon in the noodle house,” said Rigg. “Now take her hand.”

Param, who had just seen Umbo materialize out of nothing in the open street, was reluctant to touch him, but Rigg forced her hand into his. “Hold on!” he said. “Who knows where you’ll end up if you pull away!” Rigg let go of her. She was holding on to Umbo. Loaf also took hold of her.

Either she would stay with them or she wouldn’t.

“What are you doing?” demanded Umbo.

“If it works, then—”

But at that moment, the speeding-up that Umbo-in-the-Council-House was sending to him let go, and Umbo quickly disappeared back into his path. So did Loaf.

So did Param.

She was no longer with him. Her path was suddenly in the past. It went out into the street in the present, and continued unbroken, only now her path was beside Umbo’s and Loaf’s in their time period—earlier this morning.

So they weren’t just limited to taking things from the past—the knife, the jewels in their hiding place. They could also put things back there, things and people—as long as there was someone there willing to receive them.

But he really didn’t have time to reflect on the ramifications of this experiment. He was standing alone in the street, and there was a mob only a few blocks away. And while his clothing didn’t look princely, it looked rich, and there were always stragglers with a mob who would take the opportunity to commit a bit of robbery or mayhem when the opportunity presented itself.

Sure enough, when he turned to look up the street, there were a half dozen men—some ragged, some not—walking briskly or jogging along the street toward him. The rest of the mob was still crossing, but they were thinning out now. There would be few witnesses to what they did if they caught him. Not that he had anything on him worth stealing, except his clothing.

Rigg knew that as soon as he broke into a run, the chase would be on. If he had not been able to put Param into the past, he would only have been able to run as fast as she did.

Then again, if she were still here, she could have held on to him and simply disappeared until these would-be thieves gave up and went away.

Oh, well, thought Rigg. Everything has consequences.

He ran.

Life in Flacommo’s house had not weakened him as much as he feared; his days of running with Olivenko had perhaps made the difference. He easily stayed ahead until he could get back to the bank and the secret passage. He dodged inside, closed the door, and then waited for them to give up. He scanned their paths, and while some of them tried to search for him, they soon gave up. Nobody even came close to probing the alcove in the wall of the bank.

Now that he had time, he cast about to find the Council House again. There were the councilors, still under guard—but Loaf and Umbo were not there.

So the warning had worked. They didn’t go to the rendezvous, they weren’t arrested.

Their past had changed—but Rigg’s had not. He still had clear memories of seeing them in the Council House—of watching them be arrested, of passing through the tunnels with Param.

Pushing her into the past had done more than get her off the streets and out of danger. It had also prevented Rigg’s path through time from being erased at the point of change.