Infinityglass(13)

I didn’t know if the wrong sorts of people were the good guys or the bad. Paul Girard had no time-related ability, but businessmen like him were genius judges of human nature. Uncertainty wouldn’t do in this situation.

“I’m prepared.”

“Good. Ideally, I can keep you out of that end, since your main purpose is helping my daughter. But if it becomes part of your cover, so be it. I don’t want Hallie to know what you’re really doing here.” He stared at me and I nodded, confirming I was totally on board. “I told her I was planning to hire new security. We’ll let her believe you’re part of her new detail.”

“I don’t—I have no idea how to be a bodyguard. I don’t even know how to fake it.”

“It doesn’t matter. I rarely have anyone on her in the house. She’ll be really, really pissed off, and my daughter, pissed off …” He looked at me like he felt sorry for me.

“Does she have any idea she’s the Infinityglass?” Liam asked.

“Her ability is transmutation. I don’t believe she knows she’s the Infinityglass.”

Liam’s frown went wrinkle deep. “Do you plan on telling her?”

“That depends.” Girard asked, focusing on me, “Do you have answers for her?”

“I need to observe her for a little while. I need time to try to reconcile the differences between what I thought the Infinityglass was and what it truly is and to finish translating and studying all the information on the Skroll.”

“Then we’ll wait until you know something solid. I don’t want to scare her with half-truths.” He stood, and so did Liam and I. “If Liam says you’re my best option, I’ll believe him, because I have every reason to believe in the Hourglass. I know what you stand for and what you do. But if you prove him or me wrong …”

Girard left the threat unspoken.

And somehow that was scarier than if he’d said it aloud.





Chapter 3

Hallie, Mid-November


After the pawnshop job, I told my dad I’d be taking a paid vacation.

I did my normal Rapunzel-in-the-tower thing, with nothing to break it up except dance class three times a week, and I didn’t even leave the house for that. Dad had converted a detached building on our property into my very own studio and hired a private teacher. Things were lonely. Boring.

But not normal.

Something changed the night Poe and I did the job at Skeevy’s. It all started with the jazz funeral in the graveyard.

I’d known the timing was off. No one would be having a funeral at night, and anyway, sunlight surrounded the mourners. The group had entered from the front gate of the cemetery, going right past the waiters and waitresses from Commander’s Palace, but none of the waitstaff had noticed. New Orleans ladies were known for good hats, but the shoes and outfits were wrong. Too many prints. Boxy purses and heels.

Then, the next day from my bedroom window, I saw men putting the finishing touches on the Saint Charles Avenue line, which had already existed for almost two hundred years. Gone were the Mardi Gras beads that usually hung from the electric wires and gone was the grass that lined either side of the rails. I saw freshly turned dirt, and the southern live oaks that lined the street were way smaller than they were supposed to be. The streetcars were new and shiny, standing like soldiers awaiting their chance to serve the city.

The next day, from the kitchen, I’d watched a solid stream of ladies and gentlemen traveling by horse and carriage, going visiting.

I knew what I was seeing, but I didn’t know why.

Years ago, my mom had found a set of twins in the foster care system. She’d hooked them up with a family far out in the bayou. A family that was well compensated and therefore didn’t mind when the twins accidentally shorted out electrical appliances. A family that wasn’t privy to the fact that Amelia and Zooey were time travelers.

Countless things have been lost throughout time. The Titanic sank with untold riches on board. The Amber Room disappeared during World War II. Some of the biggest art heists of all time had yet to yield their spoils. That was how time travelers were useful to Chronos.

When Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, walked away from a suitcase full of his manuscripts at Paris Lyon to buy a bottle of water, Amelia and Zooey popped in. The suitcase was lost to history, but the manuscripts showed up in New Orleans.

A priceless Degas was thought to be lost in a fire, but miraculously appeared in the collection of a certain family that lived on Esplanade.

And so on and so forth.

A time-travel side effect was that Amelia and Zooey saw ripples all the time. Once I made the mistake of telling them I thought it was cool. They started describing them whenever we were together just to get on my nerves. Now people like me, who shouldn’t be able to see rips, could.