“It’s also the reason this is not your sacrifice to make, Madoc,” said Telemachus. “You have already given her your heart, and she gave it to another.”
“Curses,” said Charles. “I knew Burton would find some way to give me a headache. Well,” he added resignedly, “I suppose it falls to me.”
Telemachus shook his head. “Your Prime Time has passed, and you now exist in Spare Time. You cannot give your heart to this, Caretaker.”
Fred stepped forward, whiskers twitching nervously. “I c’n do this,” he said, trying his best to control the quavering in his voice. “I’ll give my heart, t’ rebuild th’ keep.”
For the first time, the companions saw Telemachus’s features soften. He knelt and put his hand on the little badger’s shoulder. “Your heart is big enough to contain a thousand towers,” he said gently, “but it was not meant for this, little Child of the Earth.”
Rose swallowed hard and gripped Edmund’s hand tighter. She knew that he was about to volunteer, but Telemachus held up a hand. “Nor you, my young Cartographer. You have a great destiny ahead of you, and this is not it.”
“Then who?” Quixote said, swallowing hard.
In just that moment, a blinding flash appeared on the hill just behind them, and an object appeared, throwing off sparks and belching smoke.
“I have always wanted to ride to the rescue,” said a figure emerging from the smoke, “but I always entertained a vision of being able to enjoy having done so, afterward.”
“Hah!” said Charles. “That may be literally the most timely entrance I have witnessed in my life—either of them.”
“Well met, Caretaker,” Jules Verne said as he extended his hand to Charles. “It seems as if I’ve arrived in the nick.”
“Look,” Telemachus said. . . . “See what your efforts have wrought.”
Chapter TWENTY
Restoration
“Jules!” Rose exclaimed, throwing herself at him with a giant hug. “How did you find us?”
“You made this a zero point when you came here, Rose,” Verne said, smiling broadly. “All I had to do was set the dials and throw a switch. It seems as if everything that needed fixing has been fixed . . .
“. . . almost.”
Charles shook his head sorrowfully. “You came here for nothing, Jules,” he said. “People like you and I don’t fit the billing.”
Verne’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Charles walked Verne around the nearly completed keep. “It needs a keystone—a living heart, to make the keep a living tower,” he explained. “Tulpas exist in what this old fellow calls ‘Spare Time,’ and as such we aren’t suitable candidates to—”
He stopped when he recognized the carefully neutral expression on Verne’s face—and grew visibly angry when he realized what it meant. “You sorry son of a—”
“What?” Rose exclaimed, glancing anxiously from one Caretaker to the other. “Uncle Charles, what is it?”
“He’s not a tulpa,” Charles said, still glaring at Verne. “He never was.”
“It’s too high a price, Telemachus,” Madoc said. “I won’t allow another to sacrifice himself just for the sake of this keep.”
“Telemachus?” Verne said, eyes widening in surprise. “Well, lad, you’ve, ah, aged a bit, since I saw you last.”
“The sacrifice has already been made,” Telemachus said softly, answering Madoc but looking at Verne. “All that remains is for you to make use of the gift that has been offered to you.”
The companions turned as one to look at Verne, and gasped at what they saw. His hands were already the distinctive silver-gray of cavorite; tendrils of stone were already forming on his neck and were slowly moving upward.
“It’s the price that must be paid for reusing a time-travel device,” said Verne. “The universe can be fooled only so many times before she claims you, and pulls you to her bosom, and makes you one with eternity.”
“You must decide quickly,” said Telemachus, “before the process is completed. His heart will be cavorite soon, but it must be taken while it is still beating.”
“Take his heart?” Fred gasped. “Out of his chest?”
“You must do it, Madoc,” Telemachus said, with a trace of both sternness and finality in his voice. “You are the Architect, and so the placement of the keystone is for you to do.”
Madoc nodded and turned to his daughter. “It’s a fortunate thing that I repaired your blade,” he said, reaching for her bag, “because it seems I’m going to need to use it.”