Timebound(75)

“Connor, should I go back and fix it? Stop myself from going? Tell Trey not to meet me? I know what Katherine said about trying to juggle two different realities, but maybe…”

“No. We can’t risk that, Kate. First, it wouldn’t just be you juggling two sets of memories. It would be anyone in contact with a medallion during this time. Katherine would be okay, since she’s been sleeping, but Daphne and I have both been here for what, fifteen or twenty minutes? And how long would it be for you—five hours? Six?”

His expression was still stern, but he squeezed my hand. “No. I know it’s tough, but you’re just going to have to wait. If you call him, it could change something—especially if he can tell you’re upset or that you’re hurt. He’s a big guy and you say he was near the door—he’ll be okay.”

Connor stood up and walked over to the cabinet where Katherine kept most of her medicines. He hunted about for a few minutes, finally opening a prescription bottle. He filled a glass with water from the fridge and then handed it to me, along with a small red capsule. “Take this. It will help with the pain in your leg and should help you sleep. And,” he added, “I’m not inclined to tell Katherine unless we have to… I don’t want to worry her. So you’re going to need to come up with some logical excuse for that injury.”

I hadn’t looked forward to telling Katherine that I’d been stupid enough to waltz right in to the lion’s den just to assuage my curiosity about the Cyrists, so I was very happy that Connor was willing to keep my secret.

“That should be easy enough,” I said. “Slipped in the shower, cut myself with the razor. It’s all bandaged up now, so she won’t be able to tell the difference. But…” I nodded toward the Book of Prophecy. “She will need to know about this, won’t she?”

“I’ll remove the cover and stash it with the other diaries we’ve collected, after I download the contents to our computers.”

“But won’t she wonder how you got the information?” I asked. “I know you’ve been trying to get this for a while…”

“It’s just amazing what you can find at WikiLeaks,” he said, with a totally straight face. “I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to look there earlier. She’ll believe me, Kate—I’ll make it convincing. And once we’re finished analyzing all of this data”—he grinned—“WikiLeaks may well be where this little book winds up.”

Connor went upstairs to the library, presumably to work his magic on the Book of Prophecy. I took the little red pill he had given me and then I went up the other staircase to my room, carrying the rest of the bandages.

The pain medicine did begin to numb the throbbing in my leg after about half an hour—in fact, I felt a bit numb all over—but it was still a while before I could sleep. I kept hearing Trey’s voice calling my name and seeing sharp white teeth flying toward me. And the chair hitting Eve’s head, in slo-mo and vivid color. Despite her generally nasty attitude, I felt a bit guilty about that and hoped she was okay.





I woke a bit before ten and ran a hot bath, easing myself into it in deference to the wounds on my leg. The area around the cuts was beginning to turn blue from the impact of the dog’s muzzle, and it was annoying to think that the mongrel was probably relaxing in the sun right now in that little garden, several blissful hours away from our encounter. I consoled myself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be feeling all that good by this afternoon—I was pretty sure that the one kick I’d landed to his chest would leave a much bigger bruise than the one he left on my leg.

It was hard to comprehend that Trey and I were, this very minute, chatting with his dad and Estella. Despite the rumbling in this version of my stomach, which hadn’t eaten for about ten hours, the other version of me was being stuffed to the gills with huevos divorciados, tortillas, and buñuelos. That thought made me even hungrier, so I reluctantly pulled myself out of the tub, rebandaged my leg, and dressed to go in search of breakfast.

I let Daphne in from the yard, happy to have some company while I ate my Cheerios. Judging from the dishes in the sink and the fact that I had to reheat the last bit of coffee in the pot, Katherine and Connor had eaten several hours ago.

They were probably already poring over the documents that Connor had miraculously located online, and I didn’t look forward to joining them in the library. My ability to lie convincingly was already taxed to the limit; pretending to be surprised at Connor’s discovery while simultaneously pretending not to be worried sick about Trey seemed a rather gargantuan task. The alternative, however—sitting by myself and thinking about Trey and this totally screwed-up day for the next two or three hours—was even less appealing.