Connor and I had spent the better part of the morning going over Katherine’s diary entries for the October 28th jump, gathering what details we could about her hotel and her itinerary on that trip. By the time Trey arrived, we’d had to admit defeat on one count—Katherine had failed to mention the hotel specifically, other than noting that it was near the fair. She had stayed at the Palmer House on the first jump for those dates, but that information wasn’t much help since it was the slightly later version of Katherine who was targeted. There were several other bits of info that would have been really nice to know, and I mentally kicked myself for not having asked these obvious questions when Katherine was around to answer.
As I picked at my pastrami, it occurred to me that I could just make a jump back to the previous day and ask Katherine, but Connor quickly nixed that plan. “Can you honestly tell me you won’t warn her?” he asked. “That you won’t do something to ensure she doesn’t walk out that door when Simon grabs you?”
I considered lying, but I finally went with the truth. “No, Connor—but so what? Why shouldn’t I warn her? Or warn myself not to go outside? It’s not like this is such a wonderful version of the timeline that it couldn’t do with a bit of alteration, and I’m willing to risk having some out-of-sync memories.”
Connor shook his head angrily. “Why in hell do you think she sent me upstairs, Kate? Our first priority has to be protecting you. No matter what. As much as it tore me apart to see Katherine vanish, at least I knew it was reversible—well, I knew it was reversible once you walked in the door, at any rate,” he continued, his voice softening. “That’s my point. Say we stop what happened yesterday—they’ll almost certainly just attack the house at that point. If we change something and Katherine survives, but you don’t—well, there are no mulligans without you, Kate. Then Katherine dies, Rand wins, and we just get to sit back and see what he does with the world.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what a mulligan was, but Trey was nodding. “Okay—that explains why she gave Simon the medallion even though she clearly saw me driving up. There was still a risk that he would pull your CHRONOS key before I could reach him. She was buying Connor some extra time to extend the barrier.”
“And buying you some extra time to grab a weapon, although I don’t know if she realized that,” Connor added. “I just hope that slimy bastard is in a world of pain today.”
The floral arrangement from Trey’s dad arrived later in the afternoon. It was beautiful—white lilies, lavender roses, and purple alstroemeria, with clusters of tiny white baby’s breath. I hoped Katherine would eventually see it, and I was glad that there would, at least within this house, be some reminders of my relationship with Trey. Even though every little memento would hurt like hell, that still seemed better than what he was facing—no memories at all.
The flowers were followed within minutes by the delivery of a large hatbox. It contained a rather elaborate green bonnet, which I’d quite liked the idea of traveling without. So with the last of my costume in hand, we set a firm departure time of 6 P.M. and the three of us began final preparations for my jump.
An emerald-green parasol lay on the bed, next to the black handbag that Katherine had carried on her last CHRONOS trip. The bag was about forty years out of fashion for a trip to 1893, but it would have to do, as it contained several hidden pockets that would come in handy. I couldn’t carry luggage, since I would emerge within the fairgrounds and there were no hotels on the premises. So the purse was stuffed with my spending money (all pre-1893, a coin collector’s dream), one of the diaries, a vintage map of the Exposition, a hairbrush, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a tiny first-aid kit, a flask of water, and four energy bars.
Connor’s inner Katherine had balked at several items in the bag, noting correctly that they were not historically appropriate, but this wasn’t a typical research mission and I might not be able to stand in line for hours to get food or drink. I cut several paper bags from Whole Foods into rectangles so that I could wrap the energy bars in plain brown paper—they’d probably get hard, but at least I wouldn’t starve. And I wasn’t traveling without a toothbrush if I might have to stay overnight, even if that toothbrush was made of sparkly pink plastic.
At a few minutes after five, I went into the bathroom to change into my undergarments. Trey waited outside so that he could help me lace the corset. I felt a bit awkward when I walked back into the bedroom, even though far more of my body was exposed by the shorts and tank tops I usually wore than by the yards of white silk and lace in which I was now enveloped.