Etta nodded, processing this.
“Is there a back entrance out of your home?” Nicholas asked suddenly, drawing the curtain shut in front of him.
“Well, yes,” Alice said, rising slowly. “Why?”
“Two gentlemen in the street are watching this house,” he said. “Unless they’re interested in painting it, I think it’s a fair assumption that we’ve been found.”
THROUGH THE BACK DOOR, THROUGH THE BACK GARDEN, through a gate that opened out onto a street. Etta had one second to celebrate their narrow escape, when the man she’d seen before—the one with the fedora and newspaper—appeared at the other end of the street.
“I know him,” Alice said, grabbing her wrist.
“One of Ironwood’s?” Etta asked.
She shook her head. “No…I don’t think so. Rosie left me photos to identify them. This one’s definitely come round looking for her before, though.”
Not an Ironwood guardian…then who the hell was he?
The girls struggled to keep pace with Nicholas’s longer strides. He kept one hand buried deep in his bag—if Etta had to guess, it was on the revolver inside. Whether or not he’d actually bought ammunition was anyone’s guess, but Etta had a feeling that the answer was—
She slammed into something, and felt herself ripped away from Alice’s grip. One of Etta’s feet caught the other and she landed hard on her bottom, her scraped hands singing in agony. When the spots of black cleared from her eyes, Etta saw a woman, the one in the brown suit, reeling and clutching her nose. Just past her shoulder, Nicholas wheeled around, his face blank with horror.
A pair of hands scooped Etta up by the elbows, hauling her back before she could get her feet beneath her. The smell of cologne and sweat flooded her nose, and she threw her head back, trying to hit some soft, fleshy part of him.
“Rose,” the man gasped out, “Rose, damn you—”
Rose?
A pale fist flew past her face, landing on the man’s jaw. Alice’s face was glowing red with fury as she shook her hand out, but it was Nicholas who charged past her and tackled the man to the ground. Etta finally had a look at him: horn-rimmed glasses, a mussed tweed suit. It was a different man than the one who’d carried the paper. Younger.
“I’m not—” he gasped as Nicholas hauled him up with a snarl and launched a fist into his face. “Not—”
Not what? Etta looked to Alice for an answer, but the girl only shrugged and shoved aside the woman in brown, who was still moaning in pain.
“Come on, Carter!” Alice called. “Keep moving!”
He didn’t move, except to raise his fist again.
“Nicholas!” Etta called. “Come on!”
He finally shook himself out of his anger’s grip, dropped the battered man back onto the sidewalk, and ran to catch up to them.
“Are you all right?” He tried to reach over, but Etta only ran harder, toward the crowds gathering in front of them and the cars honking to get through.
No time. Just run. Run.
Her breath burned inside her chest as they pushed through the busy city, dodging through street after street of homes and shops until, after nearly twenty minutes, they reached their destination. Over their heads was a rainbow array of glowing advertising signs and lights—LEMON HART, BP, SCHWEPPES—and, at the center of a traffic circle, a statue of Eros watched the slow crawl of double-decker buses and police cars. Even without the modern billboards, Etta recognized the intersection. They’d run the whole way to Piccadilly Circus, and her blisters and cramping legs and feet were proof of it.
Alice looked around, her face pink and gleaming with sweat despite the chill in the air. “I can’t take you all the way there, I’m sorry—I can’t miss my shift. There are people depending on me. I wish I could—”
Etta swallowed the small, selfish pang of desperation to keep Alice close, and said, “That’s okay. Thank you for getting us this far. Is the Underground station much farther?”
“It’s another twenty-minute walk from here,” Alice said. “I can give you money for a taxi—”
“It’ll be easier to lose them on foot,” Nicholas said. “Thank you. Where do we go from here?”
Using the back of her mother’s letter and a ballpoint pen, Etta had Alice quickly write out the remainder of the instructions. Head east as the road turns from Piccadilly Circus to Swiss Court, to Cranbourn Street to Carrick, up King Street past St. Paul’s Cathedral, back down to Russell, right on Catherine Street once you pass the Royal Opera House.… All at once, Etta missed her phone and satellites and the luxury of never having to feel lost.
“Be safe,” Alice said, throwing her arms around her.
The faint anxiety that prickled over Etta’s skin sparked into paralyzing dread. No time. No time for this, but—
“We must go.…” she heard Nicholas say gently, in warning.
She pulled back with a bone-deep reluctance, an aching hollowness at the pit of her stomach. What you’re speaking of isn’t a matter of morality. It’s an impossibility.
What would change—what could change if she warned Alice now? The thought gnawed on her; it would be a small ripple, wouldn’t it? A small change in an enormous sea of moments. If she couldn’t travel back to her time and pull Alice to safety without crossing paths with herself, she could at least do this. She could rewrite that moment, the pale terror of her instructor’s face, the blood.…
“Alice—”
“No, no, none of that,” Alice interrupted. “No tears, no secrets. I want the life I’m meant to have, Etta. It’s as simple as that. My father always says that the way to truly live is to do so without expectation or fear hanging over you, affecting your choices—and that’s bloody hard to do with you travelers coming and going. I want to know you the way you know me one day. I want to play my violin, make my mistakes, fall in love, live in as many different cities as I can.…Would you really take that from me?”
Etta couldn’t breathe; her hands were curling and uncurling at her side, and she was trembling with the effort to keep from sobbing. She glanced at Nicholas, who had turned his head to survey the crowd and was politely pretending he wasn’t listening. Finally she shook her head.
“We’re called ‘guardians’ because we’re meant to take care of you lot, as you take care of our world. And Etta, don’t forget—the truly remarkable thing about your life is that you’re not bound to live it straight forward like the rest of us. You can come see me for a visit anytime. It’s like how the song goes: I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places.…”
Etta pulled back, half-stunned to hear those words again. She watched Alice wave and step into the rush of bodies around them, until even the flash of her bright hair dimmed and disappeared completely.
“—Etta? Are you all right?” She didn’t realize Nicholas was speaking to her until he reached over, brushing a thumb over her unhurt cheek.
“She said that before…the last time I saw her, just before…” Before she died. She needed to say it. She needed to accept it, because it was clear to her now, so agonizingly clear, that Alice remembered this meeting. She knew Etta would try to tell her about what would happen to her, and she, in her very Alice way, wanted to let her know what she had said in the past was true. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to change the life she’d lived with Etta up to that point.