When his eyes slid shut again, it wasn’t her face that he saw, but Hall’s—the way he had looked when he’d crouched down in front of Nicholas, when the boy was barely as high as his hip, and told him that they were leaving. He’d offered his hand—big, so big and warm—and it had closed around his.
Hall…who would tell Hall what had become of him? And Chase? Perhaps one of them might seek out Ironwood, only to find that he had no definitive answers, either.
Lost. He would be known not by what he had accomplished, but for the manner of his demise. Most sailors knew to accept the word as final, with all of its deadly simplicity. But Hall and Chase were relentlessly optimistic. Would they be able to shoulder the burden of not knowing? Sold back into slavery, food for the sharks, rotting away in prison…there were endless ways for their minds to torture them, and none would even come close to the truth.
He began to measure his hours by the calls to prayer he heard. Every time he sensed someone near him, his body instinctively tensed, trying to reach beneath his pillow for a knife that was not there.
Nicholas woke to the sound of soft humming and ripping fabric, and turned his head to the side to see who it was. A young man sat on a nearby bed, a basket of what looked to be either white linen or rough silk resting beside him. The bolts of fabric were ravaged, ruined by gaping holes and tears; perhaps they had been donated to the hospital for bandages, or perhaps they had once been old bedclothes, repurposed now and given second life. The young man didn’t struggle in the slightest as he worked, tearing each into long strips. The holes had weakened the fabric, making it vulnerable to the force of his strength.
Nicholas’s mind could not follow a straight path, navigate a single thought, without losing it to the burn of fever. But the image stayed with him, even as his eyes struggled with the weights dragging him back down. What was it about this simple task that spoke to him?
Money…power…
Tearing. Rending. Fabric. Time.
The reason he was here.
The reason Etta had been forced back.
Time—they were nearly out of time—Etta—
Etta. He needed to speak to Etta.
It was night before his chance arrived, and a familiar voice filled the air. Nicholas cracked an eye open, watching Hasan speak to a barrel-chested older man in pristine robes. He tried to open his mouth, but the sound that came out was a pathetic whimper. Neither heard him until he cleared his throat.
“My friend, let me bring you some water—” The older man, his hair as gray as the inside of Nicholas’s head, left with a brief look in his direction. Nicholas caught hold of Hasan’s robe before he could pull away.
“Etta,” he said, carefully forming the word. “Bring…bring me Etta.”
“It is late,” Hasan said, lightly scolding. “Would you wish for her to see you like this?”
So she hadn’t been there at all? “Now,” he said harshly. He thought twice of it and added a softer, hopefully not desperate, “Please.”
“Yes, all right,” Hasan said. He started to rise from where he had knelt beside Nicholas, only to return to his original position, leaning over his face.
“Baha’ar,” he began, his voice soft; grave. “Do not die so far from the sea.”
Nicholas closed his eyes, waiting, and did not open them again until he heard Etta’s familiar gait hurrying across the tiled floor. It was dark out now, the day edging into evening. Candles glowed around him, warming his bed with their light. He thought of their night together—the expression on her sweet face as she had gazed up at him—and felt his whole chest tighten.
Her steps slowed, and he knew that he must have looked as horrendous as he felt. Her expression tore at his heart, made him want to take her pain away. He wished he could see one last smile before he told her the truth.
“How about a kiss, hey?” he whispered.
She seemed to smile in spite of herself, and slowly lowered herself to the floor so that she could press her soft, cool lips against his. When Etta pulled back, she left her hands on his skin, easing them along his cheeks, his forehead, his scalp.
“Where?” he asked, clearing his throat again.
“Qaymair—a hospital here in Damascus,” she said quietly, curling her legs beneath her. “I wanted to take you back to the house, but Hasan was worried about bringing strangers into it. And you needed a doctor, badly.”
Nicholas made a sour face and she let out a light laugh. “Hasan has been standing guard. He barely let me in to see you before now. I had to sneak in under the cover of darkness last night.”
“Alone?” He gave her a disapproving look that she ignored.
“I got caught, and he dragged me off back to the house. You’ve been sleeping for most of the past two days.”
Two days. Holy God. Only three days, then, to meet the old man’s deadline? His heart stirred with fear—for her, the woman responsible for this mad chase.
“The men, were they caught?”
Her hands stilled, and he leaned into her touch greedily to keep her from pulling back. “No. I’m sorry. Do you think they were guardians?”
They must have been, if they had been tailing Rose and realized they’d stumbled onto an equally great bounty with Etta. Bloody hell, they hadn’t even managed to go a full day without being caught. What a worthless protector he’d proven himself to be.
“You’re sorry I was hurt, not that you ran after her,” Nicholas said pointedly, grateful for the steadiness of his voice. “Was it really Rose?”
“Yes—my own mother threw a knife at me.” Etta shook her head. “I can’t wait to tell her.”
“Did she say anything to you?” he asked.
“Just that she’d never let Cyrus or someone named Henry have the astrolabe,” Etta said. “I didn’t even have time to explain that we weren’t giving it to either of them.”
Ah.
He knew it was time. He knew that, aside from simply wanting to see her, he had brought her here to finally speak the truth. But now that Etta was with him, with her lovely face and bright heart, he found himself stalling.
There is no way around, he thought. Only through.
She’d pulled back his blanket enough for him to finally free his arms; he used his newfound mobility to reach up and take her hands, press them against his chest. Nicholas knew that she could feel his heart galloping.
Her brows drew together sharply. She looked so tired to him, and he had little doubt as to who was the cause. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve something to tell you,” he began. “You must let me speak the whole of it. It’s imperative, you know.”
“Can it wait until morning?” she asked. “You need your rest.…”
It was just like her to see evidence that his light was fading, and deny it to the last. “I have not been honest with you. It cannot wait.”
Etta leaned back, but he held her hands to him, anchoring her.
“I didn’t simply come after you through the passage.…I was worried that, yes, you do seem to invite a considerable amount of danger into your life, but…after you went out that first night, went to sleep, Ironwood negotiated new terms with me.” His throat ached so badly, and he lost his train of thought momentarily to the searing pain in his side. “That I would go with you, attend to this matter, and ensure you did not try to make off with the astrolabe or cross him. It was my intention to bring the astrolabe to him, Etta, whether you agreed or not. In exchange, he would surrender his holdings in the West Indies to me, a vast fortune. Now I know the vast fortune will no longer exist once he changes the past and creates a new future.”