A flash of bone-deep horror cut through her.
I can’t lose Mom, too. Not now, when she had so many questions about her family. Not ever, when they had so many places to go together. If her mom was gone, too, what reason would Etta even have to try to get back to her New York, to the tattered remains of her old life there?
Destroying the astrolabe would be her last resort, she decided. Some part of her was still hoping she could get through to Sophia, to convince her to come back to Etta’s own time and escape Ironwood once and for all. That way she could use the astrolabe, somehow, to create a passage directly to her time without needing to find the one in the Bahamas that led to the Met.
Etta slid the compass into the folds of her robe, just in case, and stretched out over her blanket. She forced her mind clear of all of the competing thoughts that sprang up when she closed her eyes.
It’ll be over soon, she thought. An ending must be final. She rubbed the raw markings around her wrists, and tried very hard not to wish that Nicholas was there. She didn’t need a protector, or a rescuer. But she did need him.
Sophia returned half an hour later by Etta’s guess, still grumbling as she sank down onto her bedding. Next door, the guardians were talking, laughing, and Etta caught a familiar word passing between them, one Hasan had used: ašwaak.
Ašwaak…as in, Thorns?
There was silence between the girls as the last lights from the caravanserai were finally extinguished, dragging them into the darkness of night.
“Does the astrolabe really create passages?” Sophia asked suddenly. “Not read them?”
I’ll give you an answer if you give me one. Etta almost said it, but she thought of Nicholas then, and realized suddenly that she might not need to manipulate Sophia. Not when the truth was on her side.
“Yes. He wants to create a passage back to a point where he can save his first wife without losing his fortune, or his control over the other families,” Etta said. “He’ll destroy our future, I’m almost sure of it, just to rebuild something he thinks is better. You can’t let him have that much power.”
“Oh, I was never going to give it to him,” Sophia said. “Especially not now that I know exactly how powerful it is—thank you for that piece of information, by the way. My God, this is amazing. I won’t just be able to lord it over him—I’ll be able to burn his life down around him.”
“Sophia—” Etta tried to interrupt, but the girl talked over her, almost trembling with her excitement.
“This is the most powerful object in the world; the travelers and guardians won’t just align with me, they’ll kneel. I won’t need to be the heir—I can go back far enough to take him out of the game entirely.”
Etta was so stunned, she almost couldn’t speak. “You’d really kill him?”
“Not before he lived to regret not choosing me,” Sophia said, that false sweetness back in her voice. “I want him to suffer, to see me rise as he falls. So don’t worry, darling. He won’t change the future, because I’ll change it first.”
AFTER NEARLY SEVEN HOURS ON camelback, rocking with the animal’s slow gait, Etta was too focused on controlling her ride to notice when the sparse desert had begun to take on some green again. If she’d thought the first leg of their trip had been barren, this last section felt like they were seeing the dry, crumbling bones of the world. Etta’s eyes never once stopped watering from the sun’s glare cutting through the cloudless blue sky.
But then in the distance, something began to take shape. Not the city itself, but the crumbling fortress on one of the hills that flanked it. What was left after a thousand years of wear and wind looked distinctly Roman, a sea of pillars and columns, hundreds of them that looked like they were holding up the sky.
There was a green oasis nearby, a dense cluster of trees that seemed at odds with the stripped-down land stretching in every direction. But here and there, as they drew their camels into the city, Etta saw evidence of ravines and what looked like small canals.
Now that they were inside the boundaries of the ruins, and Etta had to crane her neck back to look at the carved reliefs on the columns’ heads, it was easy to imagine the magnificent scope of the city in its prime. Hasan had called it one of the most dazzling stops along the ancient trade routes between east and west, a once carefully cultivated jewel that had fallen into neglect, and then devastation, as new civilizations rose up and the roads redrew themselves. There was an amphitheater and a large, towering building that Etta assumed was some kind of temple, but for the most part, they were weaving through the remnants of the buildings’ foundations. Their footprints.
“Well?” Sophia said, turning her camel sharply to cut off the path of Etta’s. Daisy, as she’d started calling the camel, let out a growl and began to dance around impatiently.
“‘Well,’ what?” Etta asked, adjusting her hood. The sun was at its pinnacle, beating down on the top of her head, reminding Etta she needed to keep drinking the water in her rapidly shrinking goatskin.
“What was the clue? Where are we supposed to find it, now that we’re here?”
Lie to her, Etta thought. You’re already here, you don’t need them, and she won’t change her mind. You can go and search by yourself.…Except, of course, that if they got separated, Sophia might be able to find it first, and Etta would be too far away to stop her.
The last resort, then, Etta thought miserably. The stakes were obvious to her now, and it felt like every other minute she’d been biting back tears of bitter frustration. She couldn’t save herself and her future and save her mom. Last night, she’d lain awake for hours trying to imagine the world Cyrus would try to build and control with the astrolabe. Etta had tried to convince herself that Sophia would be the lesser of two evils. But the truth was, Sophia was like a firework with a lit fuse; it would only be a matter of time before her temper or impatience got the best of her, and her plans exploded around her. Then, the astrolabe would almost certainly find its way back to Ironwood.
“I’ll tell you,” Etta said, “but only in exchange for something.”
Sophia’s brows rose at that. “This silly game again, Linden? Really?”
Etta sat up straighter in her saddle, struggling against the rising tears of frustration. I’m sorry, Mom. I just wanted you to be proud of me.… “You could spend weeks, months, maybe even years searching for it here. I’ll help you, but only if you let me create a passage directly back to my time.”
To her surprise, Sophia seemed to be considering this. “You actually know how to use the damn thing?”
Etta seized on the small, hopeful surprise in the other girl’s voice, and lied. “Yes. It was in my mother’s letter. I’ll show you, but only if I have your word you’ll let me create the passage.”
She wouldn’t need more than a second to smash the astrolabe. Etta only needed to find a way to get it into her hands.
“All right,” Sophia said, holding out her hand to shake. Etta took it, meeting the girl’s gaze evenly. “Now tell me what you know.”
“We think the clue refers to a burial place,” Etta said, hoping she wouldn’t live to regret it. “Some kind of a tomb.”
Sophia blew out a hard gust of air from her nostrils. “Can’t you be more specific?”