by Ryan Graudin
“No.” Priya’s headphones slid down. She did nothing to stop them. “When did I say these things?”
“Short answer? December 31, 95 AD.” Star-stories aligned behind the boy’s stare. “Complicated answer? In a different life.”
A different life. It sounded crazy, but so many things did these days. Time travel had made a mess of nature’s order. Pasts might not fall before futures on the calendar, people lived side by side with themselves, and the promise of parallel worlds lingered behind every Central News Tonight headline. The impossible was all possible.
Priya might have turned her back anyway, had this first sight not felt so much like a second. Or a tenth, times infinity. “What about the long answer? The one with the corroborating datastreams.”
“I was hoping to fill you in over tea.” Far nodded at the hotmug.
“I’m already running late for work.” Twelve hours of reading through charts, tuning up med-droids, and trying not to spill blood samples on her scrubs. Followed by a long hoverbus ride home, reheated leftovers from Sunday dinner, an Acidic Sisters behind-the-scenes datastream, creating tomorrow’s get-through-the-day playlist, and falling asleep to it. She’d gone through these motions before, but only now did they truly feel like motions. Priya wasn’t sure what a different life looked like, or if she even wanted what this boy was offering. All she knew was that she couldn’t stay where she was, without knowing.
She reached for the chai. Her fingers brushed Far’s—warmth, all warmth, and a shiver, too. “But it seems we’re headed in the same direction. Why don’t you walk with me?”
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Although this story is more of an ouroboros than not, the novel itself had a definite beginning. In 2012, Jonathan Sanchez—owner of the renowned Blue Bicycle Books—asked me to take part in Piccolo Spoleto’s Fiction Open. The resulting short story followed a time-traveling thief on a chase through the streets of Charleston. “You have to turn this into a book!” was the general consensus of my friends. My to-write queue was long—sequels, a thriller, an alternate-history series—but the Hunters and the Hiotts kept hounding me about time-traveling thieves. Turns out, after three years of creating a grim, Axis-ruled world, Invictus was the escape I needed.
Though fun, the switch from history with a tinge of sci-fi to sci-fi with a tinge of history was intimidating. Time travel requires brains, and mine would have broken several times if it weren’t for Jacob Graudin. The way my brother untangles paradoxes would make Gram proud! Amie Kaufman instilled in me a confidence that sci-fi was, indeed, a genre I could tackle. Kate Armstrong has been another constant cheerleader of mine, continually asking me for more pages of SparkleBook (as this story was known in the early stages). The Ladies of Tall Trees Lane gave me life through revisions—seriously, those dock sunsets and kraken invocations did wonders. Roshani Chokshi, my fellow meeper, thank you for your notes, your joy, your chai. Speaking of joy, thank you, Rachel Strolle, for your constant supply of red panda GIFs. Saffron would be pleased. Megan and Jesse: Shepherd’s Cottage was a lifesaver; thank you for offering shelter in the storm. My poorly remembered middle school Latin wasn’t going to cut it for this project, so I’m indebted to Hannah VanSyckle and Soraya Een Hajji for their translations. I also owe much to my sensitivity readers: Kheryn Callender and Aneeka Kalia.
Writing careers are built with sweat and tears and stellar agents. I’m still in denial that this is my sixth novel, and I have Tracey Adams to thank for reaching this milestone. Alvina Ling, Nikki Garcia, Pam Gruber, and Hannah Milton were the editorial superteam this book needed. (So. Many. Paradox. Phone. Conversations.)
To the rest of the Little, Brown gang—Saraciea Fennell, Victoria Stapleton, Jenny Choy, Jane Lee, Svetlana Keselman, Megan Tingley—I am forever grateful for your support.
David, thank you for proving what a solid thing love can be. Mom, I am so proud of your strength in the face of entropy. Family, you mean the multiverse to me. Friends, I include you in that, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that kinship goes far beyond DNA. God, thank you for glimpses of eternity. Soli Deo Gloria.