by Jen Greyson
I can hear him back there, rustling the grass with each movement so I’ll know he’s back there. Pretty sure I’m about to say or do something stupid. I need to remember that to him I’m a stranger.
Even so, my flight instinct of jumping into the rushing waters seems an excessive escape.
He pulls up even with me at the edge of the water, close enough for conversation, but far enough away to defend and protect, as always. “Did you lose someone in the flood?”
His voice a mixture of sinful chocolate and cyanide. I draw in his strength. He may not know who he is to me, but that doesn’t mean I have to forget just yet. Bracing myself, I turn.
He is everything I remember, but buoyed now with the life and love of his daughter. Gone is the mask of sorrow that permanently concealed his feelings. Now his blue eyes are bright, even with the concern for my welfare. Blond hair tight around his face, he’s still Constantine—finely tuned, powerful, deadly. And constantly assessing. In a handful of seconds he takes in my T-shirt molded to my curves, my barbarian pants, my fisted hands. His own clutch a journal at his waist and tighten as his demeanor changes ever so slightly. Now he’s cautious. Unsure how to categorize me.
I offer him an olive branch in a lame attempt to introduce myself. “I almost lost several someones… but we all managed to survive. You?”
“My daughter.”
My heart squeezes. “I’m sorry.”
“No, she didn’t die.” He shifts the journal to one hand and stares at it. “This… this book tells me she did once.” He tugs his ear, clearly uncomfortable with the concept. “But someone—”
His head jerks up and he assesses me again. “Not possible.”
“Why?” I whisper, begging him to believe it.
To keep my hope alive that we are possible.
To believe I am possible.
“I have heard accounts of sorcery before… and Rom said much of your bravery.”
Really? The thought is so preposterous I can’t even voice it. Rom hated me. That he said something positive to Constantine of all people… Wow.
“I trust Rom with my most precious. He’s never given me a reason not to.” He’s talking more to himself than to me, still trying to work through this.
“And in this?” I hold my breath. Not daring to hope that his being here means anything for us. But maybe if he believes in me… well, it’s something.
“I suppose I must.”
Air whooshes from my lungs. “I’m Evy, by the way.”
He tips his head. “A fine warrior name.”
We stand awkwardly. I clear my throat and step closer, managing not to fling myself at him.
He fidgets and I freeze.
I narrow my eyes. “Did you just fidget?”
He straightens and takes a large, sure step toward me, reducing the distance between us to a few feet. “I do not fidget. I’m merely unfamiliar how to behave with a sorceress from the future.”
“Well you don’t start by calling her a sorceress.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You tease me.”
I shrug. “It’s kind of my thing.”
He nods slowly like he’s cataloguing that for a later test. You’d think I just told him my swordsmanship strategy the way he’s taking everything so serious.
I opt for simple. “How is Aurelia?”
“She will have a little readjusting. Though the flood scared her, she’s still willful as ever.”
I smile at his description.
“I needed to see this place.” The tension in his shoulders releases. “To piece together the story. Your heroics. I haven’t slept since Penya left me. I read the journal, and though it seems odd to read things that have not happened… Things that will never happen now… Because of you. Reading the words, the events… my heartbreak. All together, they layered a dual memory of being without her, and now to have her back—” Emotion clogs his words. “I cannot thank you.”
“You’re welcome anyway,” I whisper.
Before, he’d have wrapped his arms around me and I’d have melted into his strength. His fingertips would have played at my spine and a thousand fireworks would have erupted at his firm touch. Then his hands would roam across my hips and follow the curve of my ass. He’d fill his hands with me and lift my legs to wrap around his waist. I’d bury my face in the warm heat of his neck.
My skin would catch on fire, and he’d rake his teeth across the crazy sensitive skin at the base of my neck. He hasn’t shaved today, and the thousand piercing quills of his beard would incite a chill across my body. I’d squeeze my legs tight and run my hands across his shoulders and into the thick hair at the base of his skull.
But none of that happens.
Instead, I swallow the tears and emotion down. It’s not possible for us to have a future. Even when it’s so very tempting when we stand in the same time.
“It also seems… ” He clears his throat and fidgets again. A red stain creeps up his neck and he looks everywhere but at me. Then he raises the journal. “It also seems that we were intimate.”
I choke. “You put that in your journal?”
He straightens and jerks the journal back. “I wrote many things in here that make no sense. Penya assures me they’re all true.”
I recover and fight the surge of elation. His diary—he wrote about our sex in his diary like a freshman girl. Part of me wants to ask if he said it was good.
“Were we?” His voice is strained.
Oh yes. We were very good.
Now it’s my turn to clear my throat and blush. “Were we what?”
“Intimate,” he says harshly. “Intimate, were we intimate?” he says again, softer.
I nod and stare hard, waiting for his response. Willing him to somehow remember. Willing his curiosity to override any niceties or protocol or fear and see if it was true. Right here, right now.
He scratches behind his ear and runs his hands through his hair. Then asks quietly, “Did you like it?”
Wow, straight to the dirty talk. Nice.
I bite my lower lip to keep from grinning. I nod again.
“Hmm.” He rubs his thumb across the front of the journal, and my nipples pucker as they remember that movement. “I only ask because apparently I did, too. But then you… left.” He lifts his head and I see the question there again. The one he asked me so many nights from now on our favorite training field.
“I came to ask you to train me,” I blurt before I apologize for things that haven’t even happened yet. There was a good reason then to tell him I couldn’t stay, and it’s still the same right now.
One of us needs to keep that in mind.
His head snaps and I feel bad for tromping over our quiet moment, but I can’t do this. I can’t put my heart through that again.
“Train you?” He recovers and glances at the journal and then up at me. “Like these journal entries?”
“Kind of. I need to learn what the different-colored lightning does.”
“How would I know?”
I curl one hand around the end of my braid. “You always just did somehow. If anyone can figure it out, you can.”
He relaxes now that I’ve put him back in his comfort zone. He transfers the pad of his thumb to the hollow below his mouth and swishes it back and forth, pondering the mechanics of my request. “Yes. I will train you. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.” My chest swells with the promise and I struggle to breathe. “Where?”
He looks around at the decimated bank, flattened reeds, and washed-out road. “Here.”
“Okay.” Not a bad idea. All the travelers who clogged the roads are probably finding new ways into town until the bridge and road are repaired. We’ll have the place to ourselves.
I’m not sure where that idea came from, but it’s genius. Now I’ll get to be around him, we can start over where we exist best together, and maybe we can add a few more entries to his sex journal.
Maybe I’ll buy him a new one. A moment of elation rises in my chest, m
aking me smile.
He tips his head. “You are curious. And not what I expected of a sorceress.”
Oh, you just wait.
He turns to leave then stops a few feet away. “It seems I also owe you an excessive amount of gold for teaching me how to travel as you do.”
I still. “I forgot about that. We got so caught up our last alteration—and then… ” My hands flail while I try and sum up the disaster that is my life.
He interrupts before I can sink back into my despair. “I have some for you.” He digs a small bag out of his pocket and tosses it through the air. “You’ll have to come see me to arrange for the rest of it.”
I catch it and almost drop the bag as he smiles. “And to finish what you started.”
CHAPTER 9
AFTER A QUICK trip home to check on Papi’s status—unchanged, yet worse than Penya believes—and grab the booklets for my next training session with Constantine, I arrive outside a long line of chain-link fencing.
My fingers wrap around the cold metal and I lean my forehead into the diamond pattern. I couldn’t stay and wait for Papi’s final breath. All those faces, begging for answers to what happened… I just couldn’t. Please, please let him be okay.
I push away from the fence and roll my shoulders. Above me, the sun is bright behind a layer of clouds, filtering the light into a perfect vintage photo of Lower Manhattan. There’s a simpleness to this version of New York, and the brisk air is sharp with the cool touch of winter. I tuck my braid beneath my collar, zip my jacket, and tug the hem low over my hips.
Chaos and bodies clog the entire neighborhood. Six- and seven-story buildings covered with tiny balconies loom over shorter shops with their awnings fluttering in the winter draft. Bodies and carts and vehicles crowd the street, but no one pays me any attention as they rush toward errands and tasks. Women in an array of skirts and small hats tug along well-dressed children. Men boast suits and fedoras. Ethnicity taints every face. I fit in for the first time in forever.
Halfway down the block, the press of bodies parts and a dark sedan turns the corner and parks along the curb. I pause to see who gets out of the mobsterish looking car. When no one does, I try to remember when Papi said he was here dealing with the mob, but I’m not sure if this is then or earlier. I stare at the car for a few more seconds then turn. I’m sure my longing thoughts about Papi are just making me reminisce about his first arc.
The fencing rises to an imposing height, even though it’s not topped with anything crazy like razor wire. Bricks and lumber stacks clutter the other side, as if awaiting assignments. In the distance, the foundation for a large building slumbers in the misty morning.
I move along the fence, searching for the entrance.
Above the door, Tesla Electric Company proclaims I’m at the right place, but I’m not sure what year that makes it. I sneak through the gap between the gates and wander the grounds. A cold ocean breeze tugs strands of hair from my braid, and I wish I’d grabbed a scarf or gloves. I yank my collar up and jam my hands in my pockets, fingertips brushing one of Papi’s booklets.
There’s a small portion of the building complete and enclosed. I walk toward it, my boots crunching across the gravel. Crows scream at me from the crooked limbs of trees on the perimeter of the fence.
A plywood board leans against the threshold of the doorway, creating a sorry excuse for a door, as well as gaping holes. I peer through a gap and spot a man working inside. I can see him only when he races past the door. From what I catch, he’s well-dressed, lean, and incredibly tall, but everything else is a blur.
Then he pauses. Dark hair parted in the center, olive skinned, and mustached, he’s probably incredibly handsome for this time. I’m not big into the ‘stache, so he’s really not doing it for me. Intent on the two papers he’s comparing, the fervor is impossible to miss. Even from here, I’m drawn to whatever he’s working on… like I want to know the outcome, too. He jabs the paper on the left then sets both down and moves again. He might be assembling something, but even when I move to a better vantage, I still can’t see exactly what.
My boot tread grabs a big rock, and it ricochets off the brick wall.
He stops and looks right at me. I straighten under his gaze. “We have no time for horseplay. Come in and assist me.”
Not good. This is not how I wanted to meet him. If he’s the genius Ilif thinks he is, I’ll last all of two seconds before the jig is up. He hands me papers and storms off toward the back of the room. I fumble for the right response. I should probably introduce myself, but then I’d have to explain why I’m here. At least there are tools—I can wing some sort of abilities if he’ll let me use them.
He hurries back to the workstation. Though his motions are propelled by a gangly quickness, he radiates self-assuredness. He knows what he wants and knows he will find it, but it’s like his body’s attempt to keep up with his mind is a failure.
Tools and metal clang and screech as he moves them around on the table. They take shape beneath his assembly, and he lifts the oblong piece for examination. His movements are oddly reverent as he works with them. I fidget, wary of drawing attention, but not quite sure what he expects either.
“Come write down these results.”
I hesitate, and he looks at me. “Are you not Thomas Fouster’s boy?”
I clear my throat, shift back and forth, and pull my braid from beneath my collar. “No. I’m Evy, and I was wondering if I could work with you.”
He pauses, as if racing through his catalogue of duties and inventions to find a place where I’ll be of use. Then his gaze sweeps over me. Not Constantine’s long perusal of my attributes. Nikola’s is a brisk, electronic sweep, as if assuring himself I contain all the necessary body parts. “Tonight. I’m hosting a dinner party. You’ll be my companion. You can carry on a dinner conversation, can’t you?”
A smile tugs at my lips. I think that was an honest invitation from him, and one he extends often to the people in his life. Genius he may be, but women are merely another science experiment to be compared and contrasted.
“I can.” Though I doubt I can carry on the conversation he’s used to at dinner, it may be my only shot at getting closer to him since he won’t let me stay now. “A car will pick you up at seven. Cocktails begin at seven thirty with dinner following. Leave me a note over there”—he waves toward a tiny desk near the door—“with your address.”
A flutter erupts in my belly again, like the crows taking flight, but I manage a lie. “I’m staying at your hotel.”
He does the quick sweep of examination again, disapproval evident. “Then I shall send an escort and forgo the car.”
Apparently, my attire isn’t fitting for residents of whatever swanky hotel he’s living out of.
“I expect you to be clothed in a gown consummate with your sex.”
I nod and he turns.
That is the end of our conversation. I’ve been excused.
I leave through the planked doorway. The temperature only drops a few degrees outside his laboratory, and I wonder if he keeps it that cold on purpose, or because he’s too distracted to turn on the heat.
Nikola Tesla seems like a fascinating man, and he’s piqued my interest in something I haven’t cared about in a long time—science.
Not because Ilif told me I had to, but because there is a sense of wonder in Nikola. A contagious fascination. Now, I want to know how things work, too.
The gravel crunches and the nearby tree is replete with birds again. They erupt into the gray sky, and I pause at the gate to watch them bloom into a precise choreography of distraction. They weave and dodge as a group for a moment and land in a dark mass among the branches.
As I slip through the gate, I scan the bustling street for somewhere to arc, since I have no idea how far it is to the hotel. I could cab it, but I still haven’t changed in Constantine’s gold for manageable money. And arcing won’t help me there. Not my brightest plan. I slow. Up and down the street, peop
le are calling it a night, filtering into buildings, pulling shades. Dozens have disappeared while I’ve vacillated.
The remaining workaholic seems to be Nikola.
I glance back.
He’s standing just outside the threshold. Drawn to me, watching.
If there is another soul on this planet who’d love to watch me arc, and question everything about how and why it works, it would be Nikola.
I grant him the favor and figure if nothing else, it will give us something to chat about during dinner.
I arc, instantly regretting my lack of ability to be discreet. I hope for an obscure landing and arrive in a far corner of a hotel lobby—if I’m not a complete derelict, it’s actually the right one.
Nothing stirs, so I ease forward and search for an indicator of what hotel he’s sent me to while I wait for whatever memory I’ve gathered from a stranger, but nothing comes. Go figure.
No time for games, so I scan the room and sip the air to settle my nerves. Tall black pillars stretch to the ceiling, ringed in gold designs and reflecting the mahogany tables and light-golden chairs at their bases. Below me, the carpet is lush and patterned in black, gold, and blue designs, mimicking the ones on the ceiling. Palm trees stand sentry, their fronds stretching over the sitting area.
Lamps dot the lobby, and other than the uniformed staff on the opposite side of the room, it’s empty.
Constantine’s bag of gold is heavy against my thigh. I stuck it in my pocket before leaving him, not to spend it, but loathe to let anything of his go. I’m not sure what to do with it. I should have walked from Nikola’s place to find a bank or somewhere to exchange it. I doubt it won’t draw attention, but maybe I can bluff my way since they won’t require a credit card to hold the room.
I straighten my shoulders and try to look like I belong as I cross the lobby. The concierge does a double-take and gives me the same once-over as Nikola’s scan of measurement, and then his training takes over and he stows his judgment.
I’ve never cared what people think of me, and I’m not about to start now. I march up to the desk and plop the bag on the counter. The resounding thump ricochets through the marbled lobby. I smile.