Rowan was about to hazard a question in Simon’s direction when Hex stalked into the room, cheeks flushed spectacularly and blue eyes flashing. She looked incandescent with rage.
Rowan sprang to his feet and set aside his coffee in case her wrath was directed at him and he needed both hands to defend himself. The lovemaking had been…well, better than good, at least for him, so he didn’t know what he could have possibly done to make her so mad in the intervening hours. If anything, he was the one who should be upset—which he was, damn it, though he’d die before he told her that.
And he did have to admit she looked rather appealing with her blood up like this. She’d managed to clean herself up since he’d left her, her hair half-tamed, her skin clean of blood and grime, and her injured shoulder neatly bandaged. She’d dressed herself in a clean blouse and waistcoat and a fresh pair of leather trousers that were even tighter than the previous ones.
His body, traitor that it was, stirred with interest when he caught sight of her backside, and he braced himself for a different sort of explosion. Their last argument had certainly ended in a spectacular way, and he wouldn’t exactly be averse to another round.
He was, apparently, a masochist.
But Hex only had eyes for Simon. She didn’t even glance at Rowan once as she stalked over to the tinker, gloved hands digging deep into her hips, as if she were barely restraining herself from strangling the man.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Simon lowered one side of his goggles for a moment and eyed her in annoyance. “Testing my frequency spectrum galvanometer,” he said flatly, as if he couldn’t believe she was stupid enough not to see that for herself.
She hefted a rather large looking spanner off the tinker’s workbench, raised it threateningly above her head, and started in Simon’s direction. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” she growled.
Simon finally pushed the goggles onto his forehead, eyes popping wide in alarm when he saw the spanner. He raised his hands in surrender.
“You’ve recalibrated our course,” she spat out, looking nowhere near to changing her mind about beating the man over the head, “and if it is to where I think it is, I want a damn good explanation. Otherwise, I’m tempted to chuck you into the Atlantic.”
Simon sighed, gave Rowan an inscrutable glance that raised all of his hackles, and set aside the goggles. He pushed himself off of his chair and strode over to the small mahogany desk bolted into the floor, retrieving a jumble of documents off the top.
He held out a small, soiled scrap of paper to Hex, and Rowan’s heart sank. He recognized that scrap, full of nonsense words and mathematical equations far surpassing his understanding. He’d thought he’d lost it long ago.
Hex took the paper and studied it, her brow furrowing. “What is this?”
Simon nodded in Rowan’s direction grimly. “I found it in some clothing he left behind a month ago.”
Hex shifted her attention to Rowan, and Rowan had to look away from the mixture of confusion and dread in her expression. He was far too familiar with that particular look from her. It wasn’t any wonder she wanted nothing to do with him. “Rowan?”
“The sheikh gave it to me before we escaped,” he said on a sigh. “I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant, though.”
Simon snorted. “Of course you couldn’t. It’s a Vigenère cipher. There are only three people I know of in the world who could break that cipher without a keyword.”
“And?” Hex demanded.
“And I am one of those three,” Simon said flatly. He focused his attention on Rowan. “What year is it?”
“What?” Rowan cried, completely mystified by the sudden change of topic.
“Simple question. Don’t think about it, just tell me what year it is.”
“1897, of course,” he scoffed. He remembered that much.
Something that looked very much like excitement passed through Simon’s gray eyes, despite his outward stoicism. It was the same look he gave to his machines when they did something unexpected, and it made Rowan even more wary.
“Are you certain?” Simon pressed.
Rowan felt his heart sink even further at Simon’s persistence, fearing this line of questioning was leading to some place disagreeable, but he managed an incredulous laugh. “I am certain it is 1897. I may not remember anything else, but I remember what year it is.”
An uneasy silence descended over the cabin until Hex began, “He is confused…”
“I am not,” Rowan interjected firmly, a bit irritated. She could at least look him in the eye if she was going to take it upon herself to analyze his state of mind.
“It is 1887, Rowan,” Simon said quietly.
“Impossible,” Rowan said. “I remember…”
He clutched at his head as a sharp, stabbing sensation passed from temple to temple. He gasped in pain and staggered forward, dropping to his knees.
He remembered 1887. Yet he didn’t remember it at all, or all the years before and since. Everything was out of focus, too far in the distance for him to reach no matter how his mind strained.
He felt Hex’s hand on his arm but could barely see her face through the fog that had descended over his vision. She managed to coax him to his feet and led him back to his chair. He collapsed into it and tried to order his reeling mind.
“What is going on, Simon?” Hex demanded. She sounded angry again and not a little bit panicked.
“I would like to know that myself. You say the sheikh gave you the cipher?” Simon demanded of Rowan.
Rowan nodded, the pain ebbing just enough for him to begin to focus on the world around him again. Hex’s hand was still on his shoulder. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted it there or not, but he was too weak to remove it.
“Did he tell you anything else? Do you remember anything about him?” Simon persisted.
“He said he knew who I was,” Rowan said, rubbing his eyes wearily. “He gave me the note and told me it was his last request, and that it would fulfill the debt I owed to him for saving our lives.”
“I knew he wanted something from us,” Hex muttered. “Though why would he give Rowan an impossible cipher?” she asked Simon.
“Because the note was for me,” Simon said grudgingly. “He must have known somehow I was aboard the ship. He addressed me by my name. My full name.”
“Impossible. I don’t even know your full name,” Hex said.
“No one does. No one alive, at any rate,” Simon replied grimly. “Yet somehow he does. And he knows me well enough to know I could break the code. Both are impossible.”
“What did the cipher say, Simon?” Hex demanded.
Simon held out another sheet of paper with clear reluctance. Hex took it and read its contents, her face paling, before handing it off to Rowan.
It took a while for the words to sink in. Simple words, but no less devastating.
To Simon von Hellenburg. Ask Rowan what year it is. He will tell you 1897 and you will both be correct. On 6-28 an earthquake measuring magnitude ten will strike Cairo. Return Rowan to the tomb and all will be set to rights.
“I’ve analyzed the equations for weeks, and I just finished decoding the message a few hours ago,” Simon said. “I made the decision to return to the tomb shortly afterward.”
“And you thought I didn’t need to be informed!” Hex cried.
Simon lifted a single eyebrow. “You were…otherwise occupied.”
Rowan felt himself blushing like a schoolgirl alongside Hex. But he had a feeling Hex’s red cheeks were caused less by embarrassment and more by sheer outrage at Simon’s audacity.
“And I knew you wouldn’t do it yourself,” Simon rushed to continue before Hex could harangue him. “You would spend hours arguing with me about it, hours that we do not have. We must return to the tomb as quickly as possible. He must go back there,” he said, stabbing his finger in Rowan’s direction.
Hex’s finger
s dug into Rowan’s shoulder, as if seeking to ground herself. “You find nothing at all suspicious about that note?” she demanded of Simon, her tone incredulous.
“I find everything about it suspicious,” Simon hissed, “but I am convinced we must do as the cipher says.”
“Surely you, of all people, cannot be taken in by so obvious a con!” she cried.
“My conclusions were reached scientifically,” Simon retorted, looking greatly offended.
“Horseshit,” Hex said flatly.
Both of Simon’s eyebrows rose at that, and his mouth thinned into an angry line. He matched Hex’s own angry stance. “The words didn’t convince me of anything. The mathematical proofs did,” Simon said stonily. “Numbers don’t lie.”
“What do the proofs mean?” Rowan asked, cutting into their argument.
Simon’s shoulders relaxed a bit at the redirection, and his eyes lit with poorly concealed eagerness. He began to talk very quickly. “Theoretical physics is not my area, but these proofs are obviously based off of Maxwell-Hertz equations. Whoever wrote this has postulated that an electromagnetic field of enough magnitude can cause a curve in space-time. He even suggests that it is possible to affect matter through that curvature, and vice-versa.
“He further proposes that time functions as a fourth dimension, but that it is possible—possible—to bypass that fourth dimension, or at least bend it enough to displace matter. The implications for that are…mindboggling. Whoever wrote this…” He let out a sigh that could only be termed enraptured. “Is a genius. Or a complete bedlamite…”
“Ugh. In English, Simon,” Hex said impatiently. “I didn’t understand a damn word you just said.”
Simon rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently. “In English, these are mathematical proofs for the displacement of matter through space-time in…”
“In English for five year olds,” Hex amended.
Simon scowled at her. “Time travel,” he bit out. “Specifically time travel into the past.”
Another uneasy silence fell over the cabin until Hex broke it with incredulous laughter. “You can’t be serious!” she cried.
Simon did not look amused at all. “I am. Very serious. The proof goes on to postulate the effect that such a displacement of matter would have, however, and that effect is catastrophic. Destruction of the universe catastrophic.”
“Really, Simon. I don’t know what any of that means,” Hex insisted stubbornly. Rowan suspected she simply didn’t want to know. He certainly didn’t.
“It means that he,” Simon said, pointing at Rowan, “is causing the hailstorms in the desert in June, and the earthquakes, and the sandstorm that is nearly the size of the whole bloody continent. It is the reason that the sheikh—who must also be a time traveler, by the way—knew about the earthquake in Cairo weeks in advance, not to mention the exact answer Rowan would give to the question of what year it is.”
“Because he is from the future,” Hex scoffed.
“I’m not crazy,” Simon insisted.
“You sound crazy,” Hex retorted, but she didn’t seem convinced of her own words. Her hand finally dropped from Rowan’s shoulder, and he felt cold all over from the loss.
His first instinct was to ignore Simon’s ramblings the same way he’d ignored the sheikh’s note and the Swede’s poisonous insinuations. But how could he do so now when there was the possibility, however farfetched, that he was causing people to die? That he could cause the destruction of the universe?
Though that last one was still hard to wrap his head around.
“I have proof,” Simon said, returning to his galvanometer, which was still humming away on the table. “I’ve been working on this since we left the desert the first time. I didn’t get to finish it in time to observe the tomb, but I expect the readings there will be similar to Rowan’s.”
He held out the goggles to Hex. She took them hesitantly and placed them over her eyes.
“I have hooked up the galvanometer’s electrical current into the lenses,” he said, flipping the metallic lenses into place and fiddling with the device. “It will essentially stretch the palette of light visible to the human eye to include the entire electromagnetic spectrum.”
“English,” Hex reminded him wearily.
Simon huffed and flicked a switch on the device that made it hum even louder. “You’ll be able to see ultraviolet light, infrared light, and radio waves through the lenses, that sort of thing.”
Hex peered at Simon through the lenses. “You look like a yellowish sort of light,” she said skeptically.
“Yes. That is a normal human heat signature. Now look at Rowan.”
She turned her head and gasped, her whole body freezing in shock. She ripped the goggles off and shoved them back at Simon, her face drained of color. She didn’t look at Rowan as she crossed the cabin to a porthole window and propped herself against it.
Rowan’s heart sank to his toes. “What did you see, Hex?” he demanded.
Hex just shook her head, still unable to turn to him.
“The problem is she didn’t see anything,” Simon finally answered him. “Where there should be something—you—there is absolutely nothing. A complete absence of light. A vacuum.”
“Yet I am here,” he insisted. “You can see me now. Touch me.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Simon countered. “I can barely understand it myself, but all the laws of physics deny that you truly exist in this moment.”
Rowan rose from his seat unsteadily and moved toward the device. “Let me see,” he demanded.
Simon balked. “If you touch the device, it will most likely malfunction.”
Rowan took the goggles from Simon anyway. The galvanometer wheezed, sparked, and then went dead.
Simon scowled at him and snatched his goggles back. “See? This is why we have had so many electrical problems with you aboard the ship. You nullify energy because you’re ripping a hole in the universe.”
“Hex,” he breathed, sounding a bit desperate even to his own ears. “Is that what you saw? Do you believe what Simon is saying?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she said shakily, still avoiding his eyes. “I still say we can’t trust the cryptic note of a stranger, no matter what you’re saying, Simon.”
“The sheikh is not a stranger,” Rowan admitted. “He’s like me, Hex. I saw his eyes that night we escaped. They’re like mine, like the Swede’s.”
“And you didn’t think to say anything?” she cried.
“Why would I have said anything about it to you?” he asked her gently. “You always made it perfectly clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”
She winced, and something like regret flitted over her features. But she didn’t contradict him. How could she, when he was only speaking the truth? “What makes you think he’s any better than the Swede?” she finally said.
“He didn’t try to kill me, for one,” he said dryly. “He saved my life and yours.”
“He could still be manipulating you,” she insisted.
“Of course he’s manipulating me,” he retorted. “He’s been doing that from the moment we met him. If anything, I need to know why.”
“I don’t like it,” she said, then fell silent.
Eventually, she dropped her arms to her sides and tilted her chin up at a determined angle, as if steeling herself. She glanced at Simon.
“There is a sandstorm standing in our way. It will be nearly impossible to get close enough,” she began reluctantly, and Rowan didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disheartened at her swift turn-around. She was considering staying on their present course, which meant she believed Simon deep down despite her denials.
And damn it, so did he. What Simon was suggesting sounded impossible. But if it wasn’t—and the past month had taught him that the world was full of things that should have been impossible—then he was responsible for the destruction of half a city. The very thought left him heartsick, for who knew how many live
s had been lost.
Simon nodded grimly. “We’ll have to risk it, Hex.”
“And Helen?” she asked.
“She’ll be waiting for us, safe and sound, when we return.”
“If we return,” she countered, her eyes filled with worry. “That storm is liable to tear the Amun Ra apart.”
Chapter Thirteen
SHE FOUND HIM on the ship’s deck, staring up at the passing stars. It was a clear night over the Mediterranean, the smell of the sea thick in the air, and he was leaning against the railing, powerful body outlined in the moonlight, his dark, silky hair ruffling in the gentle breeze.
She felt something ease inside of her at the sight of him, something she’d held tight since she’d looked through Simon’s goggles and seen nothing, just a giant, Rowan-shaped emptiness. But looking at him now…well, he’d never looked so beautiful to her, so real.
He didn’t turn around at her approach, though he must have heard her. His rigid body language told her how little he wanted company.
Her company in particular, no doubt. She’d made a right hash of things. But then again, that was an area in which she’d always excelled. After they’d decided to return to the tomb, he’d left the lab without once meeting her eyes. She’d have to be blind not to notice the hurt in his expression every time she’d mustered the courage to look at him. She’d treated him very shabbily indeed.
“We should reach the tomb the day after tomorrow,” she said, settling in beside him, ignoring the way he stiffened even further, as if bracing for a blow.
He flexed his hands against the railing and continued to stare off into the night sky. “If you are unwilling, I will find another way there,” he said tonelessly.
“No,” she said firmly. “I won’t let you do this alone. We’ll figure this out, Rowan. Together.”
Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) Page 22