30. Chapter 30
Chapter 30
S omething strange was happening at Ralkin’s house. Three days ago, the morning after Emily’s last expedition, James reported a carriage arriving with several people. Two days later, more carriages and people came. Either Ralkin had a strange idea of what a party looked like (they didn’t look celebrative, and Emily thought if anyone, James would recognize a good party) or he had way, way more partners than they’d thought.
This morning, Emily arrived for her shift just as the door to the house opened. She flattened against the wall next to their hiding spot and signaled James.
Ralkin exited, wearing his regular, somber black three-piece suit and a bowler hat.
Emily held her breath. Don’t come this way—
He turned the other way and headed down the street.
James lifted himself over the fence.
“The house is empty now.” Emily wasn’t sure why she was whispering.
“Yes, but we also know the almonite isn’t there anymore. ”
“You mean we follow him? He usually just goes to Boston Tech.”
“Yes … but we never checked what he does at the college.” James grabbed her hand. “Come on. If he’s going there for work, we might still have time to come back and explore the house before he returns.”
Ralkin had already gained some distance on them, so Emily didn’t object as they took off after him at a quick pace. The suggestion of splitting had been on her tongue for a second, but she had to admit she welcomed James’s backup—and, not that she’d ever say it to him, but she also didn’t want to leave him alone in the crutches of a mad, evil, time-traveling scientist.
At the end of the street, Ralkin caught a cab. James and Emily waited for a few seconds, then James hailed another and instructed him to drive after Ralkin. He took the seat facing front, and Emily wiggled on hers, trying to pull her pants up a few inches. Should’ve taken Gracie’s offer to take them in.
She caught James watching her in amusement.
“What? It’s not my fault the Watchers didn’t make any women’s clothing. That I know of,” she grumbled.
“Oh, please.” He waved his hand. “It’s not a problem.” He smiled.
Emily stuck out her tongue, then resumed watching through the window.
“Do women wear pants in your time?” James asked.
“A lot.” She repressed her laugh.
“What?”
“Sometimes they’re really short, too. If you’re somewhere hot during the summer. Like me, right now, that I’m in Boston …” She cut herself off when James raised a very interested eyebrow. “Never mind.”
He let it go in silence. For a minute .
“Just how short? Knees?”
Emily coughed.
“Mid-thighs?”
She coughed again.
“Surely not—wait, I think he’s pulling over.”
“Already?” Emily leaned over the window. “That was, what, five blocks? He could’ve walked.”
Ralkin’s cab stopped at an industrial-looking building. James and Emily stopped a little further up the street, close to a church with a heavily arched, carved facade. Trying to look inconspicuous—Emily pulled her hair up to pass as a boy from a distance—they walked toward the building. Ralkin stopped to greet someone at the entrance.
James pulled Emily to the wall. “Ross,” he whispered.
Emily gasped and glanced at the two men. They all looked the same to her, in their baggy jackets and pants, but the man did have Ross’ physique and hair color.
The men shook their hands, and Ross walked off.
“Should we … should you …” Emily started, once again pondering the splitting dilemma.
James seemed to be torn on the same issue. “Can you keep up with Ralkin? And I take Ross?”
Emily wavered. Alone with Ralkin. But the opportunity was so great … “I can do it. I’ll just shadow him. But you, too! Only follow him, okay?”
“Don’t say you’re worried about me, Flicker?”
She may have blushed. “You may have fast hands, but he’s got time travel.” She flicked her eyes to the men—Ross was already catching a cab.
“No time to lose.” James patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I’ll find out where he lives—that’s something already. ”
She nodded and watched him go with a little squeeze of her heart. Then she shook the worry away and ran after Ralkin.
The building with long, white hallways was some kind of a lab. Emily saw a room with an abundance of wheel-based machinery, and another with shelves upon shelves of chemical supplies. Luckily for her, it was a public space—part of the college, perhaps?—so Ralkin wasn’t worried about someone heading in the same direction. She kept her head down, and a group of students that passed paid her no attention.
On the not-so-optimistic side, maybe that meant she was trailing him for nothing. Ralkin could’ve come here for work. But now she was already involved, so when Ralkin finally entered a room down the hallway, Emily stopped and deliberated.
She could phase through the door, but there was always a sense of discomfort, going into an unknown room. Ralkin’s lab at home was one thing; god knows what awaited her behind this door. Her stomach tightened. It could be dangerous. It could be a trap.
Or it could be an innocent chemistry lecture.
So she did a series of rapid knocks and waited, ready to freeze time when someone would open the door. But nobody did.
“Ah, screw it,” she muttered and phased through.
The room was a rather ordinary chemistry lab, with its assortment of liquids, glassware, and burners spread along tables and shelves. One other door was located on the left wall. The room was empty, so Emily released her freeze and waited a few seconds for the nausea to pass.
And that’s when she saw it. The vial of almonite.
She rushed to the table. That idiot has no idea —
Her hand stopped a few inches short of the vial. An invisible force tugged at it and, at the same time, kept it in place. She tried to yank it away. She couldn’t move it. In fact … she couldn’t move her body at all.
“I thought you’d come sooner or later,” a voice behind her said. From the corner of her eye, Ralkin’s dark figure approached, keeping a few feet away from her.
Turns out it was the “trap” option.
Emily inwardly reached for her mantra. Wait, stop … stop. Stop.
Nothing happened. A mild but nasty pain spread through her body—the type that’s more annoying than actually harmful.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ralkin said.
“What did you do to me?”
“The source of your discomfort is the little pyramid-shaped object you see there.” Ralkin pointed to a two-inch tall metallic pyramid by the almonite vial. “It works like a magnet for the almonite in your body. It won’t harm you—well, not in the short term.”
“Then what’s the point? Why not just kill me?”
“Kill you?” Ralkin sounded genuinely surprised. “I—what’s your name?”
She frowned. “Emily.”
“Emily, I only want to talk.” His voice was gentle, like he was trying to calm down a scared puppy. “But I know you have your tricks. If I turn off the magnet, do you promise you won’t run?”
“Would you trust me if I did?”
He laughed softly. “I think you weren’t trailing me and snooping around in my lab because you’d want to go away. You need something from me.”
Not strictly true—she wanted something to be done to him—but Emily didn’t mind him having that wrong. He was offering to free her .
And his behavior was curious. Enough that she wanted to stay.
“Okay. I won’t run.”
A click sounded, and the annoying paralysis subsided. Emily breathed in and stretched her arms. Before she could do anything else, Ralkin reached for the vial and emptied its contents on the floor.
“No! What did you do that for? That was—”
“Nothing but colored water,” he said.
“You lured me here with it.”
“Of course I did. I needed to talk to you. And it looked like we weren’t going to meet in my lab. Or, if we would have …” He scratched the back of his head, where Sylvia had hit him.
“I’d say sorry for that, but I’m not really sorry.”
“And I’d apologize, but I believe that’s moot.”
Emily slowly moved backward—even though Ralkin wasn’t threatening at the moment, she welcomed a bit of distance between them. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Share stuff?”
“You want my research? Why? You already possess everything you need.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a Leader, aren’t you? That’s how you pop in and out. And on top of that, you can also freeze time.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point. You hurt my friend.” Did she just call Sylvia a friend? Don’t think too hard about that. “We only want to keep her safe.”
“I needed the almonite in her body.”
“I know.”
“I needed it to heal my daughter.”
Oh. “But you got some, so—”
“It didn’t work. Penny’s dead.” A heavy shadow descended upon his dark eyes.
He just wanted to save his daughter. How many times had she tried to save Mama? How many futile attempts? How much pain brought by them? “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not over yet.” Something zealous, almost frightening, took over the somber shadow in his eyes. “I had only one vial of almonite, but you’re a Leader. You can help me. I have—I have theories—”
The door burst open. A young man stood outside. “Professor Ralkin? I—uh—” His eyes flicked to Emily.
“Be there in a minute,” Ralkin barked, then waited until the man left. He turned back to Emily. “Maybe we can be of use to each other. I have a meeting with my partner tomorrow. If you meet me afterward, we’ll talk.”
Emily took a few moments to catch up with the crazy turn of events. “Okay. I’ll bring my friend, too. So no shenanigans.”
“Deal.”
James was already waiting when she exited the building.
“Ross did nothing special,” he said. “He drove to a house nearby—probably his hired lodgings. Went inside, nothing else. But we know where he lives now.”
“That’s good,” she said, still distracted over her conversation with Ralkin.
“What happened on your side?”
“Well.” She put her hands on her hips. “It was a wild ride.”