15. February 23, 1711 Venice, Italy #4
He tugs on the ribbon. The knot releases, and something in Beatrix does, too. The man gingerly pulls the mask from her face, and the tips of his fingers brush against her skin.
Beatrix meets his gaze. Her porcelain mask slips from his grasp, shatters against the white stone bridge. It’s the single word from his lips that breaks the illusion. “Beatrix?”
She takes a wary step away from him. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” He’s still masked, still only a ghost of Carnevale.
“You’re the one who’s following me,” he says pointedly.
“I beg your pardon?” Is he drunk?
“Don’t you remember?” he asks. “You tried to pick my pocket.”
“I’ve done no such thing,” she says. She crosses her arms over her chest. “And that is quite the accusation.”
“Oh, not tonight,” he clarifies. “In London. About a hundred years ago.”
Her heart lurches. That’s impossible. She takes another step back.
The man reaches into his trouser pocket, pulls out a silver coin, and tosses it to her. She catches it in her cupped hands.
The memory hits her like a bolt of lightning. The Globe. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. An impromptu feast and a tour around London. “Oliver?”
She didn’t know she remembered his name until she’s spoken it. That is the least of her concerns.
He pulls off his hat and mask and runs a hand through his hair with a bemused smile.
Beatrix’s blood runs cold. Oliver looks exactly the same as he did when he left her standing on a different bridge, overlooking a different river, 106 years ago. Same mop of brown hair. Same dazzling blue eyes. Same endearing smile. She can’t look away. It’s impossible. He’s impossible.
Just like her.
“What are you? A devil? A faerie?” Her heart races. Cursed?
He steps closer, erases the space between them. “Listen, I know it’s breaking protocol, but please, tell me who you are. I swear I won’t breathe a word of this to Lucy.”
Beatrix pulls away. “I’m here with Lady DeSallowe. Jane DeSallowe.”
A shadow passes over his face. “Didn’t Lucy send you to keep an eye on me?”
Beatrix shakes her head. “I don’t know anyone named Lucy.”
His brow furrows. “You’re not here with Aevum?”
“No.”
“Another agency?”
She still doesn’t know what he’s saying.
“A university program?”
She laughs at the notion. She can’t even read.
“Government?” Oliver doesn’t sound convinced and doesn’t seem surprised when she denies that, too.
“Are you…” He pauses, as if he doesn’t really want to know the answer to what he’s about to ask. “Are you a time traveler?”
“Time traveler?” Beatrix asks. She’s not sure how two familiar words can taste so foreign on her tongue.
Oliver nods to her clenched fist. The silver coin digs into her palm. “Look at it. It’s the one you tried to steal from me.”
She uncurls her fingers and considers the perfectly round coin.
It’s not a sixpence after all. A single word is stamped over a man’s bust, a phrase engraved under his chin.
She flips it over. There’s a bird with its wings spread wide and more words she can’t read.
She flips it again and notices the numbers.
“One, nine, eight, six?” she asks, glancing up at Oliver.
“Nineteen eighty-six,” he says. “It’s the year it was made.”
Beatrix’s heart lurches. “That’s impossible.” It must be some kind of trick. A joke for Carnevale.
“I found it when I was a kid, digging in the garden with my dad,” Oliver says. “Somehow, it survived.”
“It survived?” What does he mean it survived? It shouldn’t even exist yet.
“For two hundred years. I thought I’d found buried treasure.” He laughs. “It’s worthless.”
“If it’s worthless, then why do you keep it?” she asks.
His gaze softens. “It’s not worthless to me.”
Beatrix turns the foreign coin in her hand. The year 1986 is the distant past to him, what Lancaut is to her now. Yet he was at the Globe with her. He is here with her now. Skipping through time like a stone on water.
Her heart sinks. Not like her at all, then.
“If you’re not traveling through time, then how are you here?” he asks. She can see him puzzling over her existence.
“It’s a long story,” Beatrix says.
Oliver’s lips twitch at the corners. “I’ve got time.”
Beatrix stares blankly at him, but he can’t fight the grin anymore.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
He waits for her to speak, but Beatrix’s guts are full of butterflies. She shakes her head. “You won’t believe me.”
“Are you going to lie to me?” he asks.
“No.” She will tell him the truth or nothing at all.
“Then I’ll believe you.”
But he doesn’t know what she is about to say, what an impossible story she’s about to tell. A story she might never have a chance to tell again. Even if he leaves her standing on this bridge—thinking she is drunk or mad or both—if he will listen, it will be worth it.
She takes a breath. “I was born on the nineteenth of July, in the year 1481.” She can see Oliver’s mind working, counting up the years she’s walked the earth.
Too many.
She looks into his expectant eyes. And then she says it. Breathes life into that bizarre, impossible sentence that has lived inside her for the last two centuries. Her voice doesn’t even tremble. “I died in 1505. On the thirteenth of June.”