Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“You always do this!” Ryan said to Rose.
“You’ll do anything for anyone else, and fuck whatever you want!
” He looked scary. But he was angry because he loved his sister, and Rose didn’t look scared at all.
“You committed a crime to get that thing. And you’re endangering your life by traveling through time.
Two million dollars, Rose! And now you’re like, maybe he can keep it? Are you fucking kidding me!”
“Ryan,” Henry interjected in a loud, even tone.
Ryan turned his wild-eyed gaze on him. “I agree with you completely. If Rose cannot send me back alone, she should feel no obligation to escort me to the past.” Although what he would do in this new world, stripped of every familiar trapping of his existence, if he did not have her, either, he had no idea.
“I disagree,” she said, more sharply than he expected. “I dragged you out here. I’ve got to make it right.” It occurred to Henry that she might feel some relief in dumping him back into his own time.
She looked from Henry to Ryan and back again. “I’m the one who gets to decide.”
“You need not make your decision yet,” he said heavily. “And if you do go into the past and back to the present again, you must at least take the astrolabe with you and collect your reward.”
Rose pressed her fingers to her lips. Then she said to Ryan, “Okay. If that happens, you and I can split the money.”
Henry saw Jason take a breath to say something, but Ryan spoke first.
“I’m not taking a fucking penny! Think about what you want.” Ryan punctuated the last two words with a hand gesture, his fingers and thumb pressed together. His gaze flicked toward Henry. “And can we be real? Maybe it’s not the money!”
Panic flitted across Rose’s face. “Ryan, don’t—”
“I’ve been your problem long enough, don’t you think?”
Henry tried to make sense of this. He’d never been good at hearing what wasn’t said.
“You’re never my problem!” Rose protested. Her eyes misted over. “I couldn’t do without you.”
“Okay, okay,” Ryan mumbled, catching her in an awkward bear hug. “I’m just saying, think about what makes you happy, all right?”
Rose pulled back and looked around at the rest of them. “Sorry. This is a lot to deal with.”
“No, I get it,” Jason said. “I have two brothers and a sister. I don’t know what I’d do without them, either.
” It sounded like sympathy, but Henry knew he wanted to preclude any scenario in which Rose remained in the past with Henry.
He need not have bothered, Henry thought.
Henry would have given anything for that scenario, if Rose could love him, and if she could be parted from her brother, but the first was now impossible, and the second had always been.
Everything Jason did, he did to get his hands on the astrolabe, and to learn how to use it.
That was why they were all here. Henry would not have even been brought to this century, had it not been for Jason purchasing Henry’s portrait.
And Jason’s secret society coveted all kinds of magical items. In the case of Griffin, that had led to a miracle and lasting happiness.
But who knew what kinds of havoc they’d left in their wake?
Jason crossed the room. “We’re dealing with priceless objects and journeys that should be impossible.
It’s no surprise that those are going to be volatile issues.
” Rose and Emily both visibly relaxed at his easy tone, and he poured himself a glass of wine.
“But it does sound like we’ve got a good plan for getting Henry home, thanks to Ryan’s clock idea and Emily’s skills, not to mention Rose having actual superpowers. ”
He took a sip of the wine. “Mmm.” He held the glass up toward Henry. “Great choice.”
Henry warmed to the praise—to his own annoyance.
With seemingly offhand compliments, four in a row, Jason created a mood of camaraderie between people who had not set out to help him, and normalcy in a situation that was in no way normal.
Rose sat down and picked up her plate, and Henry supposed he might as well do the same.
Jason sat down, took another sip of the wine, and set it aside.
He unzipped the duffel bag at his feet, saying, “Emily, I found a clock that I think will work.” He pulled out a box from which he slid a wall clock with a walnut case.
“There’s a seam right here…” He traced it with a finger, then handed it to her.
“Think you can open it up, gut it, and put it back together again?”
Emily inspected it. “Oh, yeah. It won’t be hard. I could do the whole job tomorrow if I called in sick. No, the next day—I need to get some stuff from work.”
“The dimensions are close, but there’s going to be a gap inside,” Jason said.
“No problem. I’ll use adhesive putty strips for padding, and Rose and Henry will be able to pop it right out again. It’s going to smell like varnish, so you can say it’s a freshly refinished heirloom.” Henry could not help but be impressed by her assured manner.
Rose looked to Jason. “Are you funding the trip to England?”
“Not personally, but yes.”
“Even if you don’t wind up with the astrolabe?”
Jason sighed and shoved his hand through his hair.
“It’s safest with us. It’s the kind of thing that winds up in the wrong hands.
But…you’ve already done a great thing by getting it away from Victor Reuter, believe me.
” Henry could sense what it cost the man to say that, given how badly he wanted the device.
“The next full moon is in five days,” Rose said. “I guess we could make it.”
Henry thought for a moment that he’d misheard, or she’d misspoken, but the others were nodding.
“Excuse me,” he said. “We cannot reach Everly Park in five days or less.”
“You definitely can, with plenty of time to spare,” Emily said cheerfully.
He suspected she now wanted him on his way as quickly as possible so her best friend could put this muddled chapter behind her and perhaps marry Aaron Coleman.
The thought galled him. She added, “Griffin and I have been planning our trip. It’s an overnight flight to Heathrow. ”
Jason nodded. “And a few hours from there to Everly Park.”
“Flight,” Henry repeated, ignoring the rest.
Rose said, “You remember how we talked about airplanes? In the sky?” She was sincere, but the others smirked at one another in a maddening way.
“Of course I remember,” he said testily, though he’d momentarily forgotten, and he felt foolish about it. “But I cannot travel in one of those. We must go by ship.”
“No,” she said, without even doing him the courtesy of considering it. “I can’t be away from my job for that long. Especially with short notice.”
“It is a tin can, hurtling at an unnatural speed through the sky.”
Rose told the others, “He didn’t even like Skydeck.”
“Henry.” Ryan was looking at him seriously. “Read about aerodynamics, okay?”
“You traveled the same distance before in one second,” Jason said. “And you jumped ahead well over a century at the same time.”
“Very well,” he grumbled, feeling outnumbered. Rose seemed to have no concern that they might plummet to their deaths. Then again, as much as he loved Rose, he could not credit her with a good deal of sense.
“Do you have the astrolabe here?” Emily asked. “I can take it home with me.”
“Yes!” Rose held up the quilted bag. “It’s still cold. I’ve been keeping it in the freezer.”
Emily’s face turned ashen. “The freezer?” Jason, looking dismayed, rubbed his mouth with his hand. Ryan chuckled.
“It’s in a pizza box,” Rose protested. “I thought it was a good hiding place.”
Emily grabbed her hair in handfuls. “But it’s forming ice crystals, which could damage…” She waved her hands in the air, shaking it off. “Never mind. Here, give it to me.”
She took the bag from Rose and set it on the hotel bed, unzipped it, opened the pizza box, and lifted the astrolabe out with much more care than Henry or Rose had handled it. Jason got up and walked over to it, staring, as if he’d been pulled by a magnet.
“Amazing,” he murmured.
“Yeah, there’s condensation,” Emily said grimly. She turned to Rose. “I should have thought of this, but what did you use to put the moonstone back in place?”
“Superglue.”
“Okay, that’s not bad,” Emily said. Rose looked relieved.
Emily set it on the bed, marched to the bathroom, and returned with Henry’s last clean towel. As she wrapped the astrolabe in it, she told Jason, “I’ll take care of it. It should be fine.”
“Thanks, Emily.”
She put the bundle in Rose’s bag and zipped it up. “I need to get home. I told Griffin I’d read his essay for his UIC application.”
It was none of Henry’s business, but his curiosity perked up. “What is that?”
Emily said, “University of Illinois Chicago? He’s been going to community college, which is…well, never mind, but he wants to transfer to a university next spring semester.”
“What is he studying?” Henry couldn’t help but ask.
“Secondary education and history. He wants to be a history teacher.” She gave a rueful smile. “He’s been a little grouchy about the essay. I think he’s nervous.” Henry found himself unreasonably comforted to hear that even the gregarious knight could be out of sorts.
“He won’t have any trouble getting in,” Ryan said. “His GPA is fine.”
“Um, thanks to you,” Emily said.
Rose told Henry, “Ryan helped Griffin study for his math class.”
They were all smiling. Griffin had good friends, which Henry did not, in this time or in his own.
The fact that it was his own fault hardly tempered his envy.
Moreover, Griffin was pursuing a serious education, despite having been a great deal behind Henry in terms of modern knowledge.
The man had not even known what a potato was.
“We should be going, too,” Rose said. Emily told Rose she would give her the clock with the astrolabe in it in two days’ time, and as Jason put on his jacket, he talked about sending Rose travel itineraries.
Henry scarcely followed what they were saying. His heart had started pounding in his ears. Rose couldn’t leave before he had the chance to speak to her in private…even though he feared saying the wrong thing.
As all his guests headed to the door, Henry said, “Rose. May I have a private word?”
Rose looked to her brother, who said, “I’ll wait in the lobby.”
Henry strode over to the window, not wanting his words to be heard from the hallway. He clasped his hands behind his back. After Rose had locked the door behind their guests, she came over to him.
“Henry—”
“Please allow me to reiterate what I said the other night: that I am very sorry to have caused you such great distress,” he said.
Although he was too agitated to meet her gaze, he heard her sigh. “I know you weren’t trying to upset me. But it was horrible for me.”
“It was for me, too, being turned out of your house late in the evening,” Henry could not help saying. Yes, he intended to apologize, but surely she could see how uncivil that had been? Never in his life had he been treated in such a way.
“I had every right to do that!” She walked over to stand near him, though not too close. “I know it sucked for both of us, but I was so hurt. I still am! And like Ryan said, my feelings matter, too!”
“On that point, we agree.” He finally met her gaze. Her eyes were watery. “Truly, I am more sorry than I can say. I reproach myself without ceasing for ever speaking of it at all.”
“But you still think I’m Charlotte,” she said.
“I have never thought you were Charlotte.”
She threw her arms in the air. “What are you saying? You called me—”
“I thought you used to be!” He took a step toward her. “No, I never should have said that! I thought those memories might be locked away in your mind, and if I said the name, you would remember…but I am a fool.”
It was probably the first time he’d ever referred to himself that way, but when he saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes, he continued down that path.
“And if you say this is not one of your past lives, I would be even more of a fool not to believe you. It would not be the first time I misjudged reality.”
“I appreciate that,” she said softly. “I mean, it’s not impossible…I just don’t think it’s true.”
Henry dared to take her hand. She didn’t pull away.
“It has been only two days, and I have missed you with every fiber of my being,” he said. “While I remain in this era, might we not resume that close confidence that was such a pleasure to us both?”
A furrow appeared between her brows. “By close confidence, do you mean being friends, or…”
“Yes, friends, if I may not have more.” He was grateful for that at least, but his heart ached.
She squeezed his hand and let go of it. “We’re going to say goodbye soon, and you were right about getting involved…It just makes it harder.”
He nodded. “It will be far more bitter than sweet, and yet…I cannot regret our tender relations and all that has passed between us. For me, it held enough for a whole other lifetime.”
“I don’t regret it, either.”
She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. He held her, memorizing every curve and the scent of her hair. She kissed his cheek and then pulled back, giving him a sad smile.
“Let’s get you home.”