Chapter 12 #2
I step between them. “Here’s the thing.” I keep my voice low.
“Enzo’s real name is William. Actually? It’s Lord William Cromwell.
And when I ran into him on Friday, he was dressed like a Victorian Ken doll.
He doesn’t have a phone and can’t remember how he got here, so I grabbed him temporary clothes in the lost and found and assumed he was your roommate because you were waiting on a transfer student, and it seemed like the only logical explanation. ”
I fall quiet, waiting for a response. But Sumner only studies me, something hardening behind his eyes. “Can you please be serious—”
“I am.” I fling a hand toward William. “Did you see the top hat? Who wears those?”
“Carmichael.”
My voice rises. Just a little. “I’m telling you everything I know.”
His hand rakes through his hair as his attention directs to William. “Those…coins. The ones you gave me on Friday?” He turns over his pocket, tinkling metal raining into his palm.
“Shillings,” William corrects.
I take the shiny silver from Sumner’s outstretched hand. One Shilling, it reads, seemingly new. Under the engraved open oak wreath lies a year.
1859.
My heartbeat quickens. When I glance up, Sumner is already staring back at me. As though he can’t believe it either.
“I-I can’t explain it,” I say. “All I know is that I was running toward Segner because I saw someone go inside. Inessa was in there trying to find the trophy, as you now know, and the next thing I knew—” I flick a limp wrist toward William, as this somehow clarifies everything that happened after.
William scratches the back of his neck. Sumner’s studying him as though this is the first time he’s really seeing him.
“Here.” I nip the journal from William’s grasp and toss it toward Sumner. “See for yourself.”
As Sumner flips through the pages, I find myself wanting to be proved wrong. We’ve had our fair share of verbal sparring matches. I’d relinquish this victory if it meant he could provide sound reasoning for everything that’s happening so we could forget this entire mess and move on.
His hand pauses on a page somewhere in the midsection of the notebook, eyes gravitating toward William. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at the college later than expected.” William adjusts his shoulders so that he’s standing, somehow, straighter.
“I suppose the last thing I recall is feeling…warm. Extraordinarily warm. Almost tingling. And then—well, it seemed as though daylight streamed through all the windows despite it being well into the evening.” His forehead furrows.
“That’s the last I remember. When I ran into Delaney, I thought something was wrong with my memory, as though I’d taken a wrong turn leaving the college so late at night and had no recollection of doing so. ”
Sumner hands the journal over to me, pacing as he thinks. Neatly written equations are penned in William’s tidy, looping scrawl alongside a familiar sketch of an experiment.
When I glance up, Sumner’s eyes are trained on me.
“They’re Faraday’s equations,” I say.
He tosses me a haughty look that says, Please do not insult me. “I know.”
I study William curiously. “You’re working through formulas that were newer at the time. Your time, I mean,” I explain. “These theories and equations have been studied and built upon by other physicists.”
“I’ve seen them in the library texts,” William says, head craning toward his work held in my hands. “It’s utterly fascinating. You’re ages ahead of me.”
Nobody says anything. It’s silent, aside from thumbs mashing plastic buttons and thin, tinny music whispering from Lionel’s headphones.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this”—Sumner tugs at the back of his hair—“but this aligns in the most bizarre, unfathomable way. You don’t just jump ahead one hundred and sixty years.
There’s so much data that disproves it. It’s not just illogical, it’s impossible.
I just—” His eyes settle on mine. “What are you going to do?”
“Me?” I almost laugh. This entire conversation is twelve different types of deranged. “I’m sorry, Ivernia didn’t adequately prepare me for dealing with time-traveling nobility.”
Now that the words are spoken, hanging in the air as heavy and dense as an incoming storm, I want someone to correct me. To say, Is that what you think’s happening? You couldn’t be more wrong. Instead, nobody moves. It’s as though we’re all waiting for someone else to take charge.
“Okay,” Sumner says, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in. “What are we going to do?”
There’s a distant look behind William’s eyes. “This is madness,” he utters. “Might I return home? To my time? Though I do appreciate the help you’ve bestowed me and the, er, novelty of this era, I think it’s best if I take my leave.”
“We’re not that far advanced,” Sumner says. “There’s no way to send you back.”
William looks to me for confirmation. Even though I barely know him, the urge to stabilize this issue dominates all other emotions.
Because not once has he been deceptive. He offered his real name.
He told me exactly where he was from. William isn’t a con artist, or a scammer, or a liar.
He’s a genuinely confused human currently living through an unexplainable phenomenon.
I turn the shilling over in my hand. If we get anyone else involved, I’m not sure what will happen.
Will they take him away? Institutionalize him, at the very worst?
And while he wouldn’t be our problem anymore, he’d face a world of new ones.
I can’t bring myself to do that. He’s a student.
Maybe not here, exactly, but he’s also not a danger to anyone.
Nothing about this situation feels remotely real. But if what William’s saying is true, then why is he here?
“Well,” I begin, “it can’t hurt to try. In the meantime, this should stay between us, right?”
“Right.” Sumner nudges his frames up his nose, then releases a relenting sigh as he turns to William. “I guess keep going to class? Or Enzo’s classes. Just to lie low until…” He’s looking at me now, like I can somehow conjure the end of that sentence.
“Until we figure this out,” I add.
“You’re willing to assist me?” There’s so much hope in the question, a reminder he also doesn’t have answers we’re seeking. I’m in way over my head, but I do want to help—even if it feels impossible.
My mom runs a program for unhoused people in need of assistance at her library in Pennsylvania.
They partner with a local resource center to get their needs met.
It took a ton of effort to get it off the ground, but she fought for it for years.
And when I asked her why, she told me, “Because you don’t give up on people who really need it. ”
I have my mother’s spirit in me, my father’s sense of curiosity. At the very least, I can try. It’s something.
So I say, “Yes.”
Sumner, who’s been studying me with a look of careful scrutiny, slouches into an unsteady chair, which tips over as soon as he makes contact. He topples to his side and immediately rights himself onto his shins, blinking at the offending piece of furniture before looking up at us.
I clasp a hand over my mouth to hide a laugh.
“It appears to be broken,” William offers helpfully.
But Sumner remains unfazed. He points a finger in my direction.
“Hope you’ve packed a spare flux capacitor,” he says. “You’re gonna need it.”