Chapter 10 #3
Emily sniffled beside me. “Mother left to protect herself, me, and Father.”
“So it seems,” I murmured, rubbing the tension from my shoulders. “It makes sense—running might be the only option when a darkness like Balthazar is after you. That’s why we’re here in Malik’s home, right? We want to defeat Balthazar just as desperately as Mom did.”
Emily nodded, her expression solemn. Without another word, we turned back to the journal and resumed reading.
Dancing Fire and I have time traveled for two years and have been unable to find the daggers.
We have gone into the 1980s and searched.
Finally, frustrated with our search, I returned to see John James again.
He told me to find a man named Jack James—he assured me that Jack, a future generation, was key to this entire endeavor.
So, I time traveled, returning to 1987. In 1988, I found Jack James enrolled at a college. I was twenty-eight by then. I registered in the college and started observing him.
He was passionate about the topic of time travel.
I didn’t find him attractive, but I admired his heart and soul and the conviction with which he spoke about temporal displacement.
I lurked in the audience when he gave his Ph.D.
dissertation on temporal journeying. The audience ridiculed him and turned the dissertation into a disaster.
He raced from the auditorium, and I later found him in a clock tower, ready to kill himself.
I talked him out of it, and we formed a connection I vowed to use—I needed information to defeat Balthazar. I had to succeed.
Jack seemed very self-conscious and walked with a bumbling gait. I didn’t see how I could ever be with him, given his looks and withdrawn mannerisms—not after having been with Balthazar.
My stomach tightened as I read the words. Papa had been a kind and devoted man, giving everything to Mom and me while she was alive. It unsettled me to see how she had thought of him.
April 12th, 1992
I married Jack and graduated as an anthropologist. On our honeymoon, I insisted on combining it with an excavation to search for the daggers. Jack was visibly disappointed, but he relented.
I managed to find the Sun Dagger! I was elated.
I now wondered if I could perhaps save Balthazar instead of killing him.
I missed him all the time I was with Jack.
How could Balthazar find me throughout my first four years of escape but not seek me out during these last many years?
Had he moved on and found another lover?
This thought breaks my heart.
November 17th, 1994
I have birthed another child, this one in La Cueva del Fuego.
I dragged Jack to this cave, hoping it held the Moon Dagger.
I was so determined to find it that I barely noticed when I went into labor!
The baby seems strong and feisty, as if she will be a force to be reckoned with. We have named her Olivia.
But she was born during the eclipse! I tried to delay her birth. I even tried to stop her from entering the world. I didn’t want her to have the kind of life I had, on the run from demons, but she was determined to enter the world at this time. So, she is a Timeborne.
My time of safety is running out. I haven’t seen Balthazar in a long time.
I have to protect my child from him. I have to!
I don’t want her to suffer as I have suffered these many years.
I would rather she grew up safe and ordinary.
I will hide the dagger that came into existence when she was born.
She will never see it and will never have to travel in time.
I wiped my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, unsettled by what I had just read. I had always known that Mom tried to kill me while in labor, but here, in her own words, she confessed to wanting to protect me at all costs.
Entry after entry detailed the turmoil of her relationship with my father. When I was seven, Papa had begged her for a divorce.
“I can take care of our child,” he had told her. “You can travel the world and find whatever you want.”
But Mom refused, clinging to something neither of them could mend.
Then, just before my eighth birthday, she shocked him.
“I need time and space away from the relationship,” she had said.
Papa’s response was quiet. “Okay. Take whatever time you need.”
“I’m going on another excavation. I might be gone a long time.”
“I understand,” he replied.
Tears blurred my vision as I turned the page, bracing myself for what came next.
I have decided to travel again in time, even though Lee told me not to.
“Balthazar will find you,” he warned. “He will feel you time travel and know where you are.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’ve got to do this and find the second blade. Balthazar has not been hunting me for the last fifteen years. Why would he start now? He no longer wants me.”
It saddened me to think this was true. I still loved him despite his evil ways. I missed him.
I returned to Italy in 1582 to hide the Sun Dagger there. I returned to the village and sought out Giovanni. The blade would be safe with him.
When he saw me, he peered at me through rheumy old eyes. “Alina? Is that you?”
“Yes, Giovanni, it’s me!” On impulse, I hugged him, and he embraced me.
“Come inside,” he said, patting my back.
His home looked much the same as before, just more worn. I told him of my travels once we’d settled with a glass of mead wine. I left out my obsessive need for Balthazar through the years, but I sensed that he knew without me uttering a word.
“I found the Sun Dagger, Giovanni,” I finally said. “I need you to keep it and protect it with your life. Make sure to keep it safe. Make sure whoever wants to defeat the darkness gets it.”
I retrieved the dagger from my pocket and handed it to him.
He eyed the blade with a mixture of wonder and fear. “I don’t know who to give it to. Who would be searching for it?”
“Trust me. When the person arrives looking for this blade, you will know who they are.”
Giovanni’s head bobbed up and down in acknowledgment. “I shall guard it with my life.”
“Have you seen Balthazar?” I asked with a mixture of trepidation and unwelcome desire.
Giovanni shook his head. “Not for a while now.”
He rubbed his weathered face with his palm.
“Do you know a man named Malik?”
Giovanni frowned and scratched the white stubble on his jaw. “That’s a name I don’t recognize.”
After we exchanged a few pleasantries, I left him. I needed to find Malik.
I strolled down the cobbled walkway, past the hens pecking the dirt, and onto the dirt road leading into town.
A man approached me. When he got within touching distance, he exclaimed, “Alina?”
I squinted at him. “Raul Costa?”
He was much older than when I was sixteen, and he was my eighteen-year-old lover, but still looked the same, sans the boyish features.
I didn’t know whether he would hug me, so I stood awkwardly, waiting for his response.
He glared at me. “What are you doing back here?”
He removed his hat and crumpled it between his hands as if he wished to do that to me.
I took a step back. “I’m looking for a man named Malik. Do you know him?”
“No,” he said abruptly. “But I would not be inclined to tell you if I did.”
My jaw dropped open for a second. “What did I ever do to you?”
He poked my sternum with his forefinger. “You chose Lord Balthazar over me, that’s what.”
“I thought you were interested in the Contessa,” I lied. I knew Raul had wanted me.
“I was never interested in the Contessa. You were the one I longed for,” he said, his eyes growing sorrowful.
I cast my gaze at the ground. “Well, I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, Balthazar broke my heart.”
Raul seemed to like this answer. “And I would have made you my queen. You got what you deserved.”
I ignored his slight and said, “Does your family still make tonics, potions, and the like?”
Raul squinted. “Why do you ask me this?”
“I need something from you—I need poison.” I wanted to use poison on Olivia’s blade. If she ever tried to time travel, she would die. It was a better fate. I didn’t want Balthazar to find her.
My stomach lurched as I read this. Now I knew why I was so sick when I arrived in Rome. Still, it was hard to digest the knowledge that my mother wanted to kill me to supposedly “save me” from my fate as a time traveler.
“I would grant you your wish, Alina, but I want something in return, and then I will give you what you need.”
“What would you possibly want from me?”
“You know my family makes the best potions and poisons, which you won’t find anywhere else.”
I believed him because I knew what his family would do to people—they killed with their poisons. When Raul leaned into my ear and whispered what he wanted, I had no choice but to do as he said, even though it came with a price and would be a huge risk.
I became his lover again.
Italy 1583
Raul had tricked me. I thought I would be his lover and be done.
But I was chained to a bed for a whole year and treated as his “experiment.” I was tortured, and escaping was almost impossible.
When I was finally free, I ran far away from Raul and his cruel men.
Raul wasn’t the same man I used to know.
I tried to find Malik again, but he had become a ghost. I couldn’t find him. John James told me he had survived and lived, but no one knew his whereabouts.
My time was running out. I knew either Raul or Balthazar would find me again and surely kill me.
As I departed from Raul Costa’s house, a man wearing a hood and long cloak slid from the shadows. I nearly screamed at him as he rushed toward me, but he clapped his hand over my mouth and dragged me into the trees.
He gripped me with unusual strength and hissed in my ear, “I know you have been looking for Malik. I know where he is.”
I stopped struggling and pushed his hand away from my mouth. “You do?”
I whirled to face him.
“Yes. He is in Britannica in the year 1323. Find him there.” He gave me the address where I could find Malik and then faded from sight like a spirit.
May 15th, 1323
I have trekked to Britannica and found Malik’s address. He lives in an old stone manor house. I hurried up a tree-lined walkway, past a tumbling creek, and strode up stone stairs to the door. I lifted the metal knocker and let it fall.
A few minutes later, heavy footsteps pounded in my direction.
Malik opened the door, and once he saw me, an angry scowl spread across his face.
“What are you doing here, Alina?” he hissed. “Who told you where to find me?”
“I…I…” I stammered, taken aback by his reaction. “I found the Sun Dagger.”
“I don’t care. I’m done being the darkness and want nothing to do with the dagger or your life.” He started to close the door in my face, but I jammed my foot in the way.
“Wait, Malik. Don’t turn me out like this. I’m no longer with Balthazar,” I began, but Malik interrupted me.
“Don’t you dare say his name here!” Malik hurried out onto the stoop and closed the door behind him.
“What happened to you, Malik?” I said, thoroughly confused. “Why are you so angry with me? Last time I saw you, we were still friends.”
“Last time you saw me,” he whispered, “I was chained to a dungeon wall being tortured by my former mentor.”
I reeled back, stunned. But he was right. Who knew what kinds of atrocities Balthazar committed? I didn’t want to know what Malik had to endure to escape.
I reached into my pocket and procured my journal.
“Here,” I said, thrusting it toward him.
Malik threw out his palms and backed away. “What are you giving me? I don’t want anything from you.”
“It’s my diary. It’s a full account of what I’ve been through. Please take it. If my daughter survives, which I hope she won’t, she will seek it out. I’m certain of that.”
A baby’s wail came from inside the house.
We both turned to stare at the open window.
“Malik, are you a father?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he said, “I want you out of my life, Alina. I’m in a very dark place in my life, and if you don’t leave this instant, I will kill you and put you out of your misery.”
The baby started crying louder and louder.
“Malik, I’m sorry if I have upset you, but please take my journal and protect my daughter. She is in danger from Balthazar. He will kill her.”
Malik shook his head. “Alina, after I barely escaped Balthazar, I vowed to have a normal life. I wanted to disappear from the world. I want nothing to do with Balthazar. I just lost two important people in my life, and I want nothing to do with you or your problems.”
The baby began to wail more, and I rushed inside the house. I approached the small crib and saw a baby girl with a Timebound necklace around her neck.
Malik grabbed the child and started soothing her, and she fell asleep in his arms. “Leave, Alina, and never come back.”
I stayed put. “You think you can protect her forever? One day, she will grow up and see the monster inside you and despise you.”
His eyes blazed with anger.
I took a step back from him, becoming frightened.
“You knew what Balthazar was, but you continued to fuck him and be with him no matter what,” he roared. “I will protect my child from Balthazar or anyone who will come near her. I will die for her. But you can’t say the same.”
He slashed the air before me.
Tears went down my face because he was right. I was weak. I couldn’t protect Olivia.
I turned around and left. Tonight, I will go back and leave my journal through the window of the baby’s room, and I’ll never look back.
The diary held one final entry—undated.
I have made many mistakes in my life, but in the end, I only wanted to heal Balthazar, fix him, and make him a better man. I tried to change him so we could build a life together. But I failed. I couldn’t find the other blade, and my time ran out.
Malik has changed. Whoever led him toward redemption succeeded. I still hope that one day, Balthazar will change, too. I still love him, I still care, and I love Jack. But above all, I love my daughters. They are my most treasured gifts.
One day, I hope to make things right. Only time will tell.
I flipped through the remaining pages, but they were blank.
A deep sadness settled over me. “What did she mean by making things right? And what happened to Malik’s child?”
“I don’t know,” Emily murmured. Then, after a pause, she asked, “But did reading this journal change how you feel about her? Are you able to forgive her?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
I didn’t have an answer.