5
CECILY
Cecily rode straight to Graston without allowing herself to consider if she should. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, she might not go at all.
The workshop door stood open. Inside, her grandfather was bent over his worktable, sleeves rolled up, hands dark with oil. The contraption filled the far end of the room, an iron frame, wood supports, panels not yet fitted.
Finn stood nearby. That alone caused her mouth to tighten.
Anton looked up. His eyebrows furrowed. “Cecily, child, you shouldn’t be here.”
“I had to come,” she said.
She looked past him at Finn, then back again. “Grandfather—why is he always here?”
“He helps me,” Anton said shortly.
Finn shot Anton a sharp, warning glance, and her grandfather responded with a barely perceptible shake of his head.
“My parents won’t refuse Lord Alard,” she said. “At least, not now. They keep saying they need time.”
Anton straightened. “That doesn’t mean they’ll agree to the marriage.”
“It means he’ll keep pressing, offering more for me, as if I am goods to be bartered for the best price,” Cecily said. “He won’t stop until they say yes.”
Finn spoke before Anton could answer. “She’s right. Alard won’t wait, and he will press hard.”
Anton turned sharply.
Cecily looked between them. “What do you know of Lord de Veyron?” she asked Finn.
Finn paused. “I know enough.”
She turned back to Anton. “I want to ask you again. You told me you weren’t born in this time. What does that mean?”
Anton’s mouth tightened. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did,” Cecily said. “And you told me this thing was dangerous.”
She stepped closer to the machine, not touching it, but close enough to feel the low vibration beneath her feet.
Anton moved to block her. “Don’t.”
“Then stop pretending it means nothing,” she said. “Tell me what this is.”
Anton looked not at her, but at the device. “It moves things. Not through space, but…” He hesitated, searching for words she could grasp. “It shifts them. To another… when.”
The word hung in the air. “When?” Cecily repeated. The idea sounded nonsensical. “That’s a fantasy, Grandfather.”
Anton stood still. Finn’s glance slid to the machine, and Cecily saw his jaw tighten.
Finally, Anton said, “It can send someone to another time.”
The words hung in the air, nonsensical. “Send someone to another time? That’s a story for children.”
“Is it?” He reached into a small wooden box on his bench and took out a coin. It caught the candlelight as he turned it between his fingers. “I brought this with me from another time.”
He placed it in her palm. Cecily looked down. On one face of the coin was a portrait of a man she had never seen, his hair short, his collar strange. Around the rim, words she could read but did not understand. And a date.
She read it twice.
“This is impossible,” she said. “You made this yourself, to fool me.”
“No, Cecily. This coin will not be minted for hundreds of years. Nor will the man whose face is on it have been born. The country that made it does not yet exist.”
Cecily stared at the object, then at his face.
“You… you’ve used the machine?”
“Yes.”
“And it works?”
“It works,” Anton said, “but not well. Not safely. It still needs repairs.”
Finn spoke. “People could get hurt using this.”
Cecily turned on Finn. “I didn’t ask you. You don’t get to decide what I can risk.”
“I’m not,” Finn said. “I’m telling you what can happen.”
“What happens if I stay here?” she said. “That old man claims me.”
Anton’s voice sharpened. “The last time I used it, the machine burned through two gears, and I lost three days of my life. I woke with no memory of them. That is the best outcome. This machine is not the answer. There are worse things than waiting, Cecily.”
“And worse things than escaping,” she replied.
No one spoke.
With a sigh, Cecily turned toward the door and left. Outside, the yard was empty. Finn followed her.
“Don’t even think about using it,” he said behind her.
She whirled around. “Then why are you helping him build it?”
He took a moment to answer. “Your grandfather knows what he’s doing. And when he says it’s dangerous, he means it. I’m helping him make certain it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Or tear a hole in the world by accident.”
“Who are you?”
He didn’t answer.
“You won’t tell me who you are? Where you came from?”
“No.”
“Will you stop me if I decide to use the machine?”
His jaw set. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s honest, at least,” Cecily said.
She mounted Willow without another word. As she rode away, the workshop receded behind her. The machine stayed where it was.
For now.