Liam checked his rearview mirror. “I know switching the Infinityglass paradigm from object to human has been difficult.”
“What hasn’t been difficult this year?”
The dead had come back to life. Time had been rewritten.
The space time continuum had been damaged. Anyone with the basic time gene could see ripples; imprints of people from the past, which had turned into entire scenes, streets full of people, even buildings. These rips were getting worse. Their latest evolution had trapped Michael and Em inside one, and they’d barely escaped.
Liam’s answering smile was more of a grimace. “Too true. There is one thing we haven’t discussed, and it should’ve had priority. Is it going to be difficult for you to be near so much water?”
I stared out the window and thought about the question. Frost covered fields like powdered sugar as we passed everything from mansions to tiny farmhouses. Livestock stood in huddles to keep warm, their breaths rising into the air. Half-frozen ponds waited for spring.
Harmless, still water.
Besides the Harpeth, I hadn’t been near a river in months, and now I was heading for New Orleans and its neighbors, the Mississippi, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico.
“I think it’s going to be okay.” I hoped it was. “But don’t expect me to spend a lot of time by the water.”
Liam stared straight ahead, his eyebrows puckered in concentration. “I won’t leave you in a circumstance you aren’t comfortable with. That’s a promise.”
“I know that.” I adjusted the seat belt again, and tried to change the subject. “What I’m not comfortable with is you leaving Ivy Springs. Grace needs you.”
Liam’s wife had just come out of a nine-month-long coma.
“Hallie Girard needs us, too. I’ll only be away for a day. Two, max.”
All I knew about Hallie was that she was seventeen, and for some reason, really isolated. I’d done more than one Internet search on her. She didn’t have any social media profiles. I wondered if being the Infinityglass had affected her life in some horrible way.
“What’s her dad going to think when you offer up a tech geek to him?”
“Luckily, he and I have a history, even if it’s only because we met through Teague. Her betrayal didn’t surprise him. She abandoned her family long ago. It’s heartbreaking, honestly, especially for the daughter.” Liam switched lanes. “As far as the Infinityglass, he knew about it, but believed the same thing we did. That it was an object.”
“How did he take it when you told him it was his daughter?” I asked.
“Hard. But he believed me.”
I wondered what being an all-powerful, mythical “thing” could do to a girl. I wondered if she had symptoms.
Liam exited for the airport, heading for short-term parking. After he picked a spot and killed the engine, I got out and removed our suitcases from the back of the truck.
“If it doesn’t work, if you have any qualms, you come back home with me,” Liam said. “Deal?”
I looked up at the Nashville International Airport and answered the only way I could.
“Deal.”
Dune, Mid-November, New Orleans
There were already Christmas decorations up in the airport.
We left baggage claim and waited on the sidewalk for a taxi. Tourists were everywhere. Groups of tipsy college kids who’d gotten an early start on Bourbon Street, married couples ready for a getaway weekend, and us.
I tried to take in as much of the city as I could on the cab ride, but nerves and the smell of the water kept my gut twisted. Ivy Springs had its share of history spread out over a lot of mileage, but the Garden District’s history was dense and compact.
Dormers and gables, porches and columns, all layered with intricate detail. Everything was white or pastel, except for the bark of the massive oaks and the leaves on their branches. The tree roots grew so large that the sidewalk broke into pieces above them.
Among all that beauty, the Girard house was best described as nouveau riche penitentiary.
A big guy with a holstered firearm buzzed us through the gate and inside the front door. The air smelled like money. After a few seconds, we were led to Paul Girard’s “library.”
It was grandiose, an obnoxious kind of new South. Everything was shiny, or new and dulled down to look old. I was used to Liam’s home office, which was nice enough, but dusty and full of books and his personal collection of hourglasses. Liam’s office looked like he worked in it. Paul Girard’s library looked like he posed in it.
“Come in.” Girard stood. He was your basic slick-haired, shifty-eyed, moneyed gangster, with excellent taste in suits.
After introductions, Girard asked about our flight and general well-being, but the chitchat didn’t last long. Liam sat down, and so did I, balancing on the edge of a masculine couch.
“You’re the guy who’s supposed to help my daughter?” Girard sounded doubtful.
“Yes, sir.” I nodded.
He looked me over, summed me up. “Try to relax.”
I slid back on the seat. It was the best I could manage.
Girard continued the stare-down. “Try to relax more.”
I put one arm on the back of the couch and smiled. Felt my lips wobble. Wanted to go home really, really, desperately.
Liam took pity on my inner introvert. “Dune has been with the Hourglass for several years. I’ve told you about his work history, so you know he’s reliable. He also happens to have more knowledge about the Infinityglass than anyone, even myself.”
“Knowledge. Great.” Girard tilted his head to the side, regarding me. “Does he talk?”
“He … yes.” I’d never seen Liam falter before.
“I do.” I moved back to the edge of the couch. “Talk, I mean.”
When Girard shifted, I saw the gun holster under his jacket. Everyone in this house was armed. “The Infinityglass. What do you know?”
This was my chance. “Horologists name it as one of the biggest finds in the field, at least the ones who cop to its being real.”
“I’m certain my daughter is real.”
I made a sound somewhere between a gulp and a laugh. “Well, horologists believe it’s an object, not a human. I should explain what horo—”
“I know what horology is. Liam started out doing all your talking for you. Do horologists do all your thinking for you? What makes you believe it’s a human?”
I looked at Liam, and he handed over the briefcase I’d felt too self-conscious to carry. I flipped the latches and pushed it toward Girard. “That’s my personal external drive. It holds every shred of evidence ever collected on the Infinityglass, a couple of hundred years’ worth, and includes new information that was recently discovered on a Skroll.”
“A scroll?”
“Not the old-school kind. A digital storage device, kind of like a tablet on steroids, with holograms.” This specific Skroll held information about the Infinityglass, and had changed hands too many times to count. “The Hourglass stole the Skroll from your wife. She never managed to get it open. I did.”
It had taken me two weeks to crack it.
“Do you still have it?” Girard asked.
“No. We gave it back to your wife. I have everything that was on it. And I left it altered. Now it’s missing some vital documents.” Taking information off the Skroll had been a gamble, and one that could have cost lives. From where I sat now, the risk had been worth it. “The information on this Skroll is the key to the Infinityglass. I’ve read through everything I can, and I’m in the process of translating the rest. There’s centuries of information to cover.”