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“In the wallfold, anyway,” said Rigg. “Let me guess—a lot of them want to make me king, and a lot of others want me dead while my mother and sister are set up in the Tent of Light, and others don’t want royals to exist at all, others want royals to exist so they can be continuously imprisoned and abused, and most of the mothers want to find out what I’m wearing so they can dress their sons the same way.”
“That about covers it,” said Loaf.
“I guess you learned how to travel back in time,” said Rigg to Umbo.
“Obviously,” said Umbo, “or I couldn’t have given messages to you and me back in O.”
“Not obviously,” said Rigg. “Or haven’t you figured out that once it’s done, you don?
?t have to do it again?”
“Yes, we figured it out,” said Loaf, “but I hate it, because it doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“It makes sense to me,” said Rigg. “It’s like working a maze on paper. You draw your line up the wrong path. You go back to where you made the bad decision. You don’t have to keep going up the wrong path, you can do it differently.”
“Time isn’t a maze,” said Loaf.
“Yes it is,” said Rigg.
“What’s a maze?” asked Umbo. He hated it when everybody else knew something that he didn’t know.
“The point is, have you learned how to do what Umbo does?” asked Loaf.
“I nearly broke my brain trying to do it when I was a prisoner on the boat,” said Rigg. “Not a twitch or a shimmer or whatever I should have felt.”
“I can’t see paths either,” said Umbo.
“But that’s fine,” said Rigg, “because as long as we’re together, you can include me in your—whatever you do. Your shift in time. The question is, have you learned how to jump forward in time?”
“Everybody does that,” said Loaf. “One second at a time, we move one second into the future.”
“My sister can do it,” said Rigg.
“She sees the future?” asked Umbo.
“No, nothing that useful. She skips over bits of time. It makes her move very slowly, but while she’s doing it, she’s invisible.”
Loaf shook his head. “Why didn’t I just keep your money back in Leaky’s Landing and then let the rivermen toss you in the water?”
“She’s my sister,” said Rigg. “It makes sense that she can do things with time, too.”
“Nothing makes sense,” said Loaf.
“I’m not your brother,” said Umbo. “I’m not any kind of relative at all. And nobody else in my family can do anything.”
“Somehow Father knew what you could do,” said Rigg. “How did he know?”
“I told him,” said Umbo.
“Right, you just walked up to him and said, ‘By the way, I can slow down time.’”
“So he knew. He was . . . your father.”
“But he wasn’t,” said Rigg. “I’ve been getting to know my real father. Knosso Sissamik. He was a great man in his own way. A thinker, but also somebody who did things.”
“What I want to know,” said Loaf, “is why Umbo and I are even here. You don’t want the jewel, you can get in and out of your confinement whenever you want—”
“Not ‘whenever I want,’” said Rigg. “Today was my first chance. Ever. I did it because I found your paths and realized you were here. And now I’m not sure I can get back without being discovered.”
