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But the man sitting at the far end of the library looked different. She hadn’t taken them that far forward, but the slumped, wizened creature behind the large, scarred table looked nothing like the man who’d managed to get the best of her. Something had happened to him in the hours since he’d surprised her with the other version of herself and left her locked in the prison cell of a room. One thing was clear—physically at least, he was no longer a threat. She doubted he could even stand. But then, who needed to stand when they had a weapon that could do the job from a distance?
“How the hell did you get out of there?” Harte asked. “I left you for dead.”
“Yes,” the Professor said, his expression the portrait of mock sadness. “Isn’t it terrible that an unregistered Mageus attacked one of the preeminent experts on the occult arts? Even without my affinity, I knew exactly where you would go. How else do you think the Guard found you so quickly?”
“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Harte growled.
“There’s a part of me that wishes you had,” Nibsy said. “Until you showed up just now, I would have welcomed death.”
“Don’t worry,” Harte told him. “I can rectify that mistake.” He started forward, but Esta held him steady. Even in the old man’s current state, he could reach the gun before Harte could reach the desk.
Professor Lachlan coughed out something that might have been a laugh. “You always were a smart girl, in whichever life you led.” He leaned forward a little. “Not ever as smart as you believed you were. But you did well enough for my purposes.”
“I’m not doing anything for your purposes,” she told him.
His pale, dry lips twitched at that. “As I said, you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are. I’m not finished with you yet, girl.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Esta said. It was a bluff. With the gun in the Professor’s reach and her magic cold and dead from whatever had just happened in the elevator, they didn’t have the upper hand. But she pulled confidence around herself anyway, the last bit of magic she had left. “We’re leaving, and you’re not going to do a thing to stop us.”
Esta gave Harte another small, sure nod and then turned away from the Professor. Hand in hand, they walked toward the staircase, and neither of them looked back.
“You would leave the answers you need and simply walk away?” the old man asked when they were halfway to the door. There was amusement in his tone, even though his voice sounded like the crackling of leaves.
She froze, hating herself for pausing.
“You have no idea how to use the power in the Book, do you?” the old man asked. “The beating heart of magic… Do you have any idea what it’s even capable of?”
“Esta,” Harte murmured, tugging gently on her hand. “He’s not going to help us. You can’t trust anything he says.”
“I got you out of that ritual circle, didn’t I?” Nibsy said. “I could have just as easily left you to die.”
“Only because you needed the ritual to end so you could get the Book. There was nothing noble about you helping me. You killed that girl,” Harte said, anger lashing in his words.
“No,” the old man murmured. “You did that. I simply handed you the weapon. You’re the one who chose to pull the trigger. You chose your life and your freedom over hers.” He nodded to Esta.
“I knew it wasn’t really Esta,” Harte said.
“Did you?” Nibsy murmured, amusement glinting behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. “But you’re wrong. It was Esta. Just not the version you’re used to. That girl was simply another possibility of what could be.”
“Then why let her die?” Esta asked. “You groomed her, kept her ageless over decades, and for what? She would have been far more willing to help you than I’ll ever be.”
“She served her purpose,” the old man said. “She was an anomaly. An impossibility, and yet she still fulfilled her fate. With her sacrifice, the stones have been unified. Now they can be used to control the goddess and unlock the power in the Book.”
“Not by you,” Esta said. “You don’t have the Book or the artifacts.”
“But I will, when you take them back.” The old man did smile then. “You see, this version of the time line was never my destiny.” He turned to focus his cloudy eyes on Esta. “Just as dying in that ritual circle was not supposed to be yours. The girl doesn’t matter—not her life, not her death—not so long as you return as you must.”
“Or her life will become mine,” Esta realized. “Her time line will become the only possibility.”
“And the effects on history you created—the chaos and evil you unleashed—will become permanent.” Professor Lachlan nodded. He adjusted himself in his seat to reach for a stack of papers, grimacing at the movement. “Your duplicity turned into a gift,” he said. “Had you taken the Book directly back to my younger self, I would not have realized the possibilities the Book holds for time itself. Because of you, because you tried to betray me, I had another lifetime to learn. I had another lifetime to prepare.”
“It won’t matter,” Esta promised.
“Oh, but it will,” he told her. “Didn’t I teach you that time was like a book and history merely the words on the pages? Tear out one page. Write over another. I believed the essence beneath would remain the same.” He shrugged. “When you slipped away from Logan, when you saved the Magician from his fate and broke through the Brink, you created another story, a time line written overtop the first. But you didn’t change the essence of the thing. You never changed time itself. But I will.
“The original time line is still there. Like a palimpsest. The life I was meant to have is waiting beneath the surface of this lifetime, beneath time and memory. So is yours. It’s why you have to return, why you have to send Ishtar’s Key forward with the other girl. Your very existence depends upon it. But you know this already. You have the Book and the goddess within it. You have the stones. And when you return to your past, as you must, you’ll deliver me my victory.”
“We won’t deliver you anything,” Esta promised.
