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“Oh no, Izzy,” she said, remembering what Hugo Barbary had said to her, before he had pushed her through the door:Perhaps I killed your friend because she annoyed me.
She dropped her head into her hands.
What if it was true?
What if that manhadkilled Izzy?
Cassie’s insides were a stormy sea, roiling and tempestuous, her whole being in disarray like she had never known. The world blurred around her again as tears bubbled up. She tried to wipe them away, but more kept coming, her breaths hitching as she wiped and wiped, until her cheeks were raw. But there were still more tears. The tears were endless.
When she was spent, when she was an exhausted shell devoid of all hope, she asked herself who could help her. She couldn’t survive on her own. She thought about who she knew in the past.
Her grandfather—a continent away, and even if she could get to him, would he help her? What could he do? He had his own Cassie to look after.
Izzy would be somewhere in New York City, but Cassie didn’t know where. And the Izzy of ten years ago didn’t know Cassie. Why would she help her?
Then she thought about Drummond Fox. She had hoped the Drummond Fox from the future would come back to rescue her, but surely he would have arrived by now? He had known where she was. She couldn’t rely on him.
But what about the Drummond Fox of the past? The Drummond Fox of ten years ago?
It felt like an idea, an opportunity. For the first time since her bedroom door had slammed shut on her it felt like a possible way forward.
Cassie stood up and let her feet carry her around Bryant Park, her gaze turned inward as she nurtured the idea, and her hope, like a fragile plant.
If she could find Drummond Fox, she could tell him about the Book of Doors and all that happened in the future... he would believe her, she was sure.
She felt a sudden rush of adrenaline as she realized that the Drummond Fox of the past was in the city... she andherDrummond had watched him the previous day, in Bryant Park...
And then her hope drove itself over a cliff as she realized that Drummond Fox was gone. The previous evening he had seen his friends killed by the woman—Cassie had seen it herself, she hadbeenthere, in his memories. Drummond had fled the woman and the massacre of his friends. He had started his ten years of running and hiding, of living in the shadows. She had no way of knowing where he would be until ten years in the future, when she and Izzy would see him on the rooftop bar of the Library Hotel.
“No,” she said to herself, as these truths made themselves known. She stopped walking, forcing other people to step around her. She didn’t hear the annoyed words, she didn’t see the irritated glances thrown her way. She was lost in her own thoughts.
Drummond Fox couldn’t help her.
She waited for her mind to respond, to come up with an alternative.
If she couldn’t find Drummond Fox, and there was nobody else in the past who could help her, she had to help herself. And there was only one way that she was going to get back to her own time.
“I have to find the Book of Doors,” she said to herself, her voice quiet, as she realized this was the answer she should have thought of twelve hours earlier.
But where to start? Where to find such a book?
The answer was simple: start with the man who had given it to her.
She had to find Mr. Webber.
Cassie waited for Mr. Webber outside his building. It was late afternoon when he emerged, and at first Cassie didn’t realize it was him. This was a Mr. Webber with darker hair and fewer years in his bones.
She caught up to him before he reached the corner. “Mr. Webber!”
The man stopped to look at her. Cassie saw a polite smile, curiosity and caution in his expression.
“Mr. Webber, it is so good to see you,” she gushed, her emotions suddenly overflowing. “You have no idea. Please, I need your help.” Her words were a torrent; twelve hours of fear and anxiety and panic poured out of her because she saw a face she knew, even if that face didn’t know her. “I’m so sorry, I know you don’t know me, but I need help and you are the only person I know.”
Mr. Webber’s brow creased, his eyes flicking up and down over her face as if he was trying to place her.
“I need the Book of Doors. You give it to me in the future; I don’t know why, but you did. But I got stuck here in the past and I need it to get home and I can’t think of anyone else to help me, oh god...” She put a hand to her head. Her brain told her she was rambling. It told her to think about what she must look like to a man who didn’t know her. She forced herself to breathe, to calm. “I know this sounds crazy, I know what I must look like.”
“You need help?” Mr. Webber said, nodding kindly.
