“Jane,” Edmund said, when my mug was half-empty, “tell us what happened.”
I gave them a blow-by-block-by-blow description of what I had experienced. They said nothing. I sipped. They looked at each other. Something about the exchange hit me as wrong, but I couldn’t place it.
“Did Beast do the time change?” Edmund asked. “Your eyes were glowing gold when I got to the sparring room.”
“B—” I turned my thoughts inward. Beast stared at me a moment, turned away, and padded, pawpawpaw, into the darkness of our minds. “Maybe,” I whispered, thinking. Remembering. Especially remembering the last big fight between EuroVamps and our side, in a warehouse where a weather witch had been forced to create storms and to collect arcenciels for their timewalking magic. What if . . . what if it wasn’t just me who had messed up time? What if it had been Beast too? And the witch Adan. And . . . the arcenciel trapped in the anode of crystals that same night.
That possibility hit me like a Mack truck. What if it had been all of us, in tiny little changes back along our shared timeline? And the pain in my head and belly might be contributing to it too, my messed-up genetics switching on and off and . . . changing things around me. We might all be screwed six ways from Sunday.
Edmund brought coffee to the table and poured me a second hot cup of tea. I heard the whirring sound of the new stirring device in the background, before he added a froth of cream to my cup. I was a long way from Cool Whip.
Hammers and buzzes of saws from the third floor grew loud and a sound like a stack of lumber dropped from a height shook the house. Eli’s body twitched and I could tell he wanted to check on the men upstairs, but he drank his coffee instead, his eyes on me.
“Remember the fight in the warehouse?” I said after I drank through the cream. “Adan Bouvier was in a magical cage, working storm magic, blood-starved, pretty much insane. There was an arcenciel trapped in the crystal. Cerulean. Adan was using her to alter time. Beast . . . my Beast seems able to twist time too. I wasn’t doing anything with time and yet I kept losing moments. Odd little things that I didn’t notice immediately but that added up to me being uncertain about the sequence of events.”
“That happens in battle,” Eli said. “Especially after you’ve been in a few firefights. You lose some things. Memories will skip from event to event like a stone on still water. Others are so detailed and brilliant and sharp they play out for you like you’re going through it all over again.”
“Like you’re experiencing it again?” I asked.
“In a way. For me it’s always clearly a memory. But it can be intense and comprehensive and meticulous in detail.”
“Since the warehouse fight, I’ve noticed small bits of time stuttering. Or two events that happened in different ways. But they both feel real.” I sipped some more.
“I have called Soul, my mistress,” Edmund said, bowing his head. “She and Gee will be here soon.”
My fingers clenched on the warm mug. “Why?” Though I knew the answer.
“Because they and Brute are the only other timewalkers we know.”
As if they knew that Ed had told me they were coming, as if they’d waited for the words to be spoken, a knock sounded on the front door. Ed let them in, murmured words of greeting and explanation. “They don’t know about Beast,” Eli said, his voice so low I could barely hear him. “You want me to stay while you talk? If not, I’ll give you priva—”
“Stay,” I said. My voice sounded a little pleading, which should have ticked me off, but didn’t.
He nodded. Looked up as our guests entered the kitchen. Soul sat to my left, her billowy clothing shades of misty gray that darkened into purple near her feet. Gee, looking taller, more muscular, took a seat at the foot of the table, his hair longer and blacker. The changes were an easy adjustment for his glamour. He said, “The little goddess is evolving.”
“Am I?”
“We hunted together. You flew in the form of my friend.”
I had taken the form of Anzu and flown into the far north with Gee DiMercy. We had hunted were-creatures who had killed humans. “Sabina said it would be okay, but . . . skinwalker tradition teaches us that if we take the form of a sentient being, that’s the first step into darkness. Am I evolving into u’tlun’ta? Is that what this time-changing thing is?”
“U’tlun’ta do not evolve. You did not take the form of a living body. You did not eat the body while it was alive so that you might also take the memories and the dreams and the hopes. That is what u’tlun’ta does to take the path into darkness,” Soul said, which was more than I had ever been told or figured out on my own. “You did not make of her a victim. That is not why time is slipping.”
Slipping. That, or timewalkers were playing with time all around me. Or . . . using me as a focus to affect their own changes on the future, if that was even possible. “Then why is time slipping?”
“Some physicists suggest that our universe is one of an ever-growing stack of universes,” Gee said, “a new one created each time we make even the smallest choice.”
I stared at my cup. “Right. So I’m slipping into a different universe?”
“I don’t think so,” Gee said. “I think you are reinventing this one in small, personal moments.”
“Unconsciously,” Soul said. “It can be done by accident. And it is very, very dangerous.”
By accident. That sucked.
I thought about that. About all the things that had happened to me since I came to New Orleans and went to work for Leo. I had changed. Maybe too much. Maybe so much that I was trying to undo some of the changes, subconsciously, by accident, or, crap, what if it was happening even in my sleep? No. No way. I slowed my breathing, forced calm into me. Edmund appeared and placed a cup of tea in front of Soul and a cup of spiced coffee at Gee’s elbow. “You’re not their servant,” I snapped. “You’re the heir to the Master of the City.”
“I am also hospitable to guests, my mistress.” There was censure in his tone. Mild but there.
I blew out a breath that was too aggravated to be a sigh and drained my mug. “Sorry.” I set the ceramic mug on the table with a small thump. “You’re right.”
Ed replaced my mug with a fresh one. Chai. Frothed cream on top. I was an ass. “Thank you, Edmund,” I said in my best Bethel Christian Children’s Home manners. “The tea is delicious.” Ed didn’t reply. I said, “Soul, if my DNA started forming new strands, would that make it possible that I’d slip into timewalking without intent, even unconscious intent?”
The room was very still. Upstairs, two men were arguing over a measurement. One of them called the other a shithead. I’d have to say something. We didn’t cuss in this house. But I didn’t get up. I stared at my mug instead.
“How has your DNA changed?” Soul whispered.
“It’s got an extra strand. Maybe two.”
“I see,” Soul said. “Timewalkers from this world often have peculiar genetics. Some have fallen into time-slipping.”
“What happened to them?”
“I’ve known only a few. Two vanished. One died of very fast-acting malignancies. The others lived long lives and died happy, surrounded by friends and family.”
The last part sounded like a lie, but it also sounded good, so I let it stand. “How did they survive?”
“They learned self-control. They learned to be happy in spite of illness, pain, war, pestilence, and death.”
“Drink your tea, my mistress,” Ed said softly.
I drank my tea. Self-control. That was something my housemothers had tried to pound into me, growing up. “Is there a class I can take?” I asked, a small smile trying to find my lips. “Maybe an online course? I’m kinda busy right now, but I’m highly motivated and ready to learn.”
Soul smiled with me. “This has happened only when you are fighting? In danger? When others you love are in danger?”
“This time, Eli kicked just as I stood. His foot was coming for my throat. Killing strike. He hadn’t pulled the kick yet and it was about to impact.” Eli’s eyes tightened, a minuscule move as if a single nerve twitched. To him I said, “Yes. I was going to avoid the kick. But my brain said otherwise.” To Soul, I said, “So far as I’ve noticed, it’s battle, when I think I’m about to be injured. Muscle memory takes over. I’m fighting. Then things are different. Little things, but—” I stopped again, remembering when Ayatas shot me. Beast had stopped time then. I frowned, wondering how much she contributed to time-slippage. Could anything be considered insignificant when it came to stopping time?