Jenkins nodded, but didn’t look especially pleased as he retreated.
The servant opened the door and went inside, but Henry held Etta back a moment.
“This friend of mine is neither a guardian nor a traveler, though he knows of our existence,” Henry said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I ask that you not share the details of the timeline you grew up with, as it might frighten him into acting rashly.”
Etta nodded and reached up again, pushing a rogue strand of hair back out of her face. Sophia had told her, in no uncertain terms, that to reveal what they could do to any non-traveler brought layers upon layers of consequences. She was surprised Henry was taking the risk at all.
Dark wood paneling surrounded them on all sides, making the awkwardly shaped room seem almost coffinlike. It was so aggressively masculine in its bold lines, the air drenched in wood polish and tobacco, that Etta wondered if the room ever received female visitors. Bookcases, most with glass doors, ran along the edge of the room, broken up in places by small oval portraits of men in military uniform. Around a corner, Etta saw a grand piano peeking out. At the center stood an impressive desk covered with picture frames of all shapes and sizes. She didn’t notice the man sitting behind it, a book open under the glow of a brass desk lamp, until he lifted a tumbler of alcohol to his lips.
“Your Imperial Majesty, Mister Henry Hemlock and Miss Henrietta Hemlock.”
Imperial Majesty.
The words dripped through her mind, slow as syrup.
As in…the tsar.
All at once she understood the warning that Henry had given her, not to speak of the timeline she’d grown up in. Because this man, who stood only an inch taller than her, with neatly combed brown hair and piercing blue eyes, should have been dead a year ago, along with his whole family.
“Thank you, that will be all,” Tsar Nicholas II said, dismissing the servant, who gave one last swift bow on his way out.
“Nicky,” Henry said simply, and it was Etta’s turn to be stunned as he favored the other man with a true, warm smile.
His friend. A friend he hadn’t saved, or hadn’t been able to; one who’d been murdered, along with his family, as a new regime had risen to power in his country. Etta’s hands felt cold and damp inside of her gloves.
This was what it meant to form attachments to people outside of their small, insular world of travelers, Etta realized. They were at the mercy of the timeline. Saving them was no guarantee that events wouldn’t change for the worse, but to live with the knowledge of their deaths…
Etta glanced at Henry again, took in the way he rubbed a hand over his face, fought to keep his expression from slipping. A sharp jolt of pain went straight through her heart. She knew this feeling. She knew this exact brand of painful elation. Seeing a younger Alice had changed her perception of death entirely, forced her to recognize that time wasn’t a straight line. As long as she—as long as any of them—could travel, they wouldn’t be constrained by the natural boundaries of life and death.
And this was what truly set the Thorns apart from the Ironwoods; the old man only saw humanity as tools to carve and hone his vision of what the world should be. But here, in the way Henry had to press a hand to his face to mask his relief, was a kind of love; a compassion for messy, flawed humanity. A wish to spare this life, just as they had struggled to spare the lives of San Francisco’s many fortunate strangers.
The thought made Etta eager to leave, to join the other Thorns combing the rooms for the astrolabe.
All of this could be over in a night. Less than that.
“Oh, dear,” the tsar said with a faint laugh, extending a hand toward him. “I can’t imagine what’s about to happen to me to provoke that sort of reaction from you.”
His English was better than hers, somehow crisp and smooth all at once, with a refined edge.
“No, it’s only—” Henry cleared his throat and laughed. He took the tsar’s hand, releasing Etta to clasp it with his other one. “I was only thinking it’s been so very long. Will you do me the honor of allowing me to introduce my daughter, Henrietta?”
“Daughter!” The tsar came around the desk, grinning. “You never said! What a charming beauty she is.”
Henry nodded. “And wit to match.”
The tsar smiled. “Of course. Intellect and charm.”
“It’s…” Etta realized she should be doing something—something like curtseying—and did an awkward sort of bob at the knees. “It’s incredible to meet you.”
Because, honestly, what else could she say? It was incredible, absurd, and more than a little alarming.
“The pleasure is, of course, all mine.” The tsar turned his attention back toward Henry, repeating that same stunned exclamation, “Daughter! I wish you had sent word. I would have brought my own with me from Tsarkoye Selo. As it was, I hardly had time to travel into the city myself.”
“Please forgive my abhorrent rudeness on the matter. We made an unexpected trip here, as you might have gathered. And, regretfully, I only recently became reacquainted with Henrietta after a number of years apart,” Henry explained. “We’ve been making up for lost time.”
The tsar’s lips twisted into an ironic smile. “It seems odd to me that your kind can ‘lose’ time when you stand to gain so much from it. Please—sit, sit, and tell me, how have you been, my old friend? What news from your own war?”
Oh my God. The knowledge that he was well aware of their world, and had directly benefited from his association with it, made Etta shift uncomfortably. This was the very first lesson of their world Sophia had given her. How chillingly serious the other girl had been when she’d said, if nothing else, they couldn’t reveal themselves or what they could do. They couldn’t share news of the future with the past, save the dead from their fates, or even break character.