Passenger (Passenger, #1)(55)

“Then maybe,” Etta bit out, “you should have stopped looking for it while you were still ahead, and left me out of this!”

He removed his hand from her and pulled it back, as if to strike her. Nicholas stepped farther between them, his shoulder blocking her view of the old man. “Enough. Don’t pretend as if you’ve actually been mourning them. I seem to recall you referring to Julian as a gnat on more than one occasion. You didn’t shed a single tear when he died.”

Something occurred to Etta. If Augustus and Virgil were his sons, and Julian was his grandson…where did Nicholas fit into the family tree?

“Did Sophia search their possessions while she was in that time period?” Nicholas asked. “How do you know it’s not there?”

“Rose knows better than to keep it with her. She will have guaranteed that finding her does not mean finding the astrolabe—she always was a spiteful creature, even after everything I’d done for her,” Cyrus continued. “She claimed it belonged to the Linden family, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

Someone tried to pull a fast one on me once, and I’ve never forgotten what that felt like. I almost lost something of your great-granddad’s.

Etta forced herself to stay as still as possible, terrified of giving these thoughts away, too.

“One of my agents conducted a thorough search of their abode a few months ago,” Cyrus said. “If such a place may even be called that. By his description, it was a closet.”

“Your agent…” Etta felt the blood leave her face, drain slowly from her heart, until it seemed to stop beating all together. “Your agent broke into our apartment and went through our things?”

“And several safe-deposit boxes he traced all over Manhattan. He returned with a peculiar letter that was of great interest to me, and I sent him and the others back to continue their investigation of you.”

A peculiar letter? Etta’s brows furrowed. What did that mean?

The old man continued, “They were to assist Sophia if necessary in prompting your travel, as well as restrain your mother.” He touched his pocket, where he’d returned the photograph of her mom. “They await my command as to what to do with her. Do you understand?”

Etta forced herself to give a curt nod. “What’s so special about this astrolabe that you couldn’t just find yourself another one?”

Etta only knew what an astrolabe was from her many tours through the Met with Alice and Rose. Larger than a compass, the instruments had been used in ancient and medieval times for astronomical, astrological, topographical calculations—even to tell time. The lowermost layer, the one that cupped the smaller round plates that moved inside, was divided into the hours of the days and degrees of arc. The plates were etched with latitudes, altitudes, even parts of the celestial sphere.

But apparently this one also had another purpose.

“It can examine a passage and inform the bearer of the destination and time period on the other side by reading its vibrations,” Cyrus said. “And whether or not the passage is stable enough to enter without collapsing.”

She turned to Nicholas, looking for confirmation. He kept his gaze on the snapping, shuddering fire as he explained. “When a traveler dies, a surge of…power…is released. The nearest passage is rendered unstable by it, and will often close. But if it collapses while you’re traveling through it, you could be tossed out to a random time, or be trapped in the passage forever.”

Etta felt a shudder work over her skin.

“There are hundreds of passages we use, but there are many more uncharted ones. Our numbers, as travelers, are dwindling,” Cyrus continued. “Every time I send a traveler through, I risk him or her never returning—stumbling onto a battlefield, being caught unawares in the wild, or by the ruling authority. Can your little mind possibly fathom the importance of finding the astrolabe to save them from that fate? Allow me to put this plainly: our numbers grow fewer and fewer. Think of all of those travelers who are…stranded… in the future, who do not know what it is they can do and who they are meant to serve. Their family requires their assistance, and, by blood or by conquest, they owe me their allegiance.”

The prickling started at the base of Etta’s spine and worked its way up over her scalp. Is that what this was really about? Her mother had taken it to save future travelers from being under his thumb?

If I found it…and if I handed it over…

Rose had wanted to protect the travelers, but if Etta knew her mother, it was more than that—lineage could be hidden, names changed, people relocated, until they were lost to the records of time.

“Wouldn’t giving it to you change my future?” Etta asked, the thought suddenly occurring to her. “Or erase it completely?”

He raised his brows, as if surprised she’d even know to ask. “Your future will be preserved. The investments I’ve made over the centuries depend on it. I merely mean to protect and find my own kin.”

“Then why not convince Rose to tell you, and leave Miss Spencer out of this?” Nicholas asked. “Trade her daughter for the location?”

“Don’t be stupid, boy,” Cyrus said. “The woman would die before giving the location up, and, in the process, lie and send members of this family off to every dangerous hell on this earth to retrieve it. We cannot sustain such losses. Therefore, this Miss Linden is the perfect candidate for retrieval—she is a blank slate. And, should she perish, she will have at least deciphered this for us to use.”