Passenger (Passenger, #1)(65)

“H-horrible—” Etta tried to get her hands beneath her, to push, so she was at least sitting up. Aside from the anger she felt radiating off him, Nicholas seemed completely unaffected.

She twisted away from his hands as he reached out to help her, and scooted back through the dust and debris until her back hit a wall. A cool expression slid over his face, and she was suddenly pinned by guilt. If it were possible, Etta felt worse than before.

“You were attempting to run,” he said, stating the obvious. “Incredibly foolish. Do you honestly believe Ironwood’s reach is limited to the eighteenth century? If nothing else, have a care for your mother! If he sees you crossing him this way, he will kill her.”

“I left a note with—with Sophia, saying I needed to leave now, because of the deadline.…” Etta shook her head. She’d written it by moonlight, and waited only long enough to be sure the man on guard outside their door was asleep. “I can’t run out of time.” And I don’t necessarily want Ironwood to be able to follow me. “You don’t understand—”

She’d known it was a risk; that she was maybe na?vely banking on the chance that Ironwood would not punish her mother if she left without his permission in order to, as she’d written in the note, “make your deadline.” Etta had a feeling the old man had ways of tracking her progress across time. She needed a little bit of a head start to find her footing and avoid anyone tailing her to report back on her movements—which passages she’d used. Unfortunately, she hadn’t factored in traveler’s sickness.

Or Nicholas.

“Explain it to me!” he said, his voice a harsh, deadly quiet. “Explain to me why you’d risk her life—why you’d risk your life—leaving without any supplies or preparation! I didn’t take you for an idiot!”

She clenched her jaw, glaring back at him. Her arm was filled with pins and needles as the blood rushed to it, but she lifted it all the same, searching the ground for the bag of things she’d “borrowed” from the trunk in Sophia’s room.

It looked like they were in some sort of hallway—only, maybe hallway wasn’t the right word. The vaulted stone ceiling was broken up by shattered skylights and long hanging lanterns. There were shops inside here—she saw battered chairs, shoes that had been blown out of storefronts. The second-story windows above each gold-and-black store entrance looked like they had been thrown open all at once.

“There,” she said, pointing to the leather bag a short distance away. “I didn’t c-come un-unprepared.”

What had happened here? It looked like a bomb had gone off; everything looked damp, like the people here had only just put out an enormous fire. Where am I? she thought, panic gnawing holes in her core. She heard distant voices, clipped English accents, too faint to decipher.

Nicholas sorted through the bag. “A pair of sewing scissors, a harmonica engraved with Sophia’s initials, a small mirror, a few pieces of gold, your mother’s letter, a—”

Etta smirked.

“—a lady’s support garment, an apple, and a revolver,” he finished, closing the bag again. Sophia hadn’t had a truly modern “support garment,” but the one Etta had found in the trunk was as close to it as she was going to get.

“What else would I need?” she asked innocently.

“Water? Maps? A list of known passages? Era-appropriate clothing? Ammunition for said revolver? Do you even know how to use the weapon?”

Well, he had her there. “If you try to bring me back, I’ll—”

“You’ll what, Miss Spencer?” Nicholas said, crouching down in front of her. “You’ll glare at me?”

Etta’s hand closed around a nearby shard of glass, holding it out in front of her. Nicholas’s expression changed; his eyes darkened, drawn first to the makeshift weapon, then to her face. She refused to wilt under the pressure of his gaze, and stared back as defiantly as she could, with one of her cheeks swollen to twice its size.

He broke first, his face softening. He sat down on a nearby piece of rubble and took out a folded handkerchief. “You’ve cut yourself again, pirate.”

After a moment, Etta set the piece of glass down and let him hold the warm cloth against her palm, staring at the way his large hand cupped hers. Her chest grew tight as she searched for the right words.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly. “You made me promise not to leave without a word. You couldn’t have done the same for me?”

“Sorry.” She hadn’t thought of that. The knife of guilt wedged in her stomach was gripped by fear, and given another twist. “I didn’t want to waste another second, not when he could hurt Mom, kill her. I think Ironwood knows better than to hurt her until I come back with the astrolabe. If he did hurt her, then I’d really have nothing to lose, right?”

Nicholas nodded. “He has other ways of hurting you.”

“But not motivating me. And—” Etta hesitated, unsure of whether or not to tell him the other motivation that burned inside of her. “I told you about Alice—I need to finish this, get back to her.”

Nicholas sat back on his heels, glancing up at what they could see of the sky. His usual move, she realized, to try to collect his thoughts. Hide his expression. “Etta, you can’t save her.”