Return Once More

So my grandfather’s legacy wasn’t completely tarnished.

My failure to answer turned all six pairs of eyes toward me. Jess and Pey both looked bored with the conversation, like they wished I would get over myself so we could talk about something more interesting. Levi’s dark features spoke of idle curiosity, as usual. He was kind of the gossip king of the Academy. Sarah’s face was pinched with concern, Analeigh’s eyes crowded with a million questions.

Oz’s steady gray gaze brimmed with suspicion and a

I concentrated on not squirming. “I … I like to know he’s okay.”

“It was this morning around six,” Oz supplied, his voice softer. “They weren’t hurt.”

Sarah slid a sidelong glance at him. The hitch in her body language told me I wasn’t imagining his odd behavior, the gentle thread to his reassurance.

When I didn’t respond, the conversation around the table shifted. Jess changed the subject, blabbering about what decade of clothing she pla

Analeigh’s silence u

Get some freaking answers.

Chapter Nine

New York , New York , United States , Earth Before–March 25, 1911 CE (Common Era)

Heavy clouds pressed together, obscuring the sun over New York City and making the early spring day overcast and dreary, the temperature below average. The high-necked shirtwaist, ankle boots, and long woolen skirt kept me warm enough, though comfort hadn’t been an early twentieth-century fashion concern.

I hadn’t figured out the best time to visit Jonah yet, and today’s observation delayed my plan to travel without authorization a second time even further. If I was honest, as much as I wanted to throw my arms around my brother’s neck and squeeze out answers, I’d started to waver. It wasn’t getting in trouble as much as disappointing my parents. Again. Our family had been through enough, and I’d taken a huge risk yesterday.

Today’s observation would be a distraction, though not a happy one. We’d drawn Rachel Turing as our overseer at the Triangle since a male overseer would be harder to blend into the crowd. There were men in the building, and some would even perish in a few short hours, but they were, for the most part, too recognizable. On a positive note, Rachel treated us as adults in a way Maude could never manage, and had left all of today’s horrible research in our hands.

Though the overseers had witnessed this event multiple times, it was new to Analeigh, Sarah, Peyton, and I, and the shortcut research we’d tried to split hadn’t been enough once Rachel had been assigned. We’d all spent hours determining which worktables had empty seats, how many of us needed to roam the room passing out buttons, ribbons, and thread, and the exact spot that would be consumed last by fire and smoke, allowing us to remain until the final moments.

Our work had been accurate so far—the five of us had spent the day sewing and basting, hauling material and finished products. Even though the guidance spewing into my brain from the tattoo made my hands fairly certain at the unfamiliar work, I’d poked so many holes in my fingers they resembled Swiss cheese. The real kind.

Tables and chairs, baskets of discarded strips of cloth and trimmings littered every square inch of workspace. There wasn’t much room to even walk; I couldn’t imagine the scene when these girls started to panic. As the end of the day drew near, grasshoppers banged around in my stomach. Even though the five of us wouldn’t perish in this fire, the idea of watching it happen to everyone else sloshed bile into my throat.

We were on the eighth floor, where the fire would start in approximately—I glanced at the clock on the wall—fifteen minutes. Restless and unwilling to sit still, I traded places with Analeigh, who had been up, handing out trimmings to the girls at the worktables.

Quitting time inched closer. Foreladies wandered the rows, passing out pay envelopes but not allowing anyone to move from their stations until five. Up and down the rows, I stared into the doomed faces, checking for the one that matched the photo of Rosie Shapiro in my protected file.

When I saw her, it surprised me. She wasn’t sitting at her sewing machine like I’d expected, but coming out of the coatroom, shrugging into a tattered wool cloak and securing a scarf over her shining curls. My glasses displayed her file, the one that promised she perished on the same day and time printed on Jonah’s True card, but she’s leaving. Now.

She wasn’t supposed to do that.

Her brown eyes were warm and soft, but as they met mine, the horror in them karate-chopped my throat. She knew what was coming. That everyone in this room was about to die. She had been warned, and only a Historian could have done it.

Jonah.

I thought about Caesarion, and how I wished I could save him. Now, right in front of me, stood proof that Jonah had struggled with the same feelings. No one else obsessed over their True or broke a gabillion rules to meet them. The others got their card, laughed, maybe read the person’s history, and then stuck it in a digital archive of their life.

But not my brother. Not me.

I wanted to ask Rosie where she was going a half hour early, but even though I’d broken the rules with Caesarion the other day, now Rachel’s watchful gaze made speaking with Rosie impossible. The overseer’s dark eyes latched onto me, probably wondering why this particular girl had drawn my interest, already preparing her lecture about my scattered attention. Instead of asking Rosie anything, I wandered after her as she made her way to the stairwell, dropping trimmings on the workstations along the way.

A gray-haired forelady frowned, eyes sweeping Rosie’s outerwear. “It’s not quitting time.”

“I know. I’m feeling quite ill.” As though to prove her point, Rosie swayed on her feet, then leaned over and retched at the woman’s feet.

The forelady didn’t even flinch as vomit splashed onto the scraps on the floor, splattering bits onto her shoes. “I’ll have to dock your pay.”

“I understand,” Rosie replied, her hands shaking as she wiped her lips. All of the color had drained from her face; she looked like a ghost. She looked like she wanted to scream warnings, or maybe wished that she’d never been here at all.

The forelady heaved a sigh. “You’ll have to take the elevator. The doors are locked until five.”

Locked from the outside, she meant. So no one could sneak away.

Rosie nodded, then spun and headed toward the freight elevators that would ferry a precious few of these girls out of this deathtrap before it stopped working. With one final glance around the room, her eyes filled with tears and a sob scratching from her throat, Rosie Shapiro disappeared.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was meant to die.

The thought of what else she would change when she walked out that door, what pieces of history were forever moved or forgotten or dragged into the darkness, closes the room in around me. It’s hard to breathe among the clothes and all of these poor, doomed girls, but when Rachel’s penetrating gaze finds mine, asking what’s wrong, I shake my head.