“Yeah, it is,” Riq agreed. “But what else are we going to do? Say ‘Oh, well’ and just go back to the future, hang out on the back porch until our house falls into a river of exploding lava?”
Sera sighed. “Of course not. I’m just saying it’s scary and we have no idea what to expect. This isn’t a video game we can just reset.”
“Why are you being so negative?” Dak shot back. In all the years of their friendship, she thought it might be the first time he’d ever truly hurt her feelings. She felt his words like a dagger. “We all know there’s no choice here. Alexander is dead, and Aristotle told us” — he eyed the philosopher with a You-know-what-I-mean glance — “that his dying is the first Break. The Prime Break. The Break that started it all. So nothing else matters. There’s no decision to make. We go back and we save him. Boom, that’s it.”
Sera wanted to strangle him for sounding so arrogant. The only problem was that her best friend was totally right. What else could they do?
“Well?” Dak pushed.
“Quit acting like you just found the cure for cancer,” Riq muttered. “We all know that’s what we have to do.”
Sera nodded, refusing to let her pride get in the way. She knew that part of her problem was worrying about her parents and the Remnants. It scared her to death to stray from the plan that had seemed to be leading her to an actual reunion with them in the future. But she was being stupid. If the Hystorians were right, then Alexander’s death presented a much bigger problem. It had to be undone, no matter what the cost.
Dak seemed to sense he’d been a little forceful. “What do you think we should do, Sera?”
“Go back. Stop Tilda. You’re right.” There, she said it. And the way he nodded in response saved her from any more wounded pride.
Riq clapped his hands once, loudly, then stood up. “Then let’s get on it.”
Aristotle rose as well, very slowly, looking back and forth between the other three with a very uncertain expression. “Are we . . . sure about this?”
Sera and her two friends nodded immediately.
The philosopher straightened and appeared much more confident. “Then I’m going with you. And I don’t want to hear any argument about it. I’m going and that’s that.”
Dak blew a loud breath through his lips. “Why would we argue? We need your help, dude.”
The translator didn’t like that last word so much — it sounded more like a burp.
Aristotle started walking toward the balcony door. “We’ll find out everything we need to know from Python, and then off we go. I just hope that toy of yours actually works.”
If Dak could’ve chosen anyone to go on a time-traveling adventure with, it was a no-brainer that it’d be Abraham Lincoln. But Aristotle was a pretty good second choice. After talking to Python for an hour or so and learning everything they possibly could about the details of what had happened, Dak, Sera, Riq, and the philosopher were ready to go back in time — they’d decided on three days to be safe — and stop Tilda.
The lady with hair of flames and lips of tar.
It made Dak think of Medusa, who was almost as bad as Tilda.
They stood on a patch of dirt behind the official stables of the League of Corinth. The sun had started to set in the west, and Aristotle said that he highly doubted there’d be anyone around.
In the waning light of day, the philosopher stared at the Infinity Ring as Sera pulled it out. “I’ve programmed in the time and the location,” she said.
Olympias’s palace, Dak thought. The home of Alexander and his mom. Back when this had all begun, if he’d made a list of one million places they might have to visit throughout history, that one probably wouldn’t have made the list.
“Is this going to hurt?” the philosopher asked as he put his hand on the cool metal of the Ring.
“No,” Sera answered simply. Dak didn’t know if that was the most honest answer ever, but it seemed to make their famous friend feel better.
They stood in a circle, the sky above them fading from orange to purple, four right hands clinging to the Infinity Ring in the middle of their group. Sera ignited the device into action and sparkles of light flashed in the air.
Just before they were swept away, something happened that made Dak’s stomach almost leap through his throat and out of his mouth. About twenty feet away from where they stood, four people suddenly appeared, almost as if they were falling out of the sky, their images flashing into existence just long enough for Dak to see who they were.
Himself.
Sera.
And a man and woman he’d never seen before.
It was only for an instant, but enough for Dak’s mind to explode with confusion. He was staring at himself, and the other version of him looked back with an odd expression of understanding. It was unnerving, confusing, and Dak didn’t like it one bit.
Then the sky ripped open and sucked them into the oblivion of a wormhole.
RIQ COULDN’T believe what he’d just seen. It happened so quickly he thought that he had to have imagined it, that he was seeing things in the moment before they were sucked into the wormhole.
He didn’t love the feeling of his body being pulled and stretched and compressed by a billion forces all at once, but at least he’d grown somewhat used to it. Not to mention the sounds and the lights and the wind that wasn’t really a wind. But he couldn’t help but feel sorry for Aristotle — who wasn’t exactly young and spry — as they traveled through the space-time continuum.
Like always, Riq had a hard time comprehending just how long it took for them to make the leap. Only moving three days, you’d think it would be a quicker warp than usual. But it didn’t always seem to work that way. Regardless, there was the mind-numbing intensity of it all, the world exploding and contracting and streaking all around him, and then it was over.
He tumbled onto a bed of short-cut grass, then slammed into a big green hedge with prickly leaves. The whole thing shook above him as if it were laughing. Dak’s foot smacked him in the face, and he heard Sera asking Aristotle if he was okay. The man coughed, then groaned, then laughed. He actually laughed.
Riq got to his feet and brushed himself off, relieved to see the great philosopher doing the same thing, all in one piece and with no obvious injuries. The man looked as excited as a kid at a birthday party, practically floating.