Dak and Riq were already sitting in a couple of the chairs, and they turned to see her as she walked onto the balcony. Riq waved, and Dak nodded, but neither said anything.
“Happy to see you guys are safe and sound, too,” she muttered. They both smiled as if they had completely missed her sarcasm. She plopped down in the chair between her two friends, wondering if they’d refused to sit by each other on purpose. “So, what in the world is going on?” she asked.
Dak shrugged, his face far too giddy for the situation. He’d obviously been scanning the city, relishing every moment of their latest peek into the past.
“Seems like someone goofed up,” Riq said. “A big, burly soldier told me how sorry he was for mistreating us, then brought me here.”
“Me, too,” Dak added. “My dude was so sweet about it we almost ended up hugging.”
Sera stared out at the twinkle of the sea beyond the city, enjoying the breeze that had just picked up. “It’s weird” was all she said in reply. That seemed to sum everything up just fine.
Several minutes passed before the person they’d been summoned to see finally arrived. Sera heard movement behind her and turned to see a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair and a beard walk in, his broad shoulders draped in flowing gray robes that made him look like a wizard. He regarded her gravely but didn’t say anything as he walked around the chairs to stand before them, his back against the railing.
Ever since the day they’d met the infamous Amancio brothers and Christopher Columbus, the novelty of meeting people from history had slowly but surely waned for Sera. She knew who stood before her, and she waited patiently for either him to announce it or for Dak to blurt it out himself. In the end, it proved to be very anticlimactic.
“My name is Aristotle,” the stately man said. “I understand that you had a little mistreatment from our guards today. Let me be the first to apologize. It’s not often we get children around these halls, and I think the soldiers got a little . . . overzealous in dealing with such an unexpected threat. If we could do it over again, they might’ve treated you in a more genteel manner.”
Genteel manner? Sera thought. I guess that’s how philosophers talk. She looked over at Dak, whose earlier expression of glee had melted into a perplexed frown. The poor guy surely hadn’t thought his first encounter with the great Aristotle would go like this.
“Why did they treat us like a threat at all?” Riq asked. A bruise on his cheek showed he’d gotten more than his fair share of it. “What did they think we were going to do, bomb the place?”
Dak groaned the very instant that Sera guessed he would.
Aristotle sighed. He obviously couldn’t understand the reference to a bomb, but he didn’t ask for clarification. “We’ve had some troubling events of late, and, honestly, I don’t feel comfortable speaking about them among strangers. Please don’t mistake me. My apologies to you should not be taken as a welcome. I find no reason for you three to be here, and I can’t imagine a fitting explanation. But none the less, you are young, and the soldiers should have treated you better.”
“We really need to talk,” Dak blurted out. “About history and time travel and the SQ and Great Breaks and Remnants and the Infinity Ring and Tilda and —”
“Dak,” Sera said sharply, giving him one of the nastiest looks she’d ever had to give. But he’d lost control. “Hardly the best way to start the conversation. He’s going to kick us out for being lunatics.”
Riq’s head was in his hands, slowly shaking back and forth. Their first meeting with the founder of the Hystorians was getting more disastrous by the second.
Aristotle cast a long, lingering gaze on each of the three strangers. His face said nothing, but his eyes were like pools of knowledge, full of wisdom and deep thoughts. Finally, he took a sharp breath and called for the soldiers at the door.
When one of them stepped onto the balcony and asked what was needed, Sera felt a thrilling rush at Aristotle’s response.
“Bar the door and let no one through, no matter the cause. I obviously have a lot to talk about with my new friends here.”
DAK HAD yet to move a muscle from his chair, still transfixed by the fact that Aristotle was standing in front of him. Scolding him even. He’d always pictured the first Hystorian as a philosophizing dude who sat around reading books and every once in a while pointing his finger toward the sky and saying something wise. But the man who’d just ordered the doors to the balcony sealed was a leader if Dak had ever seen one. A hard, weathered man who’d obviously been around the block a couple of times.
Aristotle moved to the right — the guy even walked with a certain air of grandness — and grabbed a wooden stool, then brought it around so he could sit in front of the three newcomers. After taking a seat, he still towered over Dak and the others, sitting in low chairs. Something told Dak that the man had done that on purpose.
“I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t spent a lifetime trusting my instincts,” Aristotle said. “A minute ago, I was ready to throw you out, hoping you’d have been scared enough to never pull such a prank again. Hoping your parents would take you back in and do some serious . . . correcting. But you” — he nodded his grizzled, bearded head toward Dak — “the things you said . . . I can’t ignore them. Something is going on here that I want to know about. And I want to know about it immediately. So start talking.”
Riq said nothing. Dak looked at him just in time to see his Adam’s apple visibly jump up and down.
Sera said nothing. Dak could actually hear her gulp.
As for Dak himself, he just wanted to make up for the ridiculous onslaught of nonsense he’d tried sputtering out the first time he spoke. But he couldn’t find the words to start.
Aristotle took each of them in with another long glance, then shook his head. “I guess no one ever taught the three of you what the word immediately means. Someone speak, or I may call back my soldiers and tell them I was wrong to reprimand them after all.”
A burst of courage lit up Dak’s heart. “I’ll go. I’ll . . . try to explain why we’re here.”
From his right, he heard Sera let out a relieved breath she’d been holding in her chest. Riq reached around her to pat him on the back and whispered, “Go for it.”