this much if we weren’t in the immediate lee of a timeline reset. When you cuckoos break the laws of reality, it creates a soft spot before it scars. The world is out of order. It wants to get back into order, and that gives me more flexibility than I’d normally have. I am all about taking advantage of flexibility. That’s what I was designed to do. I’m like you, Jackdaw; we come from the same lab. I’m just not as important, or at least that’s what the people who made us like to think. You and me and that crazy sister of yours, we’re going to change the world, but only if I can keep you alive and innocuous-looking long enough for you to figure out how. You’re not going home for Thanksgiving?”
Roger shakes his head before he stops to think about it. “No,” he says.
“Good. Your parents aren’t to be trusted, not anymore. They were safe enough when you were a kid—never really safe, but safe enough. They’re not safe now. They’ll turn you in and take your replacement in the same afternoon. If you can stay here for Christmas, too, that would probably be for the best.” Erin’s smile is entirely devoid of pleasure. “You’re the word boy. Find an excuse that they’ll believe.”
“What are you even talking about? If you know so much, why aren’t you helping us?”
“But I am helping you,” she says, and for once, there’s nothing mocking or strange in her tone: she’s telling the truth as she understands it. “You’re not ready to hatch yet, let alone stand up and fight. If you attract attention now, you’re dead, both of you. So I need to keep you safe and kicking until you break that shell and start claiming what’s yours. You can’t skip to the end of the story just because you’re tired of being in the middle. You’d never survive.”
Roger looks at her for a long moment, puzzling through her latest words, comparing them to the ones she started with. Finally, he asks, “Are you saying that because we’ve already tried?”
She smiles, quick and sharp as a knife’s edge. “Now you’re getting it. Go home. Go to sleep. Forget all this, but remember to tell your parents that you’re not coming. That’s the only thing you have to hold onto.”
“Erin—”
She turns on her heel. “See you at the Impossible City, Jackdaw,” she says, and then she’s gone, slipping into the maze of Berkeley’s streets and leaving him alone.
Roger stares at the place where she was for a moment. Then he starts to walk again, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, until he’s running, taking the last two blocks between Dodger’s place and his at a dead sprint. He has to try three times to fit his key into the lock.
There’s always a blank book next to his bed. He tries to remember to write down his dreams, but all too often, his mornings are a haze of need-coffee, need-cigarette, need-pants because class starts in five minutes. He grabs the book, grabs the nearest pencil, and drops to the mattress, starting to write with fevered speed. He writes until his wrist aches and his hand feels tight and hot, like it’s grown three sizes, even though it looks the same to the naked eye. When he’s done—when he’s written down every scrap he can remember, every feeling, every impression, and every word that Erin said—he stares at it for a moment. Then he slumps over sideways, exhausted.
He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.
Morning announces itself with its usual lack of tact: by sending sunlight flooding in through his bedroom window, where the curtains he failed to close last night do nothing to protect him. Roger groans and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. The zipper of his jeans digs into his skin, and he realizes with bemusement that he’s fully clothed. He’s even wearing his shoes. His head aches like he’s hungover, but he was at Dodger’s last night, and Dodger doesn’t drink. Pot and the occasional recreational hallucinogen, sure. Alcohol, though, that’s not her style. She doesn’t like being sloppy, and when he’s with her, he usually doesn’t either. Dodger is merciless when she feels like she has an advantage.
Still groggy, he sits up. His dream book is askew; he must have woken at some point in the night. He picks it up, opens it, and peers at the scribbled notes inside. None of them make any