Passenger (Passenger #1) - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,95
gaze shot over to hers. Her own shock was reflected on his face. That couldn’t be right—
“Yes,” Alice said, eyes wide as she realized neither of them knew this. “My impression is that many of the passages are becoming unstable or collapsing because of traveler deaths, and—well, old age. As Rose explained it, what Ironwood and his rivals—the Thorns, as you called them—what they want is to gain access to years that have been closed to them, and affect events there. Whoever controls the astrolabe could potentially control the whole of time.”
Oh my God, thought Etta. No wonder Ironwood had been willing to sacrifice his sons and grandson in the search for it. This was the ultimate prize. The trump card of travelers. If his control wasn’t already complete, it would be once he had it in hand. All people, in all ages, could be affected by whatever Ironwood had planned.
Did this mean that the passages weren’t a natural phenomenon that travelers had found and tentatively stepped through centuries ago? They’d been made by the ancestors of these families for their personal use? No wonder there were years without passages, and that so many passages were uncharted; they must have predated when the families began to record the destinations, or they had simply been forgotten altogether.
Or, some passages were secret, created for one particular family’s use alone.
“How do the Thorns fit into this?” Nicholas asked.
The notes of the symphony of lives, desires, and revenge suddenly swelled into a chorus of generations, blasting through Etta’s mind. She already knew the answer to his question. “They’re united in wanting to create passages to the past, to return to what they all see as the original timeline, to restore the centuries and years that orphaned them when Ironwood began to bend the timeline to suit his needs.”
Which wouldn’t be the future she had grown up in: days in the park, lessons with Alice, tea with her mom…For a moment, Etta wasn’t sure which was more terrifying: if Ironwood moved forward into the future, or if the Thorns interfered with the past.
“And those who were lost to them,” Alice added. “To save them.”
The way I want to save you. Etta pressed her fingers against her mouth, trying to seal in the whirlwind of sudden uncertainty whipping through her. How is what I want to do any different than what they want to do? Why does Alice deserve to live more than their loved ones?
No—she couldn’t think about it. Alice deserved to live. She didn’t deserve to die, not the way she had.
“They wouldn’t dare,” Nicholas said. She could tell he was trying to avoid looking at her, even as he added, “We cannot save the dead. We cannot even warn them, should we cross paths with them.”
“Only if you follow the rules,” Alice pointed out. “The rules Ironwood established when he rose to power. He destroyed everything, including our way of life.”
More secrets. More to agonize over. More reasons to find the astrolabe as soon as they possibly could. Etta rubbed at the spot between her eyes that had begun to pound in time with her heart. Just keep going. Stopping to think about this too hard would only keep her locked in a cycle of doubt, and she couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed just then. She needed to take things as they came. Her plan would stay the same: Find the astrolabe. Save her mom. Save Alice. Escape Ironwood if they had to.
“I wish it could be the way it was, back when the families flourished and balanced out each other’s powers,” Alice said. “The professor and my father used to talk about it very wistfully. Each family had a proper role, and they alternated them every few decades to ensure no family undermined another and the timeline remained stable.”
“What kind of roles?” Etta asked, curious.
“Record-keepers, financiers, and shifters—that last one entailed correcting any changes to the timeline and checking on the stability of the passages themselves,” Alice explained. “And, of course, one family would hold trials and enforce punishments for breaking the rules—the enforcers.”
“That was ages ago,” Nicholas said dismissively. “Corruption unraveled it rather neatly. My understanding is that it only worked well for a few hundred years, back when the ‘families’ were still mere alliances and clans.”
“Alliances?” Etta repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Did your mother never tell you about our own history?” Alice asked.
She shook her head, trying to beat back the frustration. “It’s…complicated.”