I could trust. By the time I realized it was going wrong, I went after the children. I didn’t know they’d already been taken to safety. No one informed me there was some kind of plan in place. I assumed I was still in charge of getting the children to safety if anything happened.”
“What safety? You turned them away. If you’d taken the children with you, what would you have done when they wouldn’t allow Lee or Fen inside the sithein?”
“That didn’t happen until later,” Declan corrected. “I assure you if they had gone with me that day, they would have been inside, and once inside my mother wouldn’t have allowed them to be taken. It was months later they showed up, and by then the damage had been done. I intended to do my duty. I wasn’t allowed to.”
“I wasn’t the one who told Albert to take the kids. It was Gray who warned him.” I’d like to have a talk with the dark prophet, but I was leaving it all to Kelsey. She was going to meet with her husband and report back to us about anything of concern.
“I wish he had warned me.” Declan met my eyes, and his gaze alone told me how tired he was. “That day was so chaotic. After I got Sean out and many of our Fae contingent, I started to look for ways to find you. Then I looked for ways to warn your younger self.”
“What did you try?”
He sat up straighter. “I attempted to send you several messengers. There are faery creatures who can travel across dimensions, and it’s been said they may even traverse time. They are noncorporeal, of course, and can be difficult to deal with. I made deals with three such beings to find a time when you were younger and warn you. It seems none of them made their way to you.”
“I did not get any notes from ghosts, no.” Though I ignored a lot of weird shit. If they hadn’t shown up right in my face, I likely wouldn’t have paid attention.
“Perhaps it was because they came from a Fae plane,” Declan said with a sigh. “I might have more luck here on this plane since they would only have to travel across the time dimension.”
I didn’t like that I only had three allies in this, and two of them were Jack the Ripper and my brother-in-law. “I’m trying to find a way to go back and reset things. I’ve been told if I do that, I might be forming a new timeline, not erasing this one.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that. There are not infinite versions of the same world. There might be different planes with different versions of the same souls, but then why would there be splits inside of splits. It makes no sense. The most logical outcome is that time will be reset and we can fix things. I thought to do it the easy way, but now I fear we must take a more dangerous path.”
“And what would that be?” I didn’t have to question who would be taking this path. I would be the one walking it.
“There is an amulet the oldest of the Fae use to speak with their ancestors,” Declan explained. “It was given to us in the ancient times as a way to connect the past to the present. We could use the device to gain advice from our forefathers.”
“Like a walkie-talkie to the past?”
“I do not know what that is. It is a way to reach through the years and speak to our first kings and queens.”
I didn’t see how that would help. “I don’t need to speak to them. Unless you’re suggesting that I call up some old Faery king and ask him to slip a little note somewhere for me to find millennia later. Do you think they had Western Union back then? Can they prepay for that message delivery?”
The tightness around Declan’s eyes let me know he was sick of me, too. “No, Zoey. I am merely saying that I have in my possession something that your criminal brain might find a way to make useful for our current situation. If you find a way to warn yourself of what’s coming, then we never have to deal with this. I never have to refuse my nephew entry and comfort. You don’t have to miss twelve years with your children. Lee never needs to lose an eye. You can certainly keep