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Why did it seem like Monroe was trying to convince Bill that history was worth witnessing? It wasn’t coming across like a children’s tale, or even as his normal gush of knowledge. Instead, his words came out scared, desperate. As if he was telling Bill of all that he’d miss if he left.

  Charlotte took a step back, almost like she was seeing Bill for the first time.

  It wasn’t his muscles, his mustache, or even the gleam in his eye. It was the way he held himself. Shoulders dropped low and confident. Arms folded over each other. A soft smile of contentment on his face. Just like Leanor, Bill no longer looked like he belonged. Not with them. Not in history. He was here, along for the ride. But only for now.

  Charlotte’s stomach churned as she remembered Bill’s smile at the monument. She’d thought he was simply happy at his accomplishments being recognized, but it must have been something else. Something that Monroe had recognized instantly.

  What had Bill said? “I get to be someone else.”

  He was going to leave.

  “Let’s go,” Charlotte said, interrupting whatever subject Monroe had switched to. “Please.” She held out the orb and drew an insignia.

  “We’ll miss the unveiling,” Monroe replied.

  “It’s okay, Uncle ’Roe,” Charlie said. “We’ve already seen her.”

  “Sure,” Monroe said. But his teeth were clenched.

  What was wrong with moving on? That was what they’d been doing all along.

  But as Monroe paused before touching her, his eyes met Charlotte’s. Like a spark, she understood. She was taking them to the final bomb. There they would undo the Blast. Once it was defused, Bill’s obligation would be over. He could become whoever he wanted to.

  “Let’s try 1823,” Monroe said. “Early, but not winter. Go for April.”

  What else could she do? Regardless of all that the astrolabe could do, it couldn’t stop time. She spun them backward, ever closer to the end of the Blast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  FORT WOOD

  APRIL 28, 1823

  Lady Liberty had unbuilt. The pedestal that the public had paid for was gone. All that remained was the star-shaped stone structure that had once held the Statue of Liberty. A few small wooden buildings stood in the distance, but the island was empty. Unlike every other time—with ghosts of blurry tourists and construction workers passing by like trails of smoke—Bedloe’s Island was quiet.

  “Fort Wood,” Bill whispered.

  “Yeah,” Monroe said. His eyes lit up. “Yeah! Did you go?”

  Bill shook his head. “Only a little. I almost got caught by military guys both times, so I stayed scarce. Of course that’s when Ana would plant the bomb.”

  “Now’s the only real time—aside from prehistory—that the island is empty. The army moved out, but in a few years they’ll take over again during the Civil War. As it is, they come here occasionally, but we should be okay.”

  “And Ana?” Charlotte asked.

  Monroe turned, gazing at Charlotte with wide eyes like he’d forgotten she and Felix were there. “Well, the whole reason she wouldn’t be in prehistory is that she’d be too visible from outside, right? So where better to hide than inside a dark, dilapidated fort?” With a grin, he looked back to Bill and reached a hand over.

  Bill snagged it, and together they walked inside.

  Charlotte turned to Felix, who had Charlie between his legs. “Come on, let’s finish this.” Just as Bill and Monroe were reconnecting, this was her chance. To show Felix that Gilbert didn’t matter; what mattered was building their future from here. No secrets. Just a graphic designer and a time traveler in love.

  Felix remained rooted to the ground. “It’ll be safe for Charlie?”

  There was no way to know. There’d been submerged bombs, fights inside darkened construction pits, and decaying staircases; anything could be waiting for them. “I’m not leaving you behind,” Charlotte said.

  It wasn’t safe; that was the truth. But nothing was. If she left Felix and Charlie standing here, the bomb could take them to a different time. They could be stranded with no hope of getting back. And Felix and Charlie would be stuck on a military island in 1823. No, whether this place was safe or not, it was safer with them at her side.

  Didn’t Felix see that this was their chance to start again?

  Charlie stepped from his dad’s arms. His curly hair was shorter now, Charlotte realized. Just slightly more trim. And his shirt was a dark purple, not at all the bright clothes he once wore to match his uncle. Just like Bill, he’d grown overnight, changed in ways that made him hold his head higher. No longer her little boy at all, but a little man. When he reached Charlotte, he didn’t grab hold, simply turned and said, “C’mon, Dad. Let’s see how Mom does it.”

  Felix tilted his head, watching Charlie. Perhaps realizing—like Charlotte had—how much his boy had grown. How Charlie wasn’t anyone’s boy anymore. Just himself. A sad smile flickered across Felix’s thick lips, and he crossed the distance to his family.

  Charlie didn’t wait, but led them both into the fort.

  In the darkness, Charlotte twisted her astrolabe on; the dim entryway glowed to life. Openings led off on either side, and Charlotte walked away from the daylight of 1823, deeper into the fort. Thousands of pinprick lights illuminated her way, more crisply than when she’d shown off the astrolabe to Bill and Monroe. Rooms ringed the outside of the fort, but all led to a main internal room, away from the eleven-pointed exterior of Fort Wood.

  In the main room, Monroe and Bill wandered, illuminated by a phone’s flashlight. Dozens of wooden crates were stacked around the edges, but if Ana were here, they’d see her. She could hide inside one of the outer rooms, but since every room had an opening to here, they’d see the doorway illuminated while she worked.

  “It’s perfect, ’Roe.”

  “If we go through a few weeks at a time, we should see lights worth investigating,” he said. “I doubt anyone will come here at night, even the military. It’s a little spooky.”

  Charlotte swept the lights forward a week and waited for everyone to collect around her, each watching a different side of the fort. “Here we go.” She released, and time went by, but nothing changed. It was too dark in the fort for them to realize time had passed, but Charlotte could breathe again. “Okay, I’ll keep going; shout if you see anything.”

  For the next few minutes, she took them through a year week by week. When no one said anything, she started on the next year. For all that she kept her eyes peeled, the interior didn’t seem to change. There weren’t any ghostly figures zooming through, and certainly no lights.

  “I …” Charlie squeaked. Charlotte turned to him, her astrolabe still activated. Stars big and small littered his face. Reflected in those wide wise eyes. “I think I saw something.”

  He wandered away, to one of the openings. An arch reached above him. “Here?” he said, pointing inside. “But to the right, I think.”

  “When, honey?” Charlotte asked, joining him. “How much into our traveling?”

  Charlie stuck a tongue out in concentration, just like when he was perfecting a drawing. “I dunno,” he finally said. He looked behind them, toward Felix for reassurance. “Maybe near the end? Didn’t someone else see?”

  “We don’t have eagle eyes like you,” Monroe said.

  “Okay,” Charlotte whispered. “A little toward the end.” She stepped back from the arched doorway, hiding to the side opposite where Charlie pointed.

  “Probably night,” Monroe said.

  Charlotte lit up her astrolabe once more, and Bill stepped in front of it, blocking the light from getting out of their little circle. She took them back two days, to the night, and released. For a split second, she saw it: a flash of light exactly where Charlie indicated. Closing her eyes now, Charlotte twisted time forward just a hair. An hour and a half in the future.

  Ana’s flashlight waved in their direction as they appeared, but didn’t stop. She dropped her light to the
ground, pointed it at the wall, and set to work.

  His voice barely audible, Monroe said, “Okay, let’s stop her.”

  As he took a step away, Charlotte found herself tugging him back. “Wait.”

  “What’s wrong?” Monroe hissed.

  This was their chance to stop Ana once and for all. The bomb wasn’t installed; they wouldn’t even have to defuse it, just discard it. But it didn’t feel right.

  If they stopped Ana now, would she actually stop? Or would she keep going, keep planting bombs throughout the city? What could they do—except hurt her—to make her stop once and for all? “That’s Leanor,” Charlotte began, and then she had it. Even if Monroe must’ve been rolling his eyes. “We can’t just fight her,” Charlotte whispered. “We have to save her, too.” Then she’d have more than just her family intact. She’d have Leanor too.

  “What do you suggest?” Bill asked, quiet enough. Ana still didn’t seem to notice them.

  There was only one way to truly save Leanor. Not just save her from the Council. Not just stop the bombs. But turn her into the woman they’d met at the base of the World Trade Center. A woman who could see the weight of tragedy. “We get her to regret,” Charlotte said. “Tell her why we’re here. Who sent us, and what happens if she sets the bomb. Remind her about Paris and the others. Get her back.” Simply stated, but Charlotte didn’t have a real plan.

  Across the way, Ana pointed her thick gun at the wall, and a red laser sliced easily into the stone of Fort Wood. She turned a dial on the gun and sliced through the stone again. Just like before, the brick fell out—a new hole—and Ana created a false brick facing to hide the bomb.

  Ana pulled a small metal box from her bag—this one even smaller than what they’d found in the foundations of the Plaza. But the size of the thing wasn’t enough of a difference. This seemed wrong. Why would Ana use the same plan when it had failed once before? That wasn’t how she’d operated on the previous bombs.

  But before Charlotte could figure that out, before she could step forward and explain to Ana that she could be more—that she had been more—Ana slipped the bomb into the square hole and set the facade before it. She clapped her hands together, turned to the doorway, and said, “I know you’re there.”

  • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Before Charlotte could stop him, Bill was through the doorway. He lunged toward Ana, not even thinking of Charlotte’s plan. But how could he? It wasn’t really a plan, just a notion. He grabbed for Ana’s shoulder, his other hand aimed at her wrists. Obviously his training was kicking in. But as he spun Ana, she kept spinning. His other hand missed her wrists.

  She wasn’t in the mood to listen; she wanted to fight. She wasn’t Leanor yet.

  “Char!” Bill shouted as Ana aimed a punch.

  Charlotte spun. “Felix, you’ll be okay? Charlie?”

  “Go, Mom,” Charlie said, eyes alight as he pushed her away. Felix gave Charlotte a firm nod. If Ana targeted them, she’d never forgive herself. But Bill needed help.

  Monroe was already at the facade, trying to pull it out.

  Ana aimed a kick at Bill’s knee. When it connected, she didn’t follow with another blow to take him down. She turned and ran away. Away from her final bomb, away from Bill. Toward a leather bag lying on the ground.

  “No way,” Charlotte muttered. She met Ana halfway and grabbed the woman, yanking her arm. Ana pivoted, leaped, but Charlotte kept hold. Together they tumbled to the ground. They rolled over and over each other, through an entryway and into an adjacent room.

  When they slowed, Ana was on top. She sprang away, not bothering with Charlotte. She should’ve. Charlotte whipped a hand out and clutched Ana’s ankle. The anachronistic woman slammed to the floor in a grunt.

  “Bill!” Monroe shouted from around the corner. “I’ve got the bomb!”

  “On it,” came Bill’s response. “Help them.”

  Ana hand-walked her way over, kicking at Charlotte with her free foot. Charlotte shifted her head out of the way, back, up, but at last Ana connected with her teeth. Pain blossomed across her mouth.

  “Damn.” Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut; her grip loosened. Ana was free.

  But Charlotte snapped her eyes open and jumped to her feet. She grabbed at Ana and once again they tumbled to the ground, through the doorway where Bill was working on the bomb. Where Monroe was lifting something into the air.

  He spun on his heel and pointed that something—the laser gun Ana had used to cut out the space for the bomb—at them. “Freeze.”

  Ana scoffed. “That’s for cutting brick, idiot.”

  “If it can cut brick,” Monroe said, the gun clicking as he twisted a dial, “it can cut you.”

  “Oh?” Ana asked. “I thought you needed my regret.”

  Shit.

  “You heard?” Charlotte asked. Maybe there was a chance. Maybe she could—

  Then Ana turned with a snarl. “Save it.” She shoved Charlotte, and Charlotte was too stunned to jump back at her. “Just like you’re saving them.”

  “We’re not,” Monroe said. “We don’t give a damn about the Council. All we care about is New York. New Yorkers. Saving them from whenever your bombs took them.”

  “Right,” Ana said, taking a step toward her bag. “How could you even know about the Council if they didn’t send you?”

  Charlotte stood. Keeping her tone soft, unthreatening, she said, “Silly Leanor.” The woman’s jaw dropped at her name. “You told us.”

  “I, I …” Her wide blue eyes flicked from Charlotte, to Monroe, to Bill, even to Felix and Charlie. Then her face screwed up in anger. “Bullshit.”

  Ana swung a leg at Charlotte’s side. Her toe bit in like a bullet, and Charlotte crumpled, clutching her ribs. Through blurred vision Charlotte saw Ana shove Monroe aside and race toward Bill. But she didn’t go after the bomb that Bill huddled over protectively. Instead, she snatched up her bag, shoving her hand at the mesh astrolabe inside. “Enjoy,” she said. Then she was gone.

  Spitting blood, Charlotte rose to unsteady feet. “That bitch. How could she be Leanor?” She touched her side, and her fingers came back wet with blood.

  “You okay, Mom?” Charlie asked, his little hands out to her side.

  “I’ll be fine, but I gotta focus now, baby.” There would be time for treatment later. They had to defuse this final bomb.

  Charlotte crouched at Bill’s side as he wrenched up the largest side of the bomb that Ana had placed. But when the inside of the box was exposed, everyone let out a collective moan.

  But for a red brick duct-taped to the bottom, the metal box was empty.

  “Damn,” Monroe said. “It’s a decoy.”

  This was why Ana’d kept the bomb so similar. She was banking on their not realizing in time.

  Bill shoved the box away. Heavy from the brick, it skidded only a few feet. “She wanted us to fight her. Wanted to distract us from wherever she put the real bomb.”

  “Why?” Felix asked.

  Charlotte pinched her nose. “Because we can’t come back here at the same time without getting debilitating headaches. If the bomb were any other time, she wouldn’t need to distract us.” She wouldn’t need a decoy. “Fan out. Everyone use your phones for light. Charlie, use mine. We have to check every brick. There should be some clear cut lines.”

  Bill joined Charlotte as they used the lights from her astrolabe to look at the stones. He’d take the left side of a room; she’d take the right. While they looked, Felix and Monroe called out as they found other rooms empty. They ran out of rooms quickly; there wasn’t much to the fort. Bill took Charlotte’s astrolabe, and Charlotte wandered, trying to think.

  Monroe and Felix kept wandering through already checked rooms. Bill ran his fingers along the walls of the main interior room. And Charlie surveyed the room they’d come from, slowly stepping toward the decoy bomb.

  “Charlie?” Charlotte leaned against the arched doorway, trying to see what
he had.

  “What if …” Charlie reached a hand out toward the bomb, gripping the red brick that had fooled them with its weight.

  “What is it, honey?” Charlotte asked, though they didn’t have time. He’d seen Ana’s light; what if he’d seen something else that he was processing only now?

  Charlie undid the duct tape and pulled the brick from the empty metal casing. “What if this is the bomb?” He flipped the brick over.

  Underneath, the brick was hollowed out, dozens of cables tangled together inside, a few orbs visible. But the bottom of the brick was visible for only a split second.

  In the next second, the bomb disappeared, taking Charlie with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SAVING CHARLIE

  APRIL 28, 1823

  “Charlie!” Charlotte yelled. She raced to her purse beside the door, but it was empty. Right, Bill had the astrolabe. “Bill! Bill!” She raced over to the glittering room she saw. “I need that,” she said as she took it from him. She spun through the years as she ran back to the room where Charlie had disappeared. First the display spun too fast—she’d have been in the distant future if she released—and then she overshot on the way back. “Damn it!” Charlotte said. She couldn’t get the date right.

  “Charlotte!” Monroe was beside her, along with Bill and Felix. But while they watched, confused, Monroe yanked the orb from Charlotte’s grasp. “You can’t just leap away; we have to think!”

  “Charlie’s gone!” Charlotte shouted, gesturing to the empty space. “That brick took him. It was the bomb!”

  “It was?” But Monroe shook himself. “That’s what I’m saying. You need to catch us up. There’s time to—”

  “There isn’t,” Felix said, and plucked the orb free from Monroe’s hands. “This is what we’ve been fighting for, Monroe. If you don’t understand that—”

  “I do!” Monroe said. He breathed and placed a hand on Charlotte’s arm. She didn’t feel warmth from him today. Just danger. “Trust me, I do. Charlie is why we can’t go racing in. There’s time to think. Time to pause and get this right. This is just like the Hudson River.”