Toby stood, shooting an accusing glance at Jaysir. “You said you didn’t find her!”
The maker shrugged. “We didn’t. She found us.” Both he and Shylif were grinning shamelessly.
Toby went to her. He couldn’t let go of Orpheus, whose purr was strengthening, but he lowered his face to Corva’s. They stayed close in that way for long moments, then kissed. “What happened?”
Her mouth formed a rueful line. “I was traded. Me, in return for Thisbe being allowed to send a delegation to this conference thing.” She wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his chest. He felt Wrecks doing a curling walk around his ankles.
“That’s just so Peter,” mused Toby; but he wasn’t going to complain this time.
They stood that way for so long that Shylif eventually coughed discreetly, and Jaysir said, “We’re … gonna be outside. If, you know, you need us.”
Toby was intently examining Corva’s face. Was she older? She seemed to guess what he was doing, because she said, “I’ve been back on lockstep time since you reset Thisbe’s frequency. What time you and I have lost … well, we’ve lost the same amount, unless you’ve been down to realtime again…?” He shook his head.
Orpheus purred in the warm space between her and Toby. She said, “What now? Are you the head the family? Are you really going to Destrier to wake your mother, like all the myths and stories say?”
He laughed. “She’s wide awake and eating cupcakes about three rooms over.” Corva blinked at him surprise. “Long story. But no, I’m not the head of the family. Never wanted to be. And I don’t want to the Emperor of Time, either.”
Corva gently disengaged herself. “But you are that,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Huh?” Corva Keishion was the last person he would have expected to say such a thing.
She smiled at his discomfort. “No, really. You were supposed to make time come to an end, right? Well, you did—the old kind of time where the past pushes us into the future and farther and farther away from perfection. But remember, there’s another kind of time, where the past doesn’t push; one where the future invites us onward. Where it’s not destiny that drives us but hope. Hope and surprise.”
She stepped forward again. “You,” she said teasingly, “were a surprise.”
He drew her over to one of the armchairs and they sat together; it was a tight fit. “If you say so,” he said. “I hope you’re not too serious about it. Poor Evie’s running around to all the fast worlds trying to squash the family myths. I wouldn’t want to add one more for her to chase down.”
It was on the fast worlds where the McGonigal stories had grown; it was ironic that it was in the lockstep that they would probably take the longest to die. They’d probably hang around for generations, long after the McGonigals were gone.
She saw his expression and said, “I really was just joking. Sorta. I don’t know.”
He nodded and sighed. “The only way I can live here is in disguise. Same with Mom. Neither of us is going to be able to have a normal life anywhere near Peter and Evayne. We can sneak around right now because of all the conference chaos, but that’ll end. Then the cultists will start watching again.”
“We can go away,” she suggested.
“We?” He looked at her closely. “Do you really mean that?”
She shrugged awkwardly, not meeting his eyes.
“But what about your family? You worked so hard to return to them—”
“—And I didn’t,” she said, looking down. “I never did. I knew it the instant I saw their faces that first day. When we got to my house. It was too late. I mean, they’re still my family and I love them all, and I love the Halen I grew up with … but the change between us … it’s, well, permanent. It doesn’t matter now if I go away for a while. Different is different.
“And that’s made me wonder now, is there anywhere I can be at home? Anywhere that time’s not come unslipped. Toby, I thought about it for a long time and I realized … I’d never find that kind of time in a place. The only way to live in time instead of moving through it is to be experience things with somebody else. To share the moments.”
Toby nodded. She’d named the restlessness he’d been feeling for months now—that disconnect from his family, however much he loved them; the sense of skimming over the surface of the worlds he visited, however much he explored them.
Squeezing Orpheus a little tighter to him, he said, “I know you were joking about the Lord of Time stuff—sorta kinda. That’s the thing, though; somehow, the whole weight of it’s rubbed off on me, just a little. Everywhere I go, just when I start to relax I’ll come across one of those statues, or a damned fresco of me, or somebody’ll say my name like it’s a prayer. I’m having a little trouble being me around here. I’ve been trying to escape it, but it’s like a steady pressure in my skull …
“The only way for me to come back to myself is going to be if I leave, at least for a while, for places where nobody’s ever heard of me. And there are such places. There’re other stars and things beyond. I’d like to see them …
“But I don’t want to do it alone.
“Corva, would you come with me to see the fast worlds, the Laser Wastes, the ancient suns and all those new Earths that they made while I wintered over?
“I promise we’ll only be gone for a night.”
“A night, or forever,” she said and kissed him. “Yes, I’ll come.”
Orpheus opened one eye to observe this, then shifted into a more comfortable position and went back to sleep.