J.C., Sandra just texted me. She needs help.
I didn’t get a response for a good minute and a half.
Stay at home until I get there, he wrote.
I’ll try.
Skinny. I’m telling you, wait.
I tucked the phone into my pocket. Three more texts came from him, but I ignored them. I wanted J.C. to hurry, and nothing would make that happen more efficiently than letting him think I was going into danger without him.
Not that there was anything he’d be able to do. He was a hallucination, not a real bodyguard. Though … there had been that one time, when he’d moved my hand—as if he were controlling it. And that time he’d pushed me out of the car …
I texted Kalyani en route, so the aspects were waiting by the windows when I got back to the mansion. I pushed open the car door as soon as we were near the house. Wilson’s niece yelped, then stopped the car.
I strode across the lawn.
“Want me to get the White Room ready?” Ivy asked, hurrying up.
“We don’t have time for that,” I said. “Get me Audrey, Ngozi, Armando, and Chin.”
“Got it.”
We reached the front doors, and I took a deep breath, bracing myself. All of my aspects would be here. That could—would—be taxing.
“Master Leeds?” Wilson asked, stepping up to my side. “Might I discuss something with you?”
“Can it wait?” I said, then pushed open the doors.
It hit me like a sudden weight—as if someone had slipped bars of lead in my pockets. Some fifty people, standing inside, all talking at once. Some were panicked. Others excited. A few haunted. The same name was on all their lips. Sandra.
Tobias joined me, and he seemed winded. From that short walk from the car? He was getting old. What … what happened when one of my aspects died of old age?
“Can you quiet the crowd?” I asked him.
“Certainly,” Tobias said. He stepped among them and began explaining. His calming voice worked for most of them, though as I walked up the stairs of the grand entry hall, one woman broke off from the others and chased after me.
“Hey,” Audrey said. Plump with dark hair, she tended to be a little unusual even for an aspect. “Sandra’s back, eh? Is she going to un-crazy you? I’d like forewarning if I’m going to vanish forever; I’ve got plans for tonight.”
“Date?” I asked.
“Binge-watching Gilmore Girls and eating like seventeen bowls of imaginary popcorn. I can’t technically gain weight, right, since I already weigh nothing?”
I smiled wanly as we reached the top steps.
“So…” she said. “You doing okay?”
“No,” I said. “Take this, see if you can figure out what this sequence of numbers means.” I tossed her the phone.
Which, of course, she fumbled and dropped. I winced. Audrey looked at me sheepishly, but it wasn’t her fault. My mind had forced her to fumble it—because she wasn’t actually real. I’d thrown my phone toward empty space. It had been a while since I’d made that kind of mistake.
I picked up the phone—its screen had cracked, but not badly—and showed Audrey what Sandra had sent. Audrey was the closest thing we had to a cryptographer. Actually, she was getting pretty good at it, now that I’d read a few more books on the subject.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“Give me a few minutes,” she said. “Those characters in the string are probably wildcards … but for what…” She scribbled the string on her hand with a pen. “You going to deal with that mess?” she asked, gesturing toward the aspects down below.
“No,” I said.
“You going to at least count who didn’t show up?”
I hesitated, then leaned against the banister and did a quick count, already feeling a headache coming on. No Armando, but that wasn’t odd. He rarely left his room, or his “kingdom in exile” as he put it. Ngozi had come, which was good. She wore a face mask and gloves, but Kalyani had been working with her—and they’d been going out lately. Like, the actual outdoors.
Let’s see … no Arnaud, he’s probably sitting in his room, oblivious as always. No Leroy. Isn’t he on a skiing vacation? No Lua. Maybe in the yard, working on his hearth? He’d been constructing his own “stone age” house in the back yard, using only technology he could build by himself.
I hastened through the second floor’s hallways to Arnaud’s room. The light above the door was on, indicating that he didn’t want to be disturbed, so I knocked. Finally he answered, a diminutive balding man with a soft French accent.
“Oh!” he said. “Monsieur!”
“How’s the device, Arnaud?” I asked.
“Come and see!” He opened the door, letting me into his laboratory. There were blackout curtains over the windows, since he was frequently developing film these days. Bits and pieces of machinery were neatly laid out on the workbench. A cigar in an ashtray indicated that Ivans had been helping him. He was the only aspect that still smoked.
Taped to the wall was a series of pictures. Winter scenes of the mansion.
“I’ve only been able to get it to go back about six months at most,” Arnaud said, stepping over to a device sitting on the table: a big old-school camera, like the ones you’d see news photographers use in old movies. “Just as you surmised, the flash is the most important part. But I still haven’t figured out exactly how it penetrates time.”
I took the camera, feeling its weight in my hands. A camera that could take photos of the past. The device had been involved in one of my most dangerous cases.
“I’ve now fitted it with instant film,” Arnaud said. “It should work. This dial here? That sets the time focus. It’s most accurate at short range, just a few days. The farther back you go, the blurrier the pictures become. I do not know how the original inventor solved this, but so far, I am at a loss. It is perhaps related to moments blurring together the farther back we try to make the light penetrate.”
“It’ll do, Arnaud. It’s fantastic.” I glanced to the side and noticed a few prints on the ground, each cut in half. “What are those?”
“Oh.” Arnaud shuffled, looking embarrassed. “I thought it would be good to have Armando look them over, as he is the expert in photography. I know physics, but not the taking of good shots. Armando agreed and destroyed several of my photos, as they were not ‘significant’ enough.”
I sighed, then packed the camera in a bag that Arnaud pointed out. Part of me already knew that the device would be ready. I’d been spending evenings in this room, working with my hands as Arnaud instructed me on the repairs. But those sliced photos were new.
I was getting very, very tired of Armando’s shtick. Each of my aspects could be challenging in their own way, but none were so outright disobedient.
I shouldered the camera. “You did well, Arnaud. Thank you.”
“Thank you! I am pleased to hear it.” He hesitated beside the door as I opened it. “Could I … return to France now? And my family.”
I froze. “Return?”
“Yes, Étienne. I understand how important our work here was, and it was truly engaging. But my job, it is finished, correct? I could return now?”