A waitress in a white apron bustled from inside. “What can I get you?”
I stared at her. “I don’t have any money.”
She pursed her lips. “Then you can’t sit here.”
Memories of Albie rushed me, his brown eyes twinkling behind his glasses as he charmed the human hotel worker in Bucharest to bring us food and clothing.
“Please,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I won’t be any trouble. Just give me five minutes, and I’ll leave.”
Something in my face must have softened her. She sighed. “Five minutes. But if my boss comes out, you gotta go.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She left, and I dropped my head into my hands.
What was I supposed to do? I didn’t have the chronomancer’s spell bag. Without it, I was stuck, with no way out of the 1960s.
And I didn’t have my mates. The lump returned to my throat.
Were they safe? Were they looking for me? Had the Razroth hurt them?
No. Of all the possibilities, that was the least likely. Tavish and Albie were full-blooded dragon shifters. Albie was lightning fast, and Tavish was a skilled warrior with probably thousands of battles to his name. They wouldn’t let themselves get captured, and they wouldn’t give up searching for me. Tavish had said he’d follow me through time if he had to. And Albie…
My throat thickened.
Albie with his warm brown eyes and gentle hands. He’d looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d ever asked. His gentle, serious face appeared in my mind, and his words by the stream in England flowed through my head.
I found what I was really looking for.
A hot tear sprinted down my cheek. Then another.
There had to be a reason I’d landed in New York. I was supposed to intervene, but how? I tried to imagine what Tavish and Albie would have said, my mind supplying me with images of them sitting around the table. The three of us would have weighed our options and made a plan. Probably, Tavish would have devoured half the cafe menu and declared it “passable.” Albie would have teased him before helping me reach the best solution.
But none of that could happen. Once again, I’d lost control of my dragon and ruined everything.
I reached for my beast again, but she was a tiny speck in my mind. My magic was dormant. The prickling, irritating itch to shift was gone. I’d spent a lifetime dreading it. Now that I wanted it, I couldn’t find it.
Another scalding tear raced down my cheek. Maybe I was stuck in 1964 forever. I could try to find my fathers.
I froze, my heart thumping harder. Mullo had moved House Balfour to New York City after America won its independence. My father claimed the other houses had grown tired of Mullo’s unethical uses of magic. Which, considering how little the magical houses thought of ethics, was really saying something. They’d threatened to form an alliance and go to war if Mullo didn’t leave Europe.
Which meant my great-grandfather was probably, at this very moment, somewhere in New York City.
I looked at the skyscrapers across the street. I was a full-blooded dragon—a creature my great-grandfather had sacrificed his fertility to destroy. If I showed up at House Balfour headquarters, he would probably kill me on the spot.
I’d prevent my own birth. Possibly my brother’s. Maybe my parents would never meet.
An ache formed between my eyes, which made me think of Albie.
And then I was crying—great, heaving sobs that shook my whole body. Tears poured down my cheeks, and I didn’t bother wiping them away.
I cried for Tavish and Albie. For the danger I’d put them in and the fear that I’d never see them again. For the mess I’d made of everything.
I cried until I had nothing left. Then I sat in silence, my face hot and my emotions wrung dry.
The waitress appeared with a glass of water and a stack of paper napkins. She set both on the table without a word, then walked away.
I blew my nose and wiped my face. Sniffing, I drained the glass, the water cool and soothing against my raw throat. My head cleared, as if the tears had wrenched something loose inside me. Resolve, maybe. Whatever it was, I seized it.
