“Not a sound,” he breathes against my ear. “Thad heard you from the Crown. He saw us. We can’t have him come for you again.”
I nod frantically against his palm, and when he releases me, I keep my voice to barely a whisper. “This is insane. We’re in a time loop. LikeGroundhog Day,but with fire and murder.”
“Focus, Jade.”
“Right. Sorry. Focus now, hysteria later.” I take a deep breath and picture the sphere, even though it’s not my magic I’m trying to contain, but my own scattered thoughts. “If you can go back in time, why not go further? Before they get to the Crown, so we’ll have time to stop them? I mean… you’re atime traveler,Logan. Shouldn’t you be able to get us all the time in the world?”
“I can only go back to the moment we left the passages.” Frustration bleeds into his tone, but he keeps his voice low, so Thaddeus won’t overhear. “My time travel is a type of fire travel. Since we can’t fire travel in the tunnels, my time travel is blocked there, too.”
“What about before Thad took Oliver into the passages?”
“I can’t go back more than thirty seconds.” He looks away, and I’ve never seen him so defeated. “That’s my limit. Thirty seconds, no matter how hard I try, no matter how desperate I am.”
“But you just went back minutes?—”
“The Crown.” He glances up at the volcanic circle. “It amplifies all magic. Up there, with that much raw power flowing through me, I could push past my limit. But only there. Only with that boost. And the boost is only giving me a few minutes, tops.”
“So, without the Crown...”
“Thirty seconds is all I get.” His hands clench into fists. “Do you know how useless thirty seconds is? How many times I’ve tried to help people and failed because thirty seconds isn’t enough?”
The pain in his voice makes my heart break.
“You didn’t fail.” I move closer, holding his gaze, refusing to look away. “You saved my life. Multiple times. I’m alive right now because of you.”
“For now.” The words come out exhausted and bitter. “But at what cost? Each trip takes more out of me than the last, and I’m pushing limits I didn’t know existed.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fact that I’m bringing you with me at all…” He wipes another bead of sweat from his forehead. “Like I said, I’ve never brought anyone back with me before. It’s taking everything I have.”
Now that he mentions it, I can see he’s gray-faced and shaking, like each trip is draining his life force.
“Logan, this is killing you.”
“My own power can’t kill me,” he says, which makes me feel better, although only slightly. “But eventually, it’ll drain meto the point where I won’t be able to use my magic until it replenishes.”
“How many more trips do you have in you?” I study his face, trying to determine how close to collapse he really is.
He considers for a moment, pressing a finger to his temple like he’s checking an internal gauge. “It’s not an exact science. Maybe a few more. Maybe less.”
“Then we try again.” My words come out fierce and determined. “We have to stop Thad. We have to save Oliver.”
“Jade.” He cups my face with both hands, forcing me to focus. “We’ve lived through this loop four times now. Oliver dies. Every time. No matter what we do differently.”
“You don’t know it’s going to keep ending like that.”
“I do.” His thumbs stroke my cheekbones, and even now, even in this nightmare, his touch makes electricity dance under my skin. “I’ve done this enough times in my life to know how many seconds we need to make a real difference. Right now, we don’t have enough. Which means we need to return to the ball and pretend we were never here.”
“No.” I jerk away from his hands. “Absolutely not.”
“You have to understand?—”
“If you don’t let me try again, I’ll never forgive you.” My voice rises before I remember we’re hiding, and I force it back to a whisper. “I’ll hate you for the rest of my life for letting Oliver die when we could have saved him. For not giving me enough chances to try.”
Pain flickers across his face, and he searches my eyes, clearly hoping I’ll change my mind.
I won’t. He should know me better than that by now.
