“Maybe not. I know that time travel is not possible, but my father is not the kind of person to throw around words he does not mean, no matter how drunk he is. It is when he is drunk that he is the most honest. Time must have some part in his plan to find my mother,” Hana said. “What does your science say about time?”
“Nothing definitive. But we have our theories.”
“What kind of theories?”
“Well, for example, we know that space can be bent by gravity. This means that space-time can be bent. In theory, that means that time can be bent too.”
“Bent…” Hana gnawed the corner of her lips.
The people in line froze mid-step. Hana cursed.
“What is it?” Keishin asked. “What’s wrong?”
“They are here.”
Keishin twisted around. A masked figure stood at the end of the road, its dark eyes boring into him. “Shiikuin.”
Hana grabbed his hand. “Run.”
—
Hana bolted up from her futon, her clothes soaked in sweat. Dawn spilled through a slit between her bedroom curtains. She gripped her arm, remembering the cold, rotting hands that had tried to keep her from crossing the bridge. Their touch had turned her marrow to ice, extinguishing her warmth and courage. Keishin had pushed them back, using his body to shield her. They clawed at him, drawing blood. He had screamed for her to run, telling her that he was right behind her.
He was not.
Chapter Twenty
Trips and Trains
There were nightmares you woke up from and there were nightmares you woke up to. Mornings were powerless to stop them. And so was Hana. She watched Keishin writhe in bed, blood dripping from wounds the Shiikuin left on his arms. His face twisted in pain. Sweat plastered a silver lock of hair to his face. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard even though she knew that she couldn’t wake him. The only way he was going to wake up was if he made it to the other side of the bridge on his own.
Keishin sat up with a jolt, wrestling himself free from invisible hands. His eyes found Hana’s face. “Hana…” he said, breathing hard.
“Kei!” She threw her arms around him. “You crossed.”
Keishin panted. “I almost didn’t.”
Hana jumped to her feet. “Get up. We need to go.”
“How did they find us?”
“It could have been the Horishi, or maybe someone who saw us at the teahouse or the temple. It does not matter. The Shiikuin have caught your scent.”
“My scent?”
“The Shiikuin can smell our secrets. That is how they track us down. Now that they know you are here, they will not stop looking for you.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I know. You have made it very clear that it’s useless to argue with you. I am not asking you to go back to your world, but we cannot stay here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Everywhere.”
—
They emerged from a puddle next to the entrance of a sprawling redbrick building with a large slate dome roof. An old-fashioned circular clock beneath the dome told the hour. Three floors below the clock, people scurried in and out of the building’s tall front doors.
