Spencer came over to us. “Grace, my father would like to speak with us. My mother is busy talking to Sonja. Wes, you can come as well, if you’d like.”
“Sounds good.” I lifted Grace off my lap, and we followed Spencer up the stairs, Evan, Brennan, and Jett joining us.
Nick was waiting for us in what looked like a TV room. Spencer shut the door as Evan pulled Grace down onto the couch, I sat down with them. Jett and Brennan took the loveseat. Spencer sat with us.
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d all be here.” Nick frowned, looking a little nervous.
“We all know, Baba, both about you and Grace,” Spencer explained.
“Oh, I see. Grace, I wanted to know about your time with them, the Temporal Authority. I don’t remember anything, and I’m quite curious,” he said.
“I’d like to know about your encounters with them as well,” she replied. “I’ve seen some of your and Dr. K’s notes for your dimension mapping and how you found parallel worlds. It’s so different from what I was doing.”
Nick’s eyes lit up. “Did you bring yourself here?”
“No. But I wanted to.” Grace looked over at me and squeezed my hand. Going light on the bad things, Grace told him about dreaming of me, her research, forgetting me but still being driven to prove parallel worlds, ending up seeing the wrongthings, her time with the authority before she came to us, which I knew little about, coming to us, the trial, and returning here.
“Oh, that is quite an adventure,” Nick replied. “Thank you for asking them about me. If you hadn’t, perhaps I wouldn’t have been let go at all. I wish I could remember.”
“You may never. It could also just take a really long time. It depends on what Agent Weigmier gave you. I got too much on accident the first time, the second time, I think I got too little on purpose. My notes helped, but I eventually remembered almost everything,” she assured.
“You dreamt of your soulmate while in another world?” His hand went to his heart.
“We did,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “I’m so glad.”
He thought for a moment. “Why did the Authority bring you here? Because of your soulmate? That would be the decent thing to do, but also generous for them, not that I know much about them.”
“I think I fall under their Precious Population Protection Protocol. That’s what Agent Weigmier does for the Authority–help omegas and others. I think,” she replied.
Oh. I hadn’t really understood that. “Agent Asshole is the literal legal omega distribution system?”
“I think that’s actually Gloria in Processing who relocates people. But…” Grace sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Why I’mhere,that's the second part. There’s a good reason why he brought me here–and why I dreamt of Wes.”
Grace explained everything about Thora and Rosalind.
“We don’t know everything,” Grace added. “The only thing that makes sense is that somehow Rosalind contacted an organization that hides sigmas that was also in touch with you. She turned on her charm, and you sent her and a baby to a world without designations. I don’t blame anyone for anything. Well,other than Rosalind. All I want is information as I try to piece things together.”
I pulled her off Evan’s lap and onto mine, sending her love through the bond.
“Huh.” Nick thought for a moment, then spoke to Spencer in Greek. There was frowning and counting on fingers.
“Wait, you hadn’t been doing it that long, had you?” I breathed. “Huh. I never really considered that. I mean, if you were, good for you, but...”
Grace exhaled sharply. “It wasn’t you.”
Spencer squeezed her hand.
“It wasn't us,” Nick said slowly. “We worked with an organization in Europe that smuggled illegal designations–and we placed families. I will admit, there was a family or two we literally pushed through and hoped for the best. But it wasn’t us, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m curious. There were others?” I asked.
“They were tenacious. Huh,” Grace muttered.
“Dr. K and I weren’t the first,” Nick told us. He looked at Spencer. “We really discovered the existence of parallel worlds–with no help from them. That discovery, and the paper Dr. K wrote, came after they first came to us. But it was just that, a theory. We did it partially because we wanted to prove it for ourselves and save people without their help. Of course, that discovery was just a small step compared to actually bringing people to our world, but it was an important one.”
“Of course it is,” Grace assured. “It’s further than I got. And you’re right, proving something and reliable travel are very different things.”
His eyes pleaded with Spencer. “I never lied to you. The day we proved it, and I shared it with you, the excitement was genuine. But I kept things from you, and if you saw us taken, I hope you understand why?”
