The door swings open and in storms Sumner, brows furrowed.As the latch clicks behind him, Lionel pops back up with another enthusiastic greeting.
“Hey, Lionel.” Sumner’s already striding across the room, eyes locked on William. “Who the hell are you?”
Lionel’s headphones slip back over his ears.
I tense, my gaze shifting from William to Sumner.
“Because you aren’t my roommate.” Anger tinges his words. “Which means you aren’t supposed to be here.”
I’ve never seen Sumner try to get a rise out of someone. I didn’t know he had it in him. He’s several inches taller than me, but he’s built like a candlestick, which might be one intimidation factor against him.
I step between them. “Here’s the thing.” I keep my voice low. “Enzo’s real name is William. Actually? It’s Lord William Cromwell. And when I ran into him on Friday, he was dressed like a Victorian Ken doll. He doesn’t have a phone and can’t remember how he got here, so I grabbed him temporary clothes in the lost and found and assumed he was your roommate because you were waiting on a transfer student, and it seemed like the only logical explanation.”
I fall quiet, waiting for a response. But Sumner only studies me, something hardening behind his eyes. “Can youpleasebe serious—”
“Iam.” I fling a hand toward William. “Did you see the top hat? Who wears those?”
“Carmichael.”
My voice rises. Just a little. “I’m telling you everything I know.”
His hand rakes through his hair as his attention directs to William. “Those…coins. The ones you gave me on Friday?” He turns over his pocket, tinkling metal raining into his palm.
“Shillings,” William corrects.
I take the shiny silver from Sumner’s outstretched hand.One Shilling, it reads, seemingly new. Under the engraved open oak wreath lies a year.
1859.
My heartbeat quickens. When I glance up, Sumner is already staring back at me. As though he can’t believe it either.
“I-I can’t explain it,” I say. “All I know is that I was running toward Segner because I saw someone go inside. Inessa was in there trying to find the trophy, as you now know, and the next thing I knew—” I flick a limp wrist toward William, as this somehow clarifies everything that happened after.
William scratches the back of his neck. Sumner’s studying him as though this is the first time he’sreallyseeing him.
“Here.” I nip the journal from William’s grasp and toss it toward Sumner. “See for yourself.”
As Sumner flips through the pages, I find myself wanting to be proved wrong. We’ve had our fair share of verbal sparring matches. I’d relinquish this victory if it meant he could provide sound reasoning for everything that’s happening so we could forget this entire mess and move on.
His hand pauses on a page somewhere in the midsection of the notebook, eyes gravitating toward William. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at the college later than expected.” William adjusts his shoulders so that he’s standing, somehow, straighter. “I suppose the last thing I recall is feeling…warm. Extraordinarily warm. Almost tingling. And then—well, it seemed as though daylight streamed through all the windows despite it being well into the evening.” His forehead furrows. “That’s the last I remember. When I ran into Delaney, I thought something was wrong with my memory, as though I’d taken a wrong turn leaving the college so late at night and had no recollection of doing so.”
Sumner hands the journal over to me, pacing as he thinks. Neatly written equations are penned in William’s tidy, looping scrawl alongside a familiar sketch of an experiment.
When I glance up, Sumner’s eyes are trained on me.
“They’re Faraday’s equations,” I say.
He tosses me a haughty look that says,Please do not insult me. “I know.”
I study William curiously. “You’re working through formulas that were newer at the time. Your time, I mean,” I explain. “These theories and equations have been studied and built upon by other physicists.”
“I’ve seen them in the library texts,” William says, head craning toward his work held in my hands. “It’s utterly fascinating. You’re ages ahead of me.”
Nobody says anything. It’s silent, aside from thumbs mashing plastic buttons and thin, tinny music whispering from Lionel’s headphones.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this”—Sumner tugs at the back of his hair—“but this aligns in the most bizarre, unfathomable way. You don’t just jump ahead one hundred and sixty years. There’s so much data that disproves it. It’s not just illogical, it’s impossible. I just—” His eyes settle on mine. “What are you going to do?”
