“Pidge, you need to go rest,” I stated flatly. “This is a lot for you to do in one day.”
“I’m not ready to quit yet.”
Tears nearly marred her words. She was clearly suffering at this point, and I wasn’t going to let her stubbornness get in the way of her health.
I took on a direct tone, one I didn’t use unless I was telling her I meant business. “That’s not acceptable. You’re at your limit, and you pushing yourself when I ask you not to is ared light.”
Kallie and Marcus didn’t understand the hint, but Ava clearly got the message, because I felt her give in.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “I guess I could use a nap.”
“Marcus, take Ava back to her room,” Kallie said. “Charlie can help me carry books from the library so we can get started on researching this vampire right away.”
“I can help you carry books,” Marcus said, sounding offended.
“You, stringbean?” Kallie asked skeptically.
“I’ve been working out!” Marcus cried. To be fair, hehadput on a lot of muscle since he started weightlifting with us.
“I don’t mind taking Ava,” I added.
“Except thatMarcusneeds to return to the scene and see if he can find Thaddeus’ ghost in order to talk to him,” Kallie emphasized. “I know it’s not ideal right now, but we have to figure out what he found about Professor Mazur.”
Marcus sighed heavily. “Okay! Geez.”
Kallie plucked Sprigs out of my shirt pocket. “Take Sprigs, too.”
Marcus wheeled Ava into the building, and Rishi followed them. Oberi remained at my side as I whirled toward Kallie, “Spill. What’s this all about? You send Marcus after Thaddeus, but make me stay behind? You don’t think I can handle it? Yeah, I feel guilty as all hell. I put Thad up to following our professors, and now he’s dead. Add on to the fact that we found zilch out in the woods, and Thaddeus’ death was for nothing. Don’t act like reading books is going to help anything, because I swear if we spend one more second in that useless library—”
“Charlie, calm down,” Kallie pressed. “I’m not keeping you away from Thaddeus. Iwantyou to see him again. I just needed to get rid of Ava and Marcus to do it. You saw my time powers in action. I think we can go back and change it, but Ava and Marcus would never go for it. Marcus would say it’s too dangerous manipulating death—”
That’s because it is,Oberi said in my mind, but Kallie didn’t hear him.
“— And I didn’t want to give Ava false hope.”
“False hope?” I asked. At first, I didn’t understand. Then her words hit me full-on as I realized the implication of what she was saying. “Wait… you think if we dothis, and stop Thaddeus from dying, that we can go back and stop the Underground from ever collapsing?
“Yes. That’s what I’ve been planning on.”
The entire world tilted on its axis. “If we can do that, Ava never would’ve ended up in the hospital and suffered the way she did.”
“She could walk again,” Kallie said softly. “None of what went down that night had to happen at all.”
I would advise against this,Oberi warned.It’s dangerous to tempt fate.
I should’ve carefully considered what this could mean, and the consequences we could expect from messing with time. If we went back and changed things, the last several months never would’ve happened.
But Ava wouldn’t be in pain anymore, and Thaddeus would be alive. It didn’t even seem like a question.
“If we can go back and change things, we might as well start at the Underground,” I said. “If it never collapses, I’ll never put Thaddeus up to tailing our professors. Esther never would’ve been following him.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t go back that far yet,” Kallie said. “Thaddeus’ death is fresh. We can still reverse it. If this works, then we can go back to the Underground once I can travel that far.”
Her meaning was clear. She wanted to use Thaddeus’ death as an experiment, to see if it could even be done. I didn’t see what we had to lose. In this reality, Thaddeus was already dead. Either we changed it and he lived, or everything remained the same. At least with Kallie’s time powers, there was a chance to save his life.
“Let’s do it,” I agreed.
Hellooo,Oberi said.Is nobody listening to me? You don’t want to do this! I’m telling you right now this is a bad idea. I’m a transdimensional being, and I happen to know a thing or two—
