“Then why did you come?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I may have looked you up in Aevum’s database.”
Beatrix raises an eyebrow at him. “You looked me up?”
“It was only once!”
“I only asked you to do it once,” Beatrix says. “You said it wasn’t fair.”
“This is different,” Oliver says. But Beatrix can’t see how it is. She only needed one date, one location, too.
“I couldn’t let Lucy send me to 1932 without knowing what happened to you after the Great Exhibition,” he admits.
Beatrix bristles. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can.” He sighs. “I just wanted closure. So I put your name into Aevum’s database. I didn’t know what would happen, but I got a hit. An identity tag for a B. Lancourt from the National Filling Factory. It’s in a museum archive in Leeds, in my time.”
Beatrix reaches for the tag hanging from the cord around her neck, her mind spinning.
“They have an exhibit on the disaster. It has a declassified report with the names of the women who worked that night. It said you were there.”
Her eyes widen. “You came back for me?”
“I won’t do it again, I swear,” Oliver says. “I’ll stay away. But last night, I had to know you were all right.”
Beatrix lays a hand against his cheek. “I am all right. And I’m glad you came back.”
“You were never supposed to know,” he says. “I thought I would justcheck on you. Then I saw you. You looked so lost and then—I don’t know.” He blushes. “I thought I would go back and stop it. Or I would go back to before and tell you to never go to Barnbow.”
Beatrix gasps. “Can you do that?”
Oliver shakes his head. “No. But last night, it didn’t matter. I was going to find a way. I didn’t care what happened. It was like…”
“Like what?” Beatrix prods.
Oliver meets her gaze. “Like nothing in the world mattered except for you.”
Her heart pounds against her ribs. “That’s a foolish idea.”
“Then I guess I’m a fool.”
“But you didn’t do it,” she says, her voice no more than a whisper.
“I couldn’t leave you like that,” he says gravely. “That’s when I knew.”
“What did you know?” Her words sit heavy in the silence between them, a mocking invitation to ruin everything. Because Beatrix fears—knows—what Oliver will say. She can see it in the way he looks at her, hear it in the way he says her name, feel it in the soft touch of his hand on hers.
Oliver studies her face for what feels like hours before he speaks. “I couldn’t let something like that happen again. There’s something coming, and I need you to know about it.”
Beatrix’s eyes go wide. “You can’t.”
Oliver ignores her protest. “It’s decades away, and you can’t tell a soul, but…” His eyes shine with fear. “I can’t bear the thought of you going through something like last night again. Or worse.”
An icy chill runs down her spine. “Another explosion?”
He takes her hand and guides her to the bed. He sits next to her on the edge, his summer-sky eyes dark and serious. “This war will come to be known as the First World War. World War I.”
Her heart plummets. “There’s another one?” Tears well in her eyes. Another bloody war. A world war. Did they learn nothing?
