Mirrors of Time by Juliette Harper

Author:Juliette Harper [Harper, Juliette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781943516322
Google: 5wmVwwEACAAJ
Amazon: 1943516324
Goodreads: 44067430
Publisher: Skye House Publishing
Published: 2019-02-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Shevington, Tori

Greer joined our silent group as we walked from the Lord High Mayor’s house to the University under a night sky ablaze with stars. Crossing the quadrangle, we passed clumps of students who tried not to stare.

Our footsteps echoed in the hallways of the alchemy building and on the stairs to Moira’s workshop on the top floor. Her assistant, Dewey, had a fire lit. An odd assortment of chairs ringed the hearth, two of them occupied by Laurie Proctor and Lauren Frazier.

A nearby table held trays with mugs. I sank into one of the seats nearest the fireplace and accepted a hot cup of tea from my mother.

“You keeping it together?” she asked quietly.

“I am,” I replied, sounding stronger than I felt, “but Beau’s right; it would help if I had something to do.”

Myrtle overheard the conversation. “Positive action would be a comfort to each of us, but first we must take stock of the current situation. Issues involving time offer unique complications.”

Kelly sat down on the hearth with her back to the flames. The night was warm, but I saw her shiver.

“Explain what you mean by ‘complications,’” she said. “Back at the Mother Tree, you referred to the ‘rivers’ of time. Plural.”

Myrtle joined her and motioned for the remaining women to claim chairs.

Looking at Greer, the aos sí said, “Baobhan sith, what do you experience when you suspend time?”

“The force of a surging tide. The intensity increases with each moment.”

Nodding, Myrtle said, “That is what you feel when standing in a single timestream. There are, however, many such temporal channels. Their combined force and weight, none of us can imagine.”

Dozens of sci-fi references sprang to mind; all useless in present company. I may have spent two years learning magic and alchemy, but apart from our experiences with Irenaeus Chesterfield, all my time travel knowledge I owed to Star Trek.

“You’re saying Jinx and Glory have gone to an alternate version of our reality?” I asked.

Myrtle shook her head. “That would be the most favorable of outcomes. In truth, the landscape of time offers many directions and possibilities.”

Rubbing a hand across my eyes to keep from crying in frustration, I said, “Could we maybe get a visual aid on that?”

“Allow me,” Bronwyn offered, leaning forward and using her index fingers to trace shimmering lines in the air.

She interlaced blue verticals and green horizontals to craft a square. The result could have been a complicated board game, or one of those plastic mini looms we used at summer camp.

But then Bronwyn began to snap her fingers. The square duplicated with each ringing thwump until a cube floated suspended over the hearth rug.

My heart sank. “How many dimensions are we talking about here?”

“That number,” Bronwyn replied, “cannot be quantified. At any moment a single choice or even the consideration of a choice can, under the right conditions, create another avenue in the complete construct.”

No one spoke until Greer observed quietly, “Even the most difficult of puzzles can be solved. Where do

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