Infinityglass

Chapter 2

Dune, November, Ivy Springs

“The Infinityglass is what?”

Liam Ballard, head of the Hourglass, and my boss, regarded me from across his desk with a cautious expression. “Human.”

I sat back and let the notion settle in as I felt my eyes glaze over.

“Dune? Are you okay?” Liam asked.

I shook my head.

The Infinityglass was the freaking holy grail of time and believed to contain ultimate power over the space time continuum, among other things.

I’d been obsessed with it since I was a kid, heard endless stories about it from my dad, and imagined the Indiana Jones–type quest I’d eventually go on to find it.

Except that wasn’t going to happen now, because it was human.

“Please tell me what you know.” I leaned forward and gripped the edge of Liam’s desk.

“I did some research.” He tapped his fingers on a yellow legal pad full of chicken scratch. “Made a few phone calls. Got a few back. Went to the hospital to see Poe Sharpe.”

“Poe. What does he have to do with it?”

Liam hesitated. Did some more finger tapping. Met my eyes. “Quite a bit.”

“You’re looking at me like you think my head’s going to fly off and spin around the room.” My forced laugh hung uncomfortably in the air. “Poe’s not the Infinityglass, is he?”

“No. But you losing your head is a distinct possibility.”

“Nothing can be crazier than the Infinityglass being … human.” The word didn’t even sit right on my tongue.

“When Poe came to us in October and gave us the ultimatum from Teague to find Jack Landers, I believed the order came from Chronos.” Teague was the head of Chronos, otherwise known as the bad guys. Poe was her number-one henchman. Jack Landers was a world of trouble, who used to be second-in-command at the Hourglass. “I didn’t even question it.”

“Why would you?” I asked.

“Because I’m a scientist, and scientists are supposed to ask questions.” Liam rubbed his temples. “Instead, I assumed everything was as it had been when I left—that Teague was in charge—and that the Chronos operations were still based in Memphis.”

“But things have changed?”

“Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away, and things evolve, whether you pay attention or not.” Liam picked up a pen and started drawing on his legal pad, circling certain words over and over again. “Teague isn’t in charge, and Chronos is no longer based in Memphis. Not only that, Chronos isn’t our enemy.”

“After everything Poe and Teague did—”

“Teague was acting in her own interests. Poe was duped into carrying out orders issued by her, but he believed he was working for the real organization.”

“If Teague isn’t in charge of Chronos, who is?”

“Paul Girard. Teague’s estranged husband.”

“That doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. What am I missing?”

“It’s not one thing; it’s the combination of many. Lily’s the one who made me realize the Infinityglass is human.” Lily Garcia, the newest member of the Hourglass, had a supernatural ability to find anything or anyone. “She searched for an object and found nothing. Then she looked for a person and got an address.”

I actually put my hands on top of my head, wondering if its removal would be a relief at this point. “You know where the Infinityglass is.”

Liam nodded. “Who it is, too.”

“A him or a her?”

“A her.”

“Human … how?” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “Is she immortal?”

“She’s seventeen.”

“But the lore—not that it’s lore anymore—has been around forever. How can she be so young?”

“There’s an explanation, and I’m certain it’s as elusive as everything else about the Infinityglass.”

“She’s not safe.” It hit me that we were talking about a human. A life. More than a legend.

Liam rubbed his temples again. “She is for the moment, but probably not for long.”

The questions were coming too fast for me to keep up with my own brain. “Does she know what she is? Where is she?”

“I don’t know if she knows, and she’s in New Orleans, at the Girard’s home address.”

“The Girard’s home address. Teague’s home address?” My stomach pitched as I connected the dots. “Teague has the Infinityglass. She’s already beaten us to her.”

“By about seventeen years. I have reason to believe the Infinityglass is Teague Girard’s daughter.”

Holy hell.

“What I need to know now is”—Liam leaned forward and nailed me with a long stare—“are you going with me to find her?”

If I was going to get the Infinityglass, I was going to need to make some changes.

Nate’s mouth hung open so wide I could see his wisdom teeth. “You’re going to do what?”

“Cut them off.” I dropped the clippers and the scissors on the kitchen counter with a clatter.

“Why? Dreads are sexy,” Lily said, earning a side glance from Kaleb. After he growled, she reached across the kitchen table to run her hand through his hair. He was growing it out after a skull trim. “But I like short better.”

“Maybe you should just leave it long, Dune,” Kaleb said to me, before grabbing her arm and putting his lips to her wrist.

I didn’t bother responding. Kaleb was too busy focusing on Lily and whatever he was doing to make her breath catch. Since they’d gotten together, they never stopped touching, and they were always at our place. The way they connected made me miss something I’d never had.

“It’s time for a change. Don’t you think?” I turned to Nate now, although if I were going to ask for style advice, his would be the last I’d take. His perpetually neon streak of hair was somewhere between pink and orange this week. “Besides, it’s only hair.”

“It’s not just hair,” Nate argued. “It’s your trademark.”

“It’s your excuse to call me Chewbacca.”

“I’ll just call you Bald Chewbacca now.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“Fine.” Nate picked up the scissors and snapped them open and closed. A little too joyfully and a little too quickly. “If this is going to happen, do I get to do the honors?”

I preferred a gentle touch, but Lily and Kaleb had disappeared. Again.

“I guess so. Do not shoot for speed, Nate.” Nate had the ability to speed up or slow down his movements. “Aim for accuracy.”

Nate tapped the back of a chair and grinned.

I sat down and shut my eyes.

The bathroom mirror was steamy, so I used my ability to turn the gas to liquid. Condensation rolled down the glass in rivulets.

I stared at the image that remained, trying to adjust. My sideburns kept me from feeling like a plucked chicken, but the lack of hair was going to take some getting used to. I pulled on a pair of worn jeans and went back to the kitchen. Nate had bundled up the remains of my dreads and tied them in a pink ribbon.

The smart-ass presented it to me like it was some kind of bouquet. “I didn’t know if you wanted to have a burial.”

I took a long look at six years’ worth of hair, and then threw it in the trash.

Nate leaned back against the wall, studying the change. “This is pretty serious.”

“It was time for a change.” Time to grow up.

“Why?” He pushed off the wall with one foot and started pacing. “We’ve known each other for how many years? Five, at least? The Dune I know is laidback, dependable. He makes logical, balanced decisions, applies all the facts, weighs the pros and cons. This feels impulsive, and you aren’t impulsive.”

“I’ve been thinking about cutting them off for a while.” That wasn’t a lie. I’d even been letting them grow out, which was the only reason I wasn’t totally bald.

“The hair isn’t the only issue. Something’s up. Is this about getting a girlfriend or some stupid crap like that?”

“No,” I protested, even though my luck with the ladies had been off. The way the Hourglass employees were pairing up reminded me of Noah’s ark. I didn’t want to cruise into the sunset with Nate.

“You started going to the gym a couple of months ago. You just bought new clothes.” He pointed to the bags on the counter.

“Some of my Samoan cousins lean toward the Rock. Others, not as much. I know which way I want to go.” The gym had been about fear of turning fat. “But you’re right. Buying the clothes was intentional.”

“Because?”

“I’m going on a job.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of job requires a dude makeover?”

“It’s not a makeover. It’s an upgrade. I can’t be a kid forever.” I didn’t want to be. “Professionals don’t wear T-shirts that say, ‘Bazinga.’ ”

The front door burst open. The gust of cold air had me covering my head with my hands. When I saw Emerson, I covered my nipples instead.

Because I was a dork.

“Whoa, Nelly!” Emerson stopped so fast Michael almost ran over her. She dropped the grocery bags she held on the kitchen table and stared at me with a frightening kind of glee on her face. “Dune. You’re scary. And hot. Scary hot. Who knew?”

Michael took a step back and fanned himself. “I have the vapors.”

“I like it.” Em approached me the way a cat might approach a still-wriggling puffer fish, from multiple angles and with a cautious eye. “But where’s your shirt?”

“He got some new ones. Because he’s a grown-up.” Nate’s annoying singsongy tone set my teeth on edge.

“Um. Dune?” Em bit her lower lip. “I know what nipples look like.”

I sighed, lowered my hands, and decided I really needed to get out more.

Nate threw me one of the button-ups I’d found on sale at the mall, along with a vest I’d snagged at the thrift shop. I caught them right before they hit me in the face.

The door opened again, allowing another blast of cold air. Ava. She stopped and stared at my head. “Where are your dreads?”

I pointed to the trash can.

“I think I like it.” She walked past me with raised eyebrows and tucked herself into a corner, taking on her usual observer role.

“Okay. Try the bowler on first,” Em urged, picking up a hat and shoving it at me. “This is going to be yummy.”

“We need to see the shirts, too,” Michael said, smiling. That was only another example of why he and Emerson fit together the way they did. Even with all the trouble we’d seen lately, he’d never smiled like that before her.

“It must be nice to be so secure in your relationship,” I said to him, smoothing out the now-crumpled bowler hat.

“She loves me,” he answered simply.

“I love him.” Em smiled.

“Listen,” I said, spinning the hat on my finger. “If you people think I’m going to play dress-up—”

“I want a montage.” Em reached in one of the grocery bags and pulled out a bag of clementines. She took a couple out and threw one to Ava, then tossed the rest of the package to Michael, who caught it neatly before stowing it in the crisper drawer of the fridge.

“Montage?” I asked.

“Yeah, like those cheesy eighties movies, where the girl—or guy—tries on all kinds of new clothes and twirls around in front of a full-length mirror and a crowd of friends. To make sure everything works and that her butt doesn’t look too big.”

“Or his butt, right?” I asked. Em was the perfect ray of sarcastic sunshine.

“Right.” She smiled. “So we’ll be right here waiting for you to montage. I’ll try to find some good music. Maybe Pat Benatar or Prince or the Go-Go’s. I think you have the beat, Dune.”

Ava tossed me a plaid ivy cap. “Try that one, too, or I might steal it.”

I caught it easily. “One thing. I’ll try on one thing with one hat, just to make sure—”

“That your butt doesn’t look big. We know.” Em made a shooing motion. “Try to enter at the beginning of the chorus. Bonus if you put a flower between your teeth.”

Michael followed me back to my room with Nate on his heels. “What’s with the wardrobe change?”

“Nothing.” I undid the top three buttons on the white shirt, removed the tags, and pulled it over my head. The sensation of the cloth against my now bare neck gave me the willies.

“How dense do you think I am?” Michael asked. “It’s more than clothes. You cut off your hair.”

Nate dropped into my desk chair. “We’re calling him Bald Chewbacca now.”

“I am not bald.” I threw the crumpled tags at his head. “It’s at least half an inch long.”

“I’m not changing your nickname.” Nate jerked his head in Michael’s direction, and then leaned back on two chair legs. “Either you tell him about the job or I will. But I’m guessing he already knows.”

“Maybe.” Michael watched as I took a pin-striped vest out of my closet. “But I have no problem waiting right here until you give me your take on it, Dune.”

“You want my opinion on things?” I slipped my arms into the vest. “I’ve got time to kill. Maybe you’d like to hear my theories on the existence of the chupacabra instead?”

Neither one of them moved.

“What about my thoughts on the dangers of Warcraft possibly overtaking Star Wars as the franchise gold mine?”

“Lies!” Nate yelled.

I grinned. I knew how to get him distracted.

“Tell us about the job, Dune.” Michael leaned back against my wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Fine.” I blew out a sigh. “Liam called me into his office last week. The Infinityglass is a person.”

“What?” Nate sucked wind and almost fell out of his chair. “You knew this for a week and you didn’t tell me?”

“I wanted to, trust me. But Liam wanted it kept quiet.”

Michael didn’t react at all, which confirmed he’d already been privy to the information. Not surprising. Liam had been grooming him to take over the Hourglass for a while, so he usually knew more than the rest of us.

I looked Michael in the eye. “I still don’t understand why Liam wanted me for the job instead of you.”

“You know more about the Infinityglass than anyone, even Liam,” Michael pointed out. “You’re perfect for this.”

“Maybe, but I tend to fly under the radar. This is a little high profile for me.”

“Hello? The Infinityglass is a person? How?” Nate waved his arms over his head. “Can we talk about that part?”

I gave him the short version of Liam’s long explanation. “The Infinityglass has to be activated—”

“Like the Wonder Twins?” Nate mimicked bumping two rings together, making a kapow sound when he pulled his fists away from each other.

His levity disappeared when I stared at him.

“Sorry. Please proceed.”

“We don’t know what causes the activation, but something kicks the gene into gear,” I explained.

Michael spoke up, more confirmation that Liam had completely filled him in. “While we all activated in puberty, it takes more than that to get the Infinityglass going, and the connection doesn’t always happen. That’s why the ‘sightings’ are so limited.”

“But we have Lily,” I said, “and she nailed down a location. The girl lives in New Orleans, and she happens to be Teague’s daughter.”

“Teague’s daughter? The Infinityglass is human, and she’s Teague’s daughter. Poor kid, to have that for a parent.” Nate dropped the chair back to all four legs with a thud. “I need a few years to take this in.”

“You can’t have years. Liam and I are going to Louisiana in five days.”

“You’re going to help her. I can get on board with that.” Nate nodded thoughtfully. “But if Teague’s her mom, how are you going to get to her?”

“Teague isn’t involved in her life. She lives with her dad, and he has a badass reputation. Sort of a … mobster.”

“A mobster who’s the true head of Chronos,” Michael added.

“So you’re going to New Orleans to meet a gangster and his … legendary daughter, and this requires short hair and a beefcake, hipster vibe?” Nate didn’t sound convinced.

“It requires that I look responsible. This guy has to take me seriously, and his daughter needs all the help she can get. And I’m not a hipster.”

“Hipstercrite, maybe. Hold on a second.” Nate held up a hand. “Why was Teague looking for the Infinityglass if the Infinityglass is her daughter? Surely she knows?”

“Teague wasn’t looking for the Infinityglass. She was looking for Jack, who was looking for the Infinityglass,” Michael explained. “Teague was either trying to keep Jack away from the truth, or there was something else she wanted on the Skroll.”

“It sounds like Teague is protecting her daughter.” Nate leaned back on two chair legs again. “Why are you going to New Orleans? Why not just make a phone call?”

“Because every source tells us that Teague isn’t to be trusted, including her husband. Liam talked to him. He wants us to come to NOLA as much as we want to go. I might be staying.” I ran my hand over my head. “Hence the hairdo.”

A sudden blast of music made us all jump, and the bass thumped hard enough to bounce a couple of pencils off my desk.

Grateful for the interruption, I asked, “Is that …?”

“New Kids on the Block,” Nate said, already dancing in his chair.

I looked at Michael. “Em’s going to make me spin around, isn’t she?”

“Oh no, my man.” Michael clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s going to make you twirl.”

Five days later, Liam and I were in his truck, heading for the Nashville airport.

The blasting heat inside the cab made the skin on my face tighten. An early winter had settled into middle Tennessee with a passion. Seventy-five degrees on Halloween, twenty-nine the next day, and it hadn’t warmed up much since.

“Not to mess with your creaky old-man bones,” I said, “but I’m already a sweat puddle.”

Liam smiled and turned the heat down. “You don’t need to worry.”

“I’m not worried, just hot.” I might have believed it myself if my voice hadn’t cracked in the middle of the sentence. “Are you sure about this?”

“I am.”

As he merged onto I-65 north, I fidgeted with the seat belt, pulling it above and below my shoulder to find a comfortable position. Finally, I just sat on my hands to keep them still. I was too broad in the shoulders to get truly comfortable, anyway.

Liam checked his rearview mirror. “I know switching the Infinityglass paradigm from object to human has been difficult.”

“What hasn’t been difficult this year?”

The dead had come back to life. Time had been rewritten.

The space time continuum had been damaged. Anyone with the basic time gene could see ripples; imprints of people from the past, which had turned into entire scenes, streets full of people, even buildings. These rips were getting worse. Their latest evolution had trapped Michael and Em inside one, and they’d barely escaped.

Liam’s answering smile was more of a grimace. “Too true. There is one thing we haven’t discussed, and it should’ve had priority. Is it going to be difficult for you to be near so much water?”

I stared out the window and thought about the question. Frost covered fields like powdered sugar as we passed everything from mansions to tiny farmhouses. Livestock stood in huddles to keep warm, their breaths rising into the air. Half-frozen ponds waited for spring.

Harmless, still water.

Besides the Harpeth, I hadn’t been near a river in months, and now I was heading for New Orleans and its neighbors, the Mississippi, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico.

“I think it’s going to be okay.” I hoped it was. “But don’t expect me to spend a lot of time by the water.”

Liam stared straight ahead, his eyebrows puckered in concentration. “I won’t leave you in a circumstance you aren’t comfortable with. That’s a promise.”

“I know that.” I adjusted the seat belt again, and tried to change the subject. “What I’m not comfortable with is you leaving Ivy Springs. Grace needs you.”

Liam’s wife had just come out of a nine-month-long coma.

“Hallie Girard needs us, too. I’ll only be away for a day. Two, max.”

All I knew about Hallie was that she was seventeen, and for some reason, really isolated. I’d done more than one Internet search on her. She didn’t have any social media profiles. I wondered if being the Infinityglass had affected her life in some horrible way.

“What’s her dad going to think when you offer up a tech geek to him?”

“Luckily, he and I have a history, even if it’s only because we met through Teague. Her betrayal didn’t surprise him. She abandoned her family long ago. It’s heartbreaking, honestly, especially for the daughter.” Liam switched lanes. “As far as the Infinityglass, he knew about it, but believed the same thing we did. That it was an object.”

“How did he take it when you told him it was his daughter?” I asked.

“Hard. But he believed me.”

I wondered what being an all-powerful, mythical “thing” could do to a girl. I wondered if she had symptoms.

Liam exited for the airport, heading for short-term parking. After he picked a spot and killed the engine, I got out and removed our suitcases from the back of the truck.

“If it doesn’t work, if you have any qualms, you come back home with me,” Liam said. “Deal?”

I looked up at the Nashville International Airport and answered the only way I could.

“Deal.”

Dune, Mid-November, New Orleans

There were already Christmas decorations up in the airport.

We left baggage claim and waited on the sidewalk for a taxi. Tourists were everywhere. Groups of tipsy college kids who’d gotten an early start on Bourbon Street, married couples ready for a getaway weekend, and us.

I tried to take in as much of the city as I could on the cab ride, but nerves and the smell of the water kept my gut twisted. Ivy Springs had its share of history spread out over a lot of mileage, but the Garden District’s history was dense and compact.

Dormers and gables, porches and columns, all layered with intricate detail. Everything was white or pastel, except for the bark of the massive oaks and the leaves on their branches. The tree roots grew so large that the sidewalk broke into pieces above them.

Among all that beauty, the Girard house was best described as nouveau riche penitentiary.

A big guy with a holstered firearm buzzed us through the gate and inside the front door. The air smelled like money. After a few seconds, we were led to Paul Girard’s “library.”

It was grandiose, an obnoxious kind of new South. Everything was shiny, or new and dulled down to look old. I was used to Liam’s home office, which was nice enough, but dusty and full of books and his personal collection of hourglasses. Liam’s office looked like he worked in it. Paul Girard’s library looked like he posed in it.

“Come in.” Girard stood. He was your basic slick-haired, shifty-eyed, moneyed gangster, with excellent taste in suits.

After introductions, Girard asked about our flight and general well-being, but the chitchat didn’t last long. Liam sat down, and so did I, balancing on the edge of a masculine couch.

“You’re the guy who’s supposed to help my daughter?” Girard sounded doubtful.

“Yes, sir.” I nodded.

He looked me over, summed me up. “Try to relax.”

I slid back on the seat. It was the best I could manage.

Girard continued the stare-down. “Try to relax more.”

I put one arm on the back of the couch and smiled. Felt my lips wobble. Wanted to go home really, really, desperately.

Liam took pity on my inner introvert. “Dune has been with the Hourglass for several years. I’ve told you about his work history, so you know he’s reliable. He also happens to have more knowledge about the Infinityglass than anyone, even myself.”

“Knowledge. Great.” Girard tilted his head to the side, regarding me. “Does he talk?”

“He … yes.” I’d never seen Liam falter before.

“I do.” I moved back to the edge of the couch. “Talk, I mean.”

When Girard shifted, I saw the gun holster under his jacket. Everyone in this house was armed. “The Infinityglass. What do you know?”

This was my chance. “Horologists name it as one of the biggest finds in the field, at least the ones who cop to its being real.”

“I’m certain my daughter is real.”

I made a sound somewhere between a gulp and a laugh. “Well, horologists believe it’s an object, not a human. I should explain what horo—”

“I know what horology is. Liam started out doing all your talking for you. Do horologists do all your thinking for you? What makes you believe it’s a human?”

I looked at Liam, and he handed over the briefcase I’d felt too self-conscious to carry. I flipped the latches and pushed it toward Girard. “That’s my personal external drive. It holds every shred of evidence ever collected on the Infinityglass, a couple of hundred years’ worth, and includes new information that was recently discovered on a Skroll.”

“A scroll?”

“Not the old-school kind. A digital storage device, kind of like a tablet on steroids, with holograms.” This specific Skroll held information about the Infinityglass, and had changed hands too many times to count. “The Hourglass stole the Skroll from your wife. She never managed to get it open. I did.”

It had taken me two weeks to crack it.

“Do you still have it?” Girard asked.

“No. We gave it back to your wife. I have everything that was on it. And I left it altered. Now it’s missing some vital documents.” Taking information off the Skroll had been a gamble, and one that could have cost lives. From where I sat now, the risk had been worth it. “The information on this Skroll is the key to the Infinityglass. I’ve read through everything I can, and I’m in the process of translating the rest. There’s centuries of information to cover.”

“You’re here because a man I trusted deeply believed in you.” He looked at Liam. “All I’m interested in is what being the Infinityglass means to my daughter.”

Liam gestured to me. “That’s why I brought you Dune.”

I nodded. “Finding out is my goal, sir, and I’m one hundred percent committed to it.”

“If you work for the Hourglass, you have an ability. What is it?”

I swallowed, hard. “I can control water. The tides. Moon phases—that’s how it’s connects with the time gene. It’s not something I mess with very often. Too hard to control.”

“Yet you come to New Orleans. ‘Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ ” The man had been in my presence for all of five minutes, and had already zeroed in on one of my biggest fears and quoted “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in the process. “How are you going to handle the mighty Mississippi so close by?”

“I don’t plan on spending much time by the river. Or lake. Or the ocean. Nothing volatile. If working for you requires me to do so … I’ll find a way around it.”

I didn’t look at Liam. He knew what a job involving that much water would do to me. The last job I’d been on for the Hourglass that involved my ability had been the previous summer. A tiny country stream had required a reroute from a floodplain. I’d shaped the water as I controlled it long enough to move it to the new trench that had been dug. Then Nate and I had helped fill the now-dry section of creek bed with clay mud.

I’d acted like it was simple, no problem at all, but I’d seen a dead fish on the grass, a result of my shoddy navigation, and I’d had to fight off panic.

“I don’t foresee a circumstance in which your being on the water would be necessary. Unless you can’t handle the pool in the back.”

“That’s not a problem.”

Girard sat back in his seat. “Tell me what you know about my business.”

I gave him the short version because I didn’t know how to approach the long one. “You deal in rare antiquities. People with time-related abilities assist.”

“Succinct. Diplomatic. Nice.” Girard crossed his ankle over one knee. “The Hourglass has a very high bar when it comes to morality. I acquire antiquities under certain furtive circumstances. If you’re going to come to work for me, you are, indeed, going to work for me. Jobs that could cause the wrong sorts of people to ask questions. Are you prepared to answer them?”

I didn’t know if the wrong sorts of people were the good guys or the bad. Paul Girard had no time-related ability, but businessmen like him were genius judges of human nature. Uncertainty wouldn’t do in this situation.

“I’m prepared.”

“Good. Ideally, I can keep you out of that end, since your main purpose is helping my daughter. But if it becomes part of your cover, so be it. I don’t want Hallie to know what you’re really doing here.” He stared at me and I nodded, confirming I was totally on board. “I told her I was planning to hire new security. We’ll let her believe you’re part of her new detail.”

“I don’t—I have no idea how to be a bodyguard. I don’t even know how to fake it.”

“It doesn’t matter. I rarely have anyone on her in the house. She’ll be really, really pissed off, and my daughter, pissed off …” He looked at me like he felt sorry for me.

“Does she have any idea she’s the Infinityglass?” Liam asked.

“Her ability is transmutation. I don’t believe she knows she’s the Infinityglass.”

Liam’s frown went wrinkle deep. “Do you plan on telling her?”

“That depends.” Girard asked, focusing on me, “Do you have answers for her?”

“I need to observe her for a little while. I need time to try to reconcile the differences between what I thought the Infinityglass was and what it truly is and to finish translating and studying all the information on the Skroll.”

“Then we’ll wait until you know something solid. I don’t want to scare her with half-truths.” He stood, and so did Liam and I. “If Liam says you’re my best option, I’ll believe him, because I have every reason to believe in the Hourglass. I know what you stand for and what you do. But if you prove him or me wrong …”

Girard left the threat unspoken.

And somehow that was scarier than if he’d said it aloud.