Page 49 of Borrowed Time

Unless I went a hundred years into the future, that is.

I wanted to tell myself that wasn’t possible, that I’d never jumped that many years. Except I had, only going in the opposite direction.

“You’ll let Seth know what’s going on if I travel farther than five minutes, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Jeremiah responded. Then he smiled. “Or rather, if it turns out to be longer than you would have normally spent here, then I’ll send word at that point.”

I supposed it would have to do. While I didn’t much like the idea of using my gift this way, I also knew we’d never get anywhere if I kept allowing my fear to prevent me from accomplishing something useful.”

“All right,” I said, even as my gaze moved to the clock on the bookcase behind him.

Ten forty-two.

“See you at ten forty-seven.”

A single blink. That was all that ever happened when I traveled in time…at least, on the occasions when I hadn’t been unconscious. The rest of the room remained the same, right down to the crackling of the fireplace and the man sitting behind the desk.

Or rather, the man who stood near the bookcase, one of the leatherbound volumes in one hand.

“Welcome back,” Jeremiah said.

I looked over at the clock again. This time, it said the hour was five minutes after eleven.

“Missed it by a little bit, it looks like,” I remarked.

“Only twenty minutes,” he told me. “Considering how far into the future you went on earlier occasions, I don’t think that’s too far off the mark.”

Maybe not, except we had a finite amount of time to work with each other until the housekeeper came back, and every time I was wrong by even a little bit, I shaved off some minutes we couldn’t really afford to lose.

“I’ll admit I’ve screwed up a lot more than that,” I said. “But what does that really prove?”

He didn’t look too worried. “I think it proves that you have more control over your gift than you think you do…certainly more than your fourteen-year-old self did, even if you’ve kept your talent closed down for nearly a decade. But now, another experiment.”

During all of this, the amulet had been lying on the desktop. Now Jeremiah reached for it and handed it to me.

“Now I want you to hold the amulet and try again. Five minutes, which would make it 11:11 when you come back.”

An angel number, as some of my more woo-woo Wilcox cousins would have pointed out. Funny how even among witches and warlocks with real magical powers, there were those who also studied astrology and Tarot and collected crystals.

Then again, at least crystals were pretty.

The amulet felt solid in my hand, heavier than it looked. Probably because it was solid brass; a similar piece made of gold might have been hollow to save on materials costs.

But would it be enough to get my unruly talent to behave?

“Eleven-eleven,” I repeated, clutching the amulet in one palm.

Once again, there was the same odd eye-blink sensation that happened whenever I traveled in time. Jeremiah hadn’t moved, as far as I could tell.

And the clock said the time was 11:12.

“Excellent,” Jeremiah said. “Off by a minute, but I think that margin of error is acceptable.”

Had I really managed to get it that close? Not the exact time I’d been aiming for, although, as theprimushad just pointed out, a minute wasn’t too much to get worked up over.

“You think it was the amulet?” I asked.

His gaze moved to the lozenge-shaped hunk of bronze in my hand with its glowing red garnet eye. “I believe it was you and the amulet working together. You used your magic in the way you knew how, and the amulet allowed that magic to be focused properly. This is…encouraging.”

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