Page 71 of Borrowed Time

Jeremiah ushered us inside as soon as we knocked. Just like the last time we were here, the house was quiet, signaling that we were the only occupants.

Once I’d hung up my cloak and Seth had removed his overcoat, I blurted, “Jeremiah, has Samuel said anything to you?”

Immediately, theprimus’sblack brows drew together. “Said anything to me about what?”

As quickly as I could, I explained how Seth and I had gone to Williams the day before, and how we’d seen Samuel there.

“Yes, he went to deliver a new wagon to our ranch outside town,” Jeremiah said. “It was something one of our foremen could do, I suppose, but it seemed as if he wanted to have a dayaway from town, so I told him he could handle the errand if he liked.” Frown returning, he added, “Did something happen?”

“We noticed him at the depot,” Seth replied. “But we thought he hadn’t seen us. When we got to Flagstaff, though, he made a few comments that sounded like a veiled threat, as though he knew we weren’t really brother and sister.”

Theprimus’sfrown deepened. “That is…not good.”

“We’ve been really careful,” I broke in. “The only thing he could have possibly seen was Seth and me holding hands, but I don’t think that’s terribly incriminating. It’s not like he could have caught a glimpse of us kissing or anything like that. We’re not that stupid.”

Jeremiah was silent for a moment, and I wondered if he was going to give us grief for even that one small indiscretion. But then he shrugged and said, “My brother, as the saying goes, likes to stir the pot. I have no doubt that you’ve been careful, as you’ve said. He was already suspicious of you, so anything that didn’t feel quite right would be magnified much more in his mind.”

I had to hope so.

“At any rate,” theprimuscontinued, “I can handle my brother. For now, I think it’s best to proceed with our plans for today.”

“Which are…?” Seth said. He didn’t look exactly relieved, but he also didn’t seem as tense as he’d been a few minutes earlier, as though Jeremiah’s reassurance that his brother wouldn’t be a problem had been enough for him to shove that unsettling exchange with Samuel to the back of his mind.

“More tests of Devynn’s time travel abilities,” the warlock replied. “Unfortunately, we will need to work someplace a little less comfortable than my study, just in case we go past the time when I need to leave for my nephew’s birthday party. Follow me.”

Talk about a vote of confidence,I thought as we followed him upstairs to the second floor…and then up another narrow flight of stairs at the back of the house that led into the attic.

Then again, I hadn’t been exactly consistent in my time travel, so I could see why Jeremiah had thought he needed to take certain precautions so I wouldn’t appear to pop into being in the dining room just as Mrs. Barton was passing through.

I would have expected the attic to be chilly and not very well insulated, but, contrary to what theprimushad just said, it seemed comfortable enough up here.

“A small warming spell,” he said in answer to my questioning look. “I didn’t think you would be able to focus very well if you were too busy shivering. It is quite a cold day.”

That it was…with snow on the way, if my Flagstaff-honed weather sense was any good at all. But we were safe and snug enough in here, and if it turned into a blizzard, Seth could just blink the two of us back into his hotel room, gossip be damned.

The attic was just as tidy as the rest of the house. Sure, it contained some trunks and a few pieces of furniture that appeared to have been sent up here when they’d outlived their usefulness, but it was noticeably free of cobwebs and dust and half-exploded boxes of Christmas ornaments, unlike the attic of the old Victorian where I’d lived for the first five years of my life.

“You can sit over there,” Jeremiah said, directing those words to Seth as he pointed toward an armchair whose shabby upholstery showed that it had been much loved before being relegated to the attic. “It will be more comfortable for you in case Devynn doesn’t come back quite when we planned.”

Which sounded like a polite way of saying that he fully expected me to overshoot the mark again. I couldn’t even be angry with him, not when I knew the chances of my doing so were at least fifty-fifty.

Theprimusturned back toward me. “Today, Devynn, I would like to start small.” He pulled a handsome gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket and glanced down at it. “Currently, the time is 1:14. I want you to travel to 1:30.”

Such a minor jump in time that I wasn’t sure it would even be worth the effort. On the other hand, I thought I could see where Jeremiah was going with this. He wanted me to do small leaps forward in time at the beginning and then work up so he could see where things began to go sideways and I started to lose any kind of accuracy.

But sixteen minutes should be easy…especially when I had the amulet to help me out.

“Got it,” I told him, and visualized the slender minute hand on his watch moving to the half-hour mark.

As always, the slip in time was just a blink. On the other side of that tiny glitch, Seth didn’t seem to have moved, but theprimuswas now standing closer to the armchair where he sat, as though the two of them had been chatting to fill the time until they caught up with me.

Jeremiah pulled out his pocket watch and gave an approving nod. “One-thirty on the dot. Very good, Devynn.”

A pleased little flush touched my cheeks. After everything that had seemed to go wrong over the past couple of days, it felt good to finally have something be right.

“Well, it was a very small jump,” I said deprecatingly. “Now what?”

“You jump again,” he replied. “Try going to two o’clock this time.”

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