1WILLA
1891, countryside south of Bologna
“THIS IS A terrible idea,” Willa said as she picked the lock on the front door of the villa house.
Saudade looked faintly amused. “Yes, you’ve said.”
“It bears repeating.” She felt the last tumbler click into position and twisted the torsion wrench. “You know, I’m only about eighty-five percent certain this is even the correct summer cottage we’re breaking into.”
Saudade raised their eyebrows, taking in the two-story stone house with its leaded glass windows and red tile roof. “You consider this a cottage?”
Willa held back her shrug until after the lock popped open. This was only one part of what had once been a multi-structure villa owned by some fantastically wealthy Renaissance aristocrat, before it fell into disrepair and was sold off in pieces. “It was probably the villa’s guest house originally.”
“It looks like it could accommodate a family of ten in extravagant comfort.”
Willa straightened and tucked her lockpicks away inside the boning of her corset. “You don’t have much experience with extravagance, do you? Trust me, the conspicuous displays of wealth get much worse than this in the pre-cataclysm centuries.”
It was a strange turning of the tables, to be back here in 1891 where Willa was the expert and Saudade had only their local database of historical knowledge to lean on. Despite the modestness of her living conditions since her familial estrangement, Willa’s parents had raised her to be a marquis. She was intimately familiar with aristocracy, and she might have worn the title comfortably if only it didn’t require living as a man, which she most decidedly could not do. She was used to getting by on her own, but her room in the boardinghouse was no longer an option, both because she no longer had a university stipend with which to pay for it, and because multiple people would know to look for her there.
Never mind that Saudade’s chosen appearance was rather memorable. They presented themself with curly dark hair and medium brown skin, and while they wouldn’t be the only person of color in nineteenth-century Bologna, the other residents of the boardinghouse would’ve certainly taken notice. Willa was fairly certain that Saudade—being an android from the future—could alter their appearance to blend in, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask someone else to compromise their identity for her convenience. That would be the worst kind of hypocrisy, coming from Willa.
She turned the doorknob and let them both into the summer cottage. The entryway was somewhat narrow but two stories high, with a stairway leading up to balcony railings on the second floor. The house was clean inside but only sparsely furnished and decorated—her mentor, Augusto Righi, had occasionally spoken of how much work he still needed to put into his summer property, and how he could never find the time to make it presentable. Willa felt reasonably confident that none of his colleagues from the University of Bologna or from the Order of Archimedes would have been invited for a visit, so no one would think to check for Willa here. And with no children to inherit, Righi’s estate would likely be tied up for some while, as the lawyers of distant relatives argued over his holdings.
Willa said, “Fine, I’ll admit it: So long as we don’t get arrested for trespassing, I suppose this will do well enough.”
Saudade grinned. “I’ve always wanted my very own secret lair.”
Willa took a long, steadying breath. Despite everything that had happened since learning Righi had died, his absence still hit her like a sharp spike between the ribs. “I feel as if I’m taking advantage of his death.”
Saudade let their grin fade. They understood whose house this was. “Even just from reading his journals, it’s clear Righi cared for you. I can only surmise he would have provided what assistance he could to our mission, if he’d lived to make that choice himself.”
“I don’t know that he would have trusted me with this.” Willa’s gaze was drawn to the satchel hanging from Saudade’s shoulder, which contained the book that would end the world. “Righi never wanted me anywhere near his secret society of science cronies.”
“Don’t confuse his desire to protect you from the Order with a lack of trust.” Saudade paused. “Riley and Jaideep trust you with this. Does that count for nothing?”
“Right. Riley and Jaideep.” Her throat went tight around the names. Two more fresh losses to add to her collection—not lost to death, at least, but left behind in an uncertain future, when it proved impossible for two twenty-first-century humans to travel to 1891 with the intent of changing history. Now it was all down to Willa and Saudade—an apprentice mechanist who’d lost her mentor, and with him, the laboratory she’d once had access to at the university; and an android time cop who’d rebelled against their own organization, risked everything to help three upstart humans, and was now cut off from whatever incomprehensible network and processing resources they’d once taken for granted. Neither of them at their best, and now they had to protect the very fabric of spacetime.
Willa couldn’t help but feel a pang of abandonment, despite the fact that she was the one who left the future behind. She knew Riley would have stuck with her, would have seen the mission through to the end if it were possible. Willa grimaced, angry at herself for this irrational sense of hurt. She often found her emotions to be less than convenient, but now in the wake of Riley, they were harder to bottle up, too.
Saudade set a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Come. Let us settle in and take a look at this prize book we’ve chased after so diligently.”
The sitting room of the summer house was furnished with only a single settee, a pair of wooden chairs, and a standing lamp that with Willa’s luck would probably not have any oil in it. The two of them sat side by side on the settee, and Saudade pulled the leather-bound volume from their satchel and handed it to Willa, as if deferring to her authority in this matter. Willa blinked, thrown for a moment—she was no scriptologist, hardly an expert in the creation of artificial worlds despite having visited a few of them, but apparently Saudade felt that she was in charge of this mission nonetheless.
Willa opened the book to the first page, but found it empty. She flipped forward, a small nugget of panic turning in her stomach. “It’s blank! The whole book is blank. What is this?”
Everything she’d lost couldn’t have been for nothing—this book was supposed to be the key to stopping a global catastrophe before it ever happened. If it was worthless …
“Hm.” Saudade leaned closer, eyes scanning the pages intently. “Interesting. There is ink, it just doesn’t reflect in the visible spectrum.”
Willa put a hand over her chest, trying to calm her pounding heart. “Can you read it?”
Saudade flipped back to the beginning, and a frown creased their brow. “There are portal coordinates here.”
She felt faintly ill. “Please don’t tell me we stole the wrong book.”
What they’d meant to steal was a scriptological artifact that did not itself code for a new world, but instead could be used to edit the real world as if it were artificial. The editbook should not have coordinates for entry.
“Let’s not despair just yet,” said Saudade. “Not before we investigate the contents of this worldbook, at least.”
Saudade stood and Willa followed them, leaving the book on the settee. Using whatever internal machinery allowed them to open a portal, Saudade generated a black disk as tall as a person, limned in iridescence where it cut through the air. The two of them walked through into a void of cold nothingness, and then on the next step, into a different world.
Willa found herself standing in a stone pavilion, Greek-style columns circling the margin of a smooth-paved platform. Beyond the pavilion floor, stone cliffs dropped sharply into a sea of swirling purple mist, the same mist surrounding them at a distance on all sides, marking the edges of this small pocket universe. In the center of the pavilion stood a broad stone pedestal with a large, leather-bound tome resting on it. And in a sphere around the book, some kind of electrical field sparked and glowed with eerie blue light.
Willa peered through. “So that’s the editbook, do you think?”
“Hm.” Saudade tapped their pointer finger against the barrier, which sparked brightly and made them wince and pull their hand away. “Someone has already gone to great lengths to ensure the editbook is not accessible for use.”
Willa rubbed her hand against her face, thoughts racing. “This doesn’t make sense. Let’s run through what we know again: In spring of this year, there was a conflict between several parties for control of this editbook. Then in summer, something triggers a paradox in northern Italy, which gradually spreads across most of the planet, destabilizing the laws of physics and rendering the Earth uninhabitable. Only the editbook could do that.”
Saudade nodded. “But the editbook was already well protected before we stepped in to interfere with the course of events.”
Willa chewed her lip. The events leading up to the cataclysm were supposed to become clear once she returned to her time and acquired the editbook, but she felt less certain now than ever. “Let’s head back to the summer cottage. If there’s any chance we’re going up against another time traveler, we’ll need to set up some defenses.”
“Certainly. I do have some ideas on that front.”
Willa offered them a wry smile. “I was hoping you would.”
Saudade nodded. A portal irised open at their invisible command, and Willa followed them through. “Do you have human matters to take care of? Eating or sleeping or some such?”
“Well,” she said dryly, “I do have to do both of those activities every day, as boring and repetitive as that may seem, although neither urge is pressing at the moment. I suppose I should unpack.”
Saudade waved open a smaller portal, reached inside, and produced Willa’s carpetbag from the pocket universe they’d stashed it in. While Saudade examined the downstairs for security concerns, Willa carried her luggage upstairs. Only one bedroom had any furnishings at all, and those consisted of only a bed and a cedar chest. She was relieved to discover linens in the chest, so she could at least put sheets on the bed. But there was no wardrobe to hang her clothes in, which rather defeated her intent to unpack.
Willa sighed and rubbed her hand over the back of her neck, where it felt stiff from her cybernetic implant. The metallic material was smooth and oddly flexible under her fingers, like a silver starfish suctioned to her upper back.
When she’d rejoined Riley after getting the implant, the other girl had run tentative fingertips over the same place. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s a little sore,” Willa admitted, “but that’s supposed to pass.”
They were standing by the wall of windows in the A-frame chalet they’d been using as a safe house. Riley pulled her hand away from the implant to gnaw on her thumbnail instead, and she shifted her gaze to the forested mountains beyond the glass. Willa was too busy watching her to appreciate the view. Riley’s brows were pinched with guilt and worry; despite the desperate little ball of tightness in Willa’s chest at the idea of Riley blaming herself for this, Willa wasn’t sure what to say to make it better.
“Riley … everyone died the first time around. Saudade, Jaideep. You. This is the technology I needed for rewriting that failed timeline. I don’t regret it.”
“I never wanted to corner you into making a choice like that. It’s your body, and you shouldn’t be coerced into modifying it—not even to save the planet.”
Earnestly, she said, “I know what it’s like when some aspect of my body feels incorrect, and this isn’t it.”
“But does it feel right?” Riley persisted.
Willa quirked her lips and answered dryly, “Well … I can’t claim that I’ve always identified as a cyborg, but I suppose some aspects of one’s identity can be flexible.”
Riley cracked a grin despite herself. “You jerk. I’m trying to wallow in my guilt here, and you go breaking out the snark.”
“I thought you were enamored with my ‘snark.’”
Riley took Willa’s hand with an unhesitating ease that still surprised her every time. Lifting their clasped hands together, Riley planted a kiss on her wrist, where one branch of the implant ended. “I like every part of you.”
In the half-furnished bedroom of the summer cottage, Willa scrubbed her palm against her hip, banishing the memory of touch. The last thing she ought to do was stand around their “secret lair,” dwelling on the absence of lost loved ones while she waited for some unknown enemy to make the first move. No, she and Saudade needed to remain one step ahead, to do what they could to stay proactive instead of reactive. She ought to be putting together a plan of action.
She would go into town tomorrow to pick up some supplies and hopefully hear some news. It was possible the events leading up to the cataclysm were already in progress. She needed to find out what kind of trouble her pazzerellone contemporaries had been cooking up, and mad scientists weren’t exactly known for subtlety, so with luck it would be the noticeable kind.
Willa nodded to herself, drawing comfort from having a plan. There was work to do, and if she focused hard enough, it would leave no room for pining.
2ARIS
1891, Firenze
ARISTOTELE GARIBALDI DOES not appreciate being locked in a cell with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him occupied, not in the least. It’s a comfortable sort of imprisonment, as cells go—the basement level of the Order of Archimedes’s headquarters has blessedly little in the way of squalor and rats, as might be expected to come standard in a city jail. A barred slit of a window high up on the wall allows him to judge the time of day, and he has a cot with a blanket and a privy alcove, both of which help to preserve some modicum of dignity despite how far he’s fallen. But this is still a prison.
Two days ago, he was the son of the man who defeated the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and was bringing the Kingdom of Venezia to heel, and soon would accomplish what no one had done since the fall of the Roman Empire: uniting the disparate states of Italy into a single, glorious nation. Two days ago, he had a purpose, and he had his freedom, and he had a father. Now he has nothing.
Despite the late hour, Aris hears the other prisoner shifting around in her cell perpendicular to his. The wall between them is solid, so he hops off his cot and leans against the bars to see if he can get a glimpse of her. “Elsa!”
Copyright © 2024 by Gwendolyn Clare
