EMBER
The world is on fire
At least, that’s how it feels. The heat is unbearable, scorching not only my exposed skin, but also blistering its way into my lungs and throat with every breath I draw. Even though I don’t dare open my eyes, I know there is no way to escape the inferno. His room is on the second floor, my brain reminds me.
Even if I can somehow grope my way to the window, there will be no exit there, so I huddle in the farthest corner from the blazing doorway, desperately shielding the person screaming behind me. My new dress is melting into my skin, and the burning lace is blistering my already-red arms.
I don’t recall much. Not how the blaze began, not the name of the person behind me, not even my own name. But the lace I remember. How I’d begged for it, complained that the dress was much too plain without it. And, at my insistence, a man with eyes like blue sapphires and a gentle smile had told the frustrated seamstress to add more lace—not the cheap thin kind, but the thick French lace.
I was happy.
Now, all those things are being consumed in grey smoke and melting silk. I cry out, but the sound never escapes my throat. I choke on it.
For a minute, I’m disconnected from my body—from the pain that’s holding me hostage there. I float as if in a dream.
There’s a family having dinner at a long table set with massive crystal dishes and fine china. Mother is smiling meekly as my older sister shows her a book she’s reading. Papa is leaning to his side, speaking in low tones to a man in a uniform whose name I can’t call to mind. Next to me, my little brother is stabbing peas with his fork and feeding them to the dog sitting under the table.
The scene melts away in flames. I’m in another, darker room. A basement. Mother has set up a large blanket on the dirty floor, and we are eating picnic style by the light of flickering oil lamps. Her smile is gone, replaced by deep worry lines around her mouth and eyes. Beside me, my brother’s stomach grumbles. I hand him my slice of buttered bread. He smiles up at me and…
“Anya, go fetch your brother. And make sure he’s in his fine clothes. The photographers are here,” Papa orders, his voice tense and clipped.
“Yes, Papa.”
He grabs me by the arm, glancing around at the people beginning to surround us. “He’s your responsibility, Anya. Look after him.”
His words leave me feeling hollow and confused, but I obey. I turn and head for the bedroom. I’m almost to the stairs when I hear the spray of gunfire.
As quickly as the memory came, it’s gone. I can feel the blood flowing to my brain, searing, boiling inside my head. The pain is unbearable. I’m being carried away from the flames.
“Not without him,” I try to say, but my throat is too scorched to produce sound. I close my eyes and go limp. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’m so sorry. So sorry…”
Reality crashes to pieces around me, and I begin to heave. Two strong hands grasp me by the shoulders and pull. In the last fragmented pieces of my mind, I’m being ripped from the arms of my brother, who is trying to hold on to me.
The world shifts. When I open my eyes, I’m back in the classroom, clutching my desk so hard my fingers ache. I’m crying, shaking all over. Ethan is holding me, stroking my hair as Kara looks on, her expression worried. With one arm still around me, Ethan reaches over and pries my hands off the desk, one at a time. I pull them into my chest tightly. For a horrible moment, I can still feel the heat of the flames. Lifting me into his arms, he sweeps out of the room and walks briskly down the hall as I fade in and out of consciousness.
Doc lifts my chin so he can shine a light in my eyes. I bat him away, still caught up in the memory for a second before my eyes can fully adjust, allowing me to really see him. He’s a kind old man with more white tufts of hair coming out his ears than have probably ever been on his shiny, bald head. He has soft, warm hands and a constant, sincere smile—things that can’t be said for most of the other staff in this place. His nurse scares the living crap out of me.
I’m not sure how much of Nurse is human, if any at all. It steps into the room wearing a white lab coat, a full mask of brass and dark glass, and strange leather gloves that stretch up its arms to the elbow. There are sparse tufts of brown hair poking out around the edges of its mask, which only adds to its shocking appearance. None of this is what unnerves me. It’s the clockwork implant in the center of its chest, occasionally giving off wisps of steam with a sour hiss, which does it. I hold back a shudder.
I catch Doc shooting Flynn a look I can’t quite figure out as he walks in and takes a seat next to me on the gurney. When I peek at him over my shoulder, he smiles—something about the appearance of his chin dimple makes me instantly relax. He nudges me.
“You okay?”
I wince, not because I’m hurt, but because the truth makes me sound like a lunatic. “I, um, kind of freaked out in class today.”
“Care to elaborate?” Flynn asks, crossing his legs at the ankles. Just hearing his voice makes the blood rush to my face, burning my cheeks. I hang my head, not wanting him to see me like this. In my mind, I reach back for the memories, but they are splintered and hazy.
“I just… I don’t know exactly. I was remembering the day you found me, I guess.”
“It’s okay, Ember. You went through something extremely traumatic before we found you. It’s only natural that pieces of that trauma might float to the surface, especially when you’re under so much pressure.”
I grab him by the vest, my hands shaking. “What happened to me? I need to know.” My voice trembles, though I try to keep it steady. I feel like I’m going crazy. My heart is beating so fast and so hard, I can feel the pulse in my ears. My skin itches everywhere, as if there’s something inside me trying to crawl out. I know I shouldn’t say more, but it comes spilling out anyway. “I keep getting these bits and pieces. Faces I can’t quite place and bits of conversations. I feel like the more I try to remember, the more it fades away.” I open my mouth to say more, but Doc Monroe cuts in.
“There’s a reason the first trip through the time stream washes away our memories, Ember. It’s protecting us, allowing us to be reborn into a new life without the pain of what came before.”
“You don’t understand!” I’m yelling now, but I can’t help it. If I have to sit here a moment longer, I’m going to combust. “I need to remember. I’ve forgotten something really important.” I look to Flynn. His face is sympathetic, but sad. My first instinct is to make a run for it. My palms twitch as I release him and ball my hands into fists, ready to fight my way out. Only his kind, familiar voice stops me.
“Ember, you have to know, you were lucky I found you when I did. You almost died in that fire. The recruits have all had to leave their lives, families, friends, and everything else behind to come here. Rifters can’t be tied to any specific point in time; we have to be beyond it, above it. There can be nothing holding us back, Ember. It’s how we have to operate.” He takes my hand, awakening the nest of wasps that apparently lives in my stomach. “We need to keep this from happening again.”
“How?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
Doc holds up a pair of intricately made goggles that have clockwork gears where the lenses should be. I tense, and Flynn squeezes my hand. It’s all I can do to stay calm, to keep myself from fighting my way out of the room.
“This is a device Tesla created. It isolates specific memories in the brain and builds a sort of mental wall, much the way the time stream itself works. It’ll help you forget.”
As soon as he says the words, I jerk back, curling up on the gurney.
“Please don’t, Flynn. Don’t take the memories away. I want them.” The words are dripping with desperation. “There’s got to be a reason I’m remembering, right? I mean, why am I getting these memories back if they aren’t important?”
He takes a deep breath, and I can tell he’s considering my words. “Ember, you are one of the strongest Rifters I’ve e
ver seen. And maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but you will remember. Eventually, you’ll remember everything.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, half stunned by his admission.
“I mean, after a while, the abilities of a Rifter fade. You won’t always be able to access the time stream. Like Mortimer. Even Catherine is losing her abilities. As you get older, they will burn out. When that happens, your connection to the time stream will be severed and all the things it took from you—all the memories—they will come back.”
I have no idea what to say, so I just stare at him, trying to tell if he’s being serious. The sad look on his face tells me he is.
“But that means, I mean, weren’t you and Catherine trained together?” I ask. “Why can you still rift?”
He exchanges a stern look with Doc before he answers. “Yes. We were trained together. But we aren’t all equal. Like you. You are strong, so you’ll all be able to rift longer than any of us. It’s why Tesla chose you. He chooses only the strongest. You’ll probably be rifting years after your team can’t anymore.”
“The ones who burn out slower,” I counter, a strange bitterness swelling inside me.
“Yes. And, as for me, my time is coming. I can feel it winding down. My own memories have been returning for a while now. It won’t be long for me.”
I reach out, putting my hand on top of his. He looks so young. “How long have you been rifting?” I ask, suddenly curious how much time I have.
“I’ve been rifting for almost fifty years. I took my first trip through the stream when I was only nineteen.”
My eyes must be bugging out of my head, because he chuckles. “Oh, yes. I’m old, Ember. So much older than I look. Tesla thinks it’s the traveling. Being in the time stream slows the aging process down. When you stop traveling, the aging speeds back up to normal.”
I pull my hand back and clutch the sides of my head. It’s so impossible to think straight. “The others should know,” I whisper, thinking of Ethan and Kara. Here we are, so close to committing ourselves to Tesla. “They should know what they are signing on for. All of it.”
“Tesla won’t allow that. He wants the Rifters to have absolute faith in him. If they knew, it might color their reasoning for accepting or declining.”
“Then I’ll tell them,” I say without thinking about the challenge I’m laying down.
Doc puts a hand on my shoulder. “No, Ember. One way or another, you won’t. Tesla won’t allow it.”
I look back to Flynn, who glares at Doc before turning back to me.
“Ember, I only told you so that you’d realize the memories aren’t gone for good. They haven’t been erased. One day, when you are older and more able to handle them, you’ll remember on your own. But right now, they are dangerous. Please. If this kind of black out were to happen during a rift, we could lose you forever.” He pleads with his green eyes, “And you are too important for that. I need you to trust me. I swear I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I’ll be here the whole time.”
I nod, not trusting my voice to stay steady. I do trust him. Flynn saved my life—brought me here. Besides Ethan and Kara, he’s the one person in the world I trust most. Doc slips the goggles onto my head. I can’t see anything but a bright green glow, though I hear Nurse’s clockwork chest give off a puff of steam. I shudder. Flynn slips off the gurney, and I lie back, still clutching his hand.