That looks like—
A violin case.
“Oh,” Etta said, feeling rather stupid. “You meant right now.”
The tsar’s smile fell somewhat as he set the case down on his desk. “I shouldn’t have presumed you’d feel comfortable—”
“No, I’m happy to,” she said. The usual tingle of stage fright was gone, swept off by an overpowering sense of longing—for the instrument, for the music. Weeks had passed since the concert at the Met, and Etta hadn’t gone longer than two days without playing since she was five years old. The anticipation hit her like a drug, and she was shaking with it.
“Wonderful. It will send us to dinner on a pleasing note. Henry, you’ll accompany her, won’t you?”
Henry stood, too, ignoring Etta’s look of surprise. Accompany her—the violin concerto was generally played with a full orchestra, but there was, of course, a reduction for a simple violin and piano duet. Sure enough, Henry was moving toward the piano, trailed by the tsar. He took a seat at its bench.
“Perhaps just the first movement,” he suggested. “Unless you’d prefer the second?”
“Yes—I mean, of course. The first movement is fine.” Etta realized that she was still standing by the tsar’s desk, stunned and trembling with nerves, and quickly moved to join them. She accepted the violin, taking a moment to simply feel the slight weight of it in her hands, to let her palm run down the graceful neck, along the striped grain of the wood.
There was a single moment when she debated the propriety of taking off her gloves, but went for it regardless, needing to feel the instrument against her fingertips. She tossed the long lengths of silk over the back of the nearest chair. If the tsar was scandalized, he didn’t show it, merely wetting his mustache as he took another deep sip of his drink.
Henry pushed back his sleeves, giving himself more freedom of movement. Etta wondered if he was truly planning to play without any sheet music, and felt a swell of admiration despite herself.
“When you’re ready,” he said.
She drew the instrument up, tucking it beneath her chin. She’d played this piece any number of times, the last of which being the competition in Moscow; Alice had never favored it all that much, despite its dominance in their world, and loved to repeat an early review of the concerto that claimed to play it was to “beat the violin black-and-blue.” She only hoped she remembered it well enough to do it justice, and not humiliate herself in front of her…in front of her father again, like she had at the Met concert.
Her left shoulder stung with the effort of keeping the instrument up, but Etta pushed past the strain, forced her hands to stop shaking, and drew the bow against the strings. She nodded to Henry, who made his gentle entrance into the piece on the piano, launching them into the music.
And that was how Etta found herself playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in the early twentieth century for Tsar Nicholas II.
The piece wasn’t just hard, it was devilishly difficult, to the point that Etta wondered if Henry hadn’t suggested it because of Tchaikovsky’s obvious ties to Russia, but because he wanted to showcase her skills in the flashiest way possible.
But from the first note, it was like learning to breathe again—the simple relief of hearing the music, using that part of her mind and heart. The tactile presence of the violin swept her away as she began, gliding into the gorgeous framework Henry established, announcing the piece’s main theme.
The first movement of the concerto built and built, adding a theme, repeating the main theme, creating variations that grew more athletic. The runs became faster, reaching an amazing cadenza that made Etta’s heart feel like it would burst from the joy of it.
Her eyes flicked over to Henry, watching his own eyes slide shut, as if imagining each phrase as he carved it out on the keys. An expression of pure, unself-conscious joy.
This is where it came from, she thought in wonder. I inherited it.
And that was what she would still have, now that she had altered the course of her life. No concerts, or competitions, or debuts—simple joy. And, much like seeing how Henry had nudged the timeline to reveal its secrets, it wasn’t bad; it was different. It was a new, sweeter future to match the world’s.
When it was over, Etta reluctantly lowered the violin, and let the world back in.
The tsar clapped, rising to his feet. “Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful, the two of you. Perhaps we won’t discuss business after, but will simply play—”
There was a faint knock at the door, and the same servant that had escorted them in stepped back inside at the tsar’s command to enter.
“Ah, of course. Every dream ends. That will be dinner, then,” he said, retrieving the violin from Etta.
AS THEY WALKED TO DINNER, TRAILING THE TSAR, Henry whispered, “You’ve got an odd look on your face. Is something the matter?”
“No, I just…” Etta lifted her gaze off the plush carpet and looked at the man ahead of them. “It surprised me—that he’s just a normal person. That he’s a real person, I mean, not just words on paper or a photograph. And nice.”
Even with the infinite possibilities of time travel, Etta hadn’t truly considered that she might meet someone famous or noteworthy. She and Nicholas had kept to themselves, avoiding the people around them as much as possible, and she’d assumed it was the same with other travelers, too. All her life, she’d thought of these historical figures as still lifes, to be studied through a layer of distance and glass like precious objects in a museum.
Henry snorted. “He’s real, all right. And as fallible as any of us uncrowned mortals. He is rather nice to his friends, but of course, there have been many versions of his life that have seen him oppressive, cruel to those of other beliefs, foolish, and even blind to the needs of his most vulnerable subjects. You could say it was because he came to power too soon, before he was ready; because he picked poor advisors; or that it was a collision of unfortunate events. But I’ve seen it, time and time again: he cannot stop the march of a future that no longer has a place for him and his family.”
“He’s killed in this original timeline, too?” Etta whispered.
Henry rubbed a gloved hand over his forehead, considering his answer. “His death…it’s inevitable. The events leading up to it grew worse and worse with Ironwood’s interferences and alterations, but it has happened, and it will happen; only this time, it must play out the way it was intended a year from now.”
He took a deep breath. “You remember what I told you before, that we must accept it, we must be ready to sacrifice what we have in order to see to the well-being of the whole? When I was younger, I came up with so many scenarios, so many different plans of how to save him, this one life, and still keep the timeline intact. But the pattern is undeniable. He is taken again and again; we are separated again and again. That is why I believe that certain things are destined; I can see the patterns, and cannot deny the repetition and the greater purpose they are trying to serve. At least in this timeline, I can be content in knowing the rest of his family will only go into exile.”
A tremor of sadness in the words, but also resignation. “Etta…I wish I could spare you this, but it is inevitable that you, too, will be asked to relinquish something. You will see the pattern, too.”
Etta tightened her grip on his arm, giving him a reassuring squeeze. In truth, she didn’t know how to comfort him, or what to say, but she was grateful beyond words that he could see his friend again, even if it was for the last time. She would have shattered every rule the travelers had ever imposed if it meant being able to throw herself into Nicholas’s arms and feel his steady heartbeat murmuring beneath her cheek.
As much as he presented himself to the world with a grin and an infectious laugh, every now and then Etta caught a glimpse of the part of himself that Henry tried to hide. It complicated her perception of him, made her want to study him that much more closely. She’d had a hard time seeing how her mother, who was so cold and sharp at times th
at she could cut without a single word, had ever found herself entangled with someone who acted as though laughing and smiling were as necessary to him as oxygen. But now Etta had seen the embattled parts of him; she’d witnessed that irresistible quality he had that made him a friend of tsars and Thorns alike.
“Henrietta…Etta,” he corrected himself. Her heart gave a twist at his gentle tone. “You play exceptionally well. My compliments to Alice. I don’t think she’d mind my saying that you surpass even her skill.”
He’d heard Alice play at some point. She smiled sadly. It helped, somehow, to know that someone else remembered the way Alice had made her violin sing.
“Thank you,” Etta said. “How long have you played the piano?”
“Nearly my whole life,” Henry said. “From before I was tall enough to reach the pedals.”
Etta nodded, her fingers pressing against his sleeve. “It must be hard to find time to play. What with all the traveling. Hiding. Scheming.”
“Not as hard as you might think,” he said. “I make time. It’s true that altering timelines or events is a kind of creation, but there are always consequences, good or bad. Music is something I can create that is neither. It simply is the meeting of the composer’s mind with my heart. Oh, dear—” He laughed. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. It’s rather maudlin, even for me.”
Etta smiled. It had made perfect sense to her.
“Why do you play?” he asked her. “Not just play—why would you want to make it your life?”
Etta had been asked this question so many times over the years—by Alice, by reporters, by other performers—and had asked it of herself even more often. Every answer had been a reprise of the same practiced refrain. And yet here, with Henry, she felt safe enough to admit the other truths, the ones she had pushed so far back in her heart they’d begun to rust. The ones she hadn’t even shared with Nicholas.
“I wanted to find something that would make Mom proud of me. Something I could excel at,” she told him. “But some part of me thought that if I was out there performing, if everyone knew my name, I might reach my father or his family. They might recognize me. They’d hear my music and want to come find me. Know me.” She let out a deep breath. “It’s stupid, I know.”
Up ahead, the tsar had slowed to greet Winifred and Jenkins near yet another of the palace’s elaborate doors. Their voices carried down the hall, punctuated by polite laughter.
Just as Winifred turned to make her way over to them, Henry looked away, thumbing at his eye. When he looked back at her, nearly stricken, she wasn’t sure what to do, other than tighten her hold on his arm.
They were still feeling around each other’s edges. Trying to learn the same étude, each trial bringing them closer and closer to learning the skills of caring for the other.
“I heard you, Etta,” he said softly. “I heard you.”
THE MAN IN THE DARKNESS stepped closer, his footsteps muffled by nearby insects and a cloud of disturbed birds launching into the night sky.
“That’s quite far enough,” Nicholas said, raising the sword so that its tip rested at the man’s throat.
His eyes bulged at the implicit threat, but he did as he was told. Nicholas took careful stock of him. He was stooped at the shoulders, like a man who’d spent his life out in the fields, toiling over a plow. His red tunic was threadbare, nearly as weathered as the deep-set wrinkles in his ragged, dark skin. All of this was offset by a shock of white hair; his thick beard and brows looked as though they’d been left out to gather frost.
“What business do you have here, travelers?” the man demanded. “How did you find us?”
What Nicholas could see of the man’s legs looked thin, almost knobby-kneed, and that general unsteadiness likely accounted for his slight limp and his reliance on a tall walking stick.
“My name is Nicholas Carter,” he said. “We’ve come to trade information, nothing more.”
“No, child, all you’ve done is bring the Shadows, disturb our peace,” he said hoarsely, his gaze darting around the courtyard, as if expecting to find someone else there.
There was that word again, Shadows, and always whispered, as if to avoid summoning them.
Sophia snorted at the word peace. “It’s not about Ironwood. We want a true trade—we have information we could share, but we’ve also got food”—she held up her sack of elephant feed—“food we’d be willing to part with for answers to a few questions that would stay between us. Which one are you, Remus or Fitzhugh?”
“Remus.” The old man muttered something else to himself, one hand rubbing the other as he looped the bow over his shoulder. His gaze drifted away, his breath coming in quick, urgent bursts.
“Sir? Time is of the essence in this matter,” Nicholas tried. The man leaped back as if struck.
“All right, yes, come with me,” he said, voice strained. “Yes, follow me. Quickly now. It will be all right.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sophia said, and her words leeched the rest of the color from the man’s face.
His senses were piqued, his attention snared and drawn back toward the stables. Voices were rising, and the sound of the elephants’ cries had ceased altogether. It seemed their diversion had run its course.
“It is lucky you survived,” the man told them as they moved through the night, “but far luckier indeed that you did not cause a change to the timeline with that elephant stunt.”
Fair point. Nicholas knew that his luck was bound to run out, but having received so little of it in his life, he was willing to push on to find its limits. Still, he couldn’t release the last few tremors of doubt as he followed the man’s unsteady steps any more than he could take his eyes from him. It was unfair, perhaps, given that the man had saved them when he could just as easily have left them to die on the attacker’s blade, but he couldn’t change his nature in a night.
“Ease up and unclench, will you?” Sophia muttered, taking notice. “He’s ancient. And he’ll have a pot to boil whatever it is we just stole from the elephants.”
“You’re thinking with your stomach, not with your head,” he sniped back quietly.
“Didn’t you catch what he said about the Shadows?” she whispered. “He knows who they are—”
Remus spun around, his voice low. “For the love of Christ, do you want someone to hear you speaking another language and assume you’ve snuck in? I won’t be saving you then, believe you me!”
Nicholas and Sophia kept their mouths shut. A good thing, because as they rounded onto the next street, Nicholas had to take a generous step back to avoid crossing into the path of several women heading the opposite way, toward the homes they had passed, where candles were lit and waiting for them. The ladies’ dresses were longer and somehow more elegantly draped than the simple tunics of the men, their gauzy hems swirling around their sandaled feet. One nodded as Nicholas passed her, with dark hair shorn shorter than even Sophia’s.
“Lice?” Sophia asked Remus cautiously, once they were clear of the street and onto a far smaller and quieter one.
He shook his head. “They cut their hair to give to the soldiers for their bows. Do you know nothing, child?”
Sophia made an insolent face behind his back.
“Why would they need to?” Nicholas asked. “I thought they were renowned for their military?”
“They are a fierce people,” Remus said, his voice sounding steadier the farther they walked from the city’s center, away from anyone who might overhear them. “Every man, woman, and child is or will be armed and expected to fight. Each home is a fortress in and of itself. They are rebuilding their arsenal.”
“What happened to their original weapons?” Nicholas asked.
“When the Romans landed on these shores, they demanded hostages and the whole of the city’s arms, which they were given. But that was not enough—they wished for the complete surrender of the city. The Carthaginians defied them, taunted them, even tortured Roman prisoners in full sight of
the Roman army. And so it goes.”
“The Romans are building something out in the harbor, aren’t they?”
Remus gave him an exasperated look. “A mole, yes.”
As he’d suspected—moles were massive structures, built from rock, stone, or wood, to be used as a kind of pier or breakwater. In this instance, it would seal up all of the warships he’d seen in the military harbor.
As the sun started to climb, they began their ascent up the hill toward the citadel that overlooked the harbor—Byrsa, the old man called it.
Nicholas kept his head down as they moved; the men and women here wouldn’t be alarmed or find his dark skin particularly noteworthy, but he knew from long experience that men were unlikely to remember someone who didn’t meet their gaze. His sandals shuffled along the worn stone, his thoughts dwindling to merely left, right, left, right, to order himself to keep going. He didn’t look up until he was met with the sight of feet less than half the size of his own, bare and covered in cuts and sores.
The dark-skinned boy stepped aside quickly, allowing Remus, who was building speed like a churning storm, to hobble past. Sophia slid around Nicholas, shooting him an irritated look as she continued on ahead.
The boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, Nicholas decided—too small, and wasted to the very bone. His tunic hung off his shoulders in tatters, knotted here and there in awkward lumps to keep it on him. The boy met his gaze from beneath his mass of matted hair. His dark eyes were bold with pride, in absolute defiance of his dismal state.
Nicholas knew that look well; the pride meant going hungry in silence, rather than lowering oneself to asking for charity, to begging. He’d been the same way, even as a slave, even once he was freed by the kindness of the Halls. If the captain hadn’t force-fed him the first few nights, Nicholas wouldn’t have eaten at all.
You’ve the pride of Lucifer, Hall had informed him. It’s the only thing that family gave you, and believe me, you don’t need that inheritance. Unbidden, his mind drew up the image of the child he and Sophia had seen earlier in the night, dead and wasted away from disease and hunger, left in the street like a common animal.