“I am not a thingy. I’m a good friend of Gwyneth’s,” replied Xemerius for me, putting out his tongue. “You might even say her best friend. She’s going to buy me a dog.”
I cast the sofa a stern glance.
“The impossible has happened,” Falk began. “When Gideon and Gwyneth visited Lady Tilney, they were expected. All of us here can confirm that we chose the date and time of their visit entirely at random. Yet Lucy and Paul were waiting for them. It can’t conceivably be coincidence.”
“Which means someone must have told them about that visit,” said Mr. George, who was leafing through one of the folio volumes. “The only question is who.”
“Or when, more like it,” said Dr. White, looking at me.
“And why,” I said.
Gideon frowned. “Why is obvious. They need our blood to read it into the chronograph they stole. That’s why they brought reinforcements.”
“But there’s not a word about your visit in the Annals,” said Mr. George. “And yet the two of you were in contact with at least three of the Guardians of the time, not to mention the guards posted at the doors. Can you remember their names?”
“The First Secretary met us himself.” Gideon pushed a lock of hair back. “Burgess, or some such name. He said the brothers Jonathan and Timothy de Villiers were expected to elapse there early in the evening and Lady Tilney had already elapsed early that morning. And then a man called Winsley took us to Belgravia in a cab. He was supposed to wait at the door for us there, but when we came out of the house, the cab had disappeared. We had to get away on foot, find a place to lie low, and wait to travel back.”
I felt myself blushing when I remembered the place where we’d been lying low. I quickly helped myself to a biscuit and let my hair fall over my face.
“The report that day was written by a Guardian in the Inner Circle, a man called Frank Mine. It’s only a few lines long, says a little about the weather, then he mentions a suffragettes’ protest march in the city, says Lady Tilney turned up punctually to elapse, and that’s it. No unusual incidents, he adds. There’s no mention of the de Villiers twins, but they too were members of the Inner Circle at the time.” Mr. George sighed, and closed the folio volume. “Very strange. It all points to a conspiracy in our own ranks.”
“And the main question,” said Mr. Whitman, “remains how Lucy and Paul could know that you two would visit Lady Tilney’s house at that time and on that day.”
“Wow,” said Xemerius from the sofa. “All these names. Enough to make your head spin.”
“The answer to that is obvious,” said Dr. White, his eyes resting on me again.
We were all staring thoughtfully and gloomily into space, me included. I hadn’t done anything, but obviously all the others were assuming that at some future date I’d feel that I had to tell Lucy and Paul when we were going to visit Lady Tilney, for a reason so far unknown. It was all terribly confusing, and the longer I thought about it, the more illogical it seemed to me. Suddenly I felt very much alone.
“What sort of freaks are you all?” said Xemerius, jumping up from the sofa to hang head down from one of the gigantic chandeliers. “Time travel—I ask you! I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, but this is new even to me.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “Why were you expecting to find something about our visit in those Annals, Mr. George? I mean, if there had been, then you’d have seen it already, and you’d have known that we were going there that day and what would happen to us. Or is it like that film with Ashton Kutcher, The Butterfly Effect? And every time one of us comes back from the past, the whole future has changed?”
“That’s an interesting and very philosophical question, Gwyneth,” said Mr. Whitman, as if we were in one of his classes. “I don’t know the film you’re talking about, but it’s true, according to the laws of logic, that the tiniest change in the past can have a great influence on the future. There’s a short story by Ray Bradbury in which—”
“Perhaps we can put off philosophical discussion to some other time,” Falk interrupted him. “At the moment I’d like to hear the details of the ambush in Lady Tilney’s house and how you managed to get away.”
I looked at Gideon. Right, it was up to him to give his pistol-free version of the story. I helped myself to another biscuit.
“We were lucky,” said Gideon, his voice just as calm as before. “I realized that there was something wrong at once. Lady Tilney didn’t seem at all surprised to see us. The table was laid for afternoon tea, and when Paul and Lucy turned up and the butler stationed himself in the doorway, Gwyneth and I escaped into the next room and down the servants’ stairs. The cab had disappeared, so we got away on foot.” He didn’t seem to find lying difficult. No giveaway red face, no batting of his eyelids, no artificial looking up, not a trace of uncertainty in his voice. All the same, I still thought his version of the story lacked a certain something to make it credible.
“Strange,” said Dr. White. “If the ambush had been properly planned, they’d have been armed and would have made sure that you two couldn’t get away.”
“My head’s still spinning,” said Xemerius, back on the sofa. “I hate all these crazy verbs, using a subjunctive to get what’s happened in the future and the past mixed up.”
I looked expectantly at Gideon. If he was going to stick to the pistol-free version, he’d have to come up with a bright idea now.
“I think we simply took them by surprise,” said Gideon.
“Hm,” said Falk. The others didn’t look entirely convinced either. No wonder! Gideon had botched the job! If you were lying, you had to come up with confusing details that wouldn’t interest anyone.
“We really did move fast,” I said hastily. “The servants’ stairs had obviously just been polished, and I nearly slipped, in fact I more or less slid down the stairs instead of running down them. If I hadn’t held on to the banister rail, right now I’d be lying in the year 1912 with a broken neck. Come to think of it, what happens if you die while you’re away time traveling? Does your dead body travel back of its own accord? Well, anyway, we were lucky that the door at the bottom of the stairs was open, because a maid was just coming in with a shopping basket. A fat blonde. I thought Gideon was going to knock her over, and there were eggs in that basket, which would have made a terrible mess, but we managed to run past her and down the street as fast as we could go. I have a blister on my toe.”
Gideon was leaning back in his chair with his arms folded. I couldn’t interpret the look on his face, but it didn’t seem to be either appreciative or grateful.
“Next time I’m going to wear sneakers,” I said into the general silence. Then I took another biscuit. No one else wanted to eat them.
“I have a theory,” said Mr. Whitman slowly, toying with the signet ring on his right hand. “And the longer I think about it, the more certain I feel that I’m on the right track. If—”
“I’m beginning to feel rather foolish because I’ve said it so often already. But she ought not to be present at this discussion,” said Gideon.
I felt the pang in my heart turn to something worse. I wasn’t just offended anymore, I was downright cross.
“He’s right,” agreed Dr. White. “It’s sheer stupidity to let her take part in our deliberations.”
“But we also need to know what Gwyneth remembers,” said Mr. George. “Any impressions, however small—what they wore, what they said, what they looked like—could give us a good idea of Paul and Lucy’s present time base.”
“She’ll still remember all that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow,” said Falk de Villiers. “I think it really would be best for you to take her down to elapse now, Thomas.”
Mr. George crossed his arms over his fat little paunch and said nothing.
“I’ll go down to the chronograph and supervise her journey,” said Mr. Whitman, pushing his chair back.
“Right.” Falk nodded. “Two hours will be plenty. One of the adepts can wait for her to travel back. We need you up here with us.”
I looked inquiringly at Mr. George. He only shrugged his shoulders, resigned.
“Come along, Gwyneth.” Mr. Whitman was on his feet. “The sooner you get it behind you, the sooner you’ll be in bed, and then at least you’ll be fit for classes at school tomorrow. I’m looking forward to reading your essay on Shakespeare.”
Good heavens. What a nerve the man had! Starting on about Shakespeare now … it really was the end!
For a moment I wondered whether to protest, but then I decided not to. I didn’t really want to listen to any more idiotic babble. I wanted to go home and forget this whole time-travel business, Gideon included. Let them go on mulling over mysteries in their stupid Dragon Hall until they dropped with sheer exhaustion. I wished that on Gideon most of all, plus a nightmare after he’d showered and gone to bed!
Xemerius was right, they were freaks, the whole lot of them.
The silly thing was that, all the same, I couldn’t help glancing at Gideon, and thinking something crazy along the lines of if he’d only smile just once now, I’d forgive him everything.
Of course he didn’t. Instead he just looked at me expressionlessly. It was impossible to tell what was going on inside his head. For a moment, the idea that we’d kissed was miles away, and for some reason, I suddenly thought of the silly rhyme that Cynthia Dale, our authority at school on everything to do with love, always liked to chant. “Green eyes, cold as ice, no idea that love is nice.”
“Good night,” I said with dignity.
“Good night,” all the others murmured. All of them except Gideon, that is. He said, “Don’t forget to blindfold her, Mr. Whitman.”
Mr. George snorted crossly through his nose. As Mr. Whitman opened the door and propelled me out into the corridor, I heard Mr. George saying, “Have you stopped to think that this policy of excluding her could be the very reason why the things that are going to happen do happen?” Whether anyone had an answer to that I didn’t hear. The heavy door latched shut, cutting off the sound of their voices.
Xemerius was scratching his head with the tip of his tail. “That’s the weirdest secret society I ever came across!”
“Don’t take it to heart, Gwyneth,” said Mr. Whitman. He took a black scarf out of his jacket pocket and held it under my nose. “It’s just that you’re the new factor in the game. The great unknown in the equation.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Three days ago, I didn’t even have an inkling about the existence of the Guardians. Three days ago, my life had still been perfectly normal. Well, reasonably normal. “Mr. Whitman, before you blindfold me … could we stop in Madame Rossini’s sewing room and fetch my things? I’ve left two sets of my school uniform here now, and I’ll need something to wear tomorrow. My school bag is there too.”
