Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) (24 page)

ROWAN KNEW THAT
it was irrational to feel so hurt by Hex’s casual dismissal after…well, just
after
. He’d known before he’d given into their passion that she’d been looking for physical release and nothing deeper, but some part of him had held out hope that she’d change her mind.

For a moment, when he’d looked into her eyes, their bodies so closely joined that he could feel her heartbeat, he’d thought she might have done so. But he’d been disabused of the notion that she harbored any finer feelings for him before either of them had even caught their breath.

Romantic, perhaps, and foolish of him to hope for more, but then he suspected he’d always been a bit of both of those things, even in the life he couldn’t remember: forever being led by his heart, and forever being disappointed.

He still felt numb hours later, sitting in Simon’s little workroom in the bowels of the ship, trying to force down a cup of stale coffee—trying to force his attention on anything other than the memory of how he’d left Hex, boneless and flushed in her bed, her lips quirked up in a contented little smile.

She’d
thanked
him.

And it had made him feel like absolute rubbish.

Rowan choked back the hurt along with the coffee—both bitter—and focused on Simon’s tinkering. It seemed even catastrophic earthquakes and summer snowstorms couldn’t quell the man’s insatiable need to build things. He’d managed to hook up his pilot’s goggles to some sort of dire-looking electrical device made up of coiling wire and metal cylinders that hummed and whirled ominously on the table beside him.

Rowan didn’t bother to ask what the man was up to, since it was undoubtedly something impossible to understand. But he had a feeling that it had something to do with him, for Simon had been acting even more peculiarly than usual around him ever since he’d come aboard. It was making Rowan extremely nervous.

At present, Simon’s goggle-clad eyes were trained on him and had been for some time. Every now and then, the tinker would flick a metallic lens over the goggles and adjust a row of dials on the cylinders, causing them to spark alarmingly. Rowan braced for an explosion every time, but nothing happened—other than Simon floridly cursing in several obscure European languages.

Rowan was about to hazard a question in Simon’s direction when Hex stalked into the room, cheeks flushed spectacularly and blue eyes flashing. She looked incandescent with rage.

Rowan sprang to his feet and set aside his coffee in case her wrath was directed at him and he needed both hands to defend himself. The lovemaking had been…well, better than good, at least for him, so he didn’t know what he could have possibly done to make her so mad in the intervening hours. If anything,
he
was the one who should be upset—which he was, damn it, though he’d die before he told her that.

And he did have to admit she looked rather appealing with her blood up like this. She’d managed to clean herself up since he’d left her, her hair half-tamed, her skin clean of blood and grime, and her injured shoulder neatly bandaged. She’d dressed herself in a clean blouse and waistcoat and a fresh pair of leather trousers that were even tighter than the previous ones.

His body, traitor that it was, stirred with interest when he caught sight of her backside, and he braced himself for a different sort of explosion. Their last argument had certainly ended in a spectacular way, and he wouldn’t exactly be averse to another round.

He was, apparently, a masochist.

But Hex only had eyes for Simon. She didn’t even glance at Rowan once as she stalked over to the tinker, gloved hands digging deep into her hips, as if she were barely restraining herself from strangling the man.

“What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

Simon lowered one side of his goggles for a moment and eyed her in annoyance. “Testing my frequency spectrum galvanometer,” he said flatly, as if he couldn’t believe she was stupid enough not to see that for herself.

She hefted a rather large looking spanner off the tinker’s workbench, raised it threateningly above her head, and started in Simon’s direction. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” she growled.

Simon finally pushed the goggles onto his forehead, eyes popping wide in alarm when he saw the spanner. He raised his hands in surrender.

“You’ve recalibrated our course,” she spat out, looking nowhere near to changing her mind about beating the man over the head, “and if it is to where I think it is, I want a damn good explanation. Otherwise, I’m tempted to chuck you into the Atlantic.”

Simon sighed, gave Rowan an inscrutable glance that raised all of his hackles, and set aside the goggles. He pushed himself off of his chair and strode over to the small mahogany desk bolted into the floor, retrieving a jumble of documents off the top.

He held out a small, soiled scrap of paper to Hex, and Rowan’s heart sank. He recognized that scrap, full of nonsense words and mathematical equations far surpassing his understanding. He’d thought he’d lost it long ago.

Hex took the paper and studied it, her brow furrowing. “What is this?”

Simon nodded in Rowan’s direction grimly. “I found it in some clothing he left behind a month ago.”

Hex shifted her attention to Rowan, and Rowan had to look away from the mixture of confusion and dread in her expression. He was far too familiar with that particular look from her. It wasn’t any wonder she wanted nothing to do with him. “Rowan?”

“The sheikh gave it to me before we escaped,” he said on a sigh. “I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant, though.”

Simon snorted. “Of course you couldn’t. It’s a Vigenère cipher. There are only three people I know of in the world who could break that cipher without a keyword.”

“And?” Hex demanded.

“And I am one of those three,” Simon said flatly. He focused his attention on Rowan. “What year is it?”

“What?” Rowan cried, completely mystified by the sudden change of topic.

“Simple question. Don’t think about it, just tell me what year it is.”

“1897, of course,” he scoffed. He remembered
that
much.

Something that looked very much like excitement passed through Simon’s gray eyes, despite his outward stoicism. It was the same look he gave to his machines when they did something unexpected, and it made Rowan even more wary.

“Are you certain?” Simon pressed.

Rowan felt his heart sink even further at Simon’s persistence, fearing this line of questioning was leading to some place disagreeable, but he managed an incredulous laugh. “I am certain it is 1897. I may not remember anything else, but I remember what year it is.”

An uneasy silence descended over the cabin until Hex began, “He is confused…”

“I am not,” Rowan interjected firmly, a bit irritated. She could at least look him in the eye if she was going to take it upon herself to analyze his state of mind.

“It is 1887, Rowan,” Simon said quietly.

“Impossible,” Rowan said. “I remember…”

He clutched at his head as a sharp, stabbing sensation passed from temple to temple. He gasped in pain and staggered forward, dropping to his knees.

He remembered 1887. Yet he didn’t remember it at all, or all the years before and since. Everything was out of focus, too far in the distance for him to reach no matter how his mind strained.

He felt Hex’s hand on his arm but could barely see her face through the fog that had descended over his vision. She managed to coax him to his feet and led him back to his chair. He collapsed into it and tried to order his reeling mind.

“What is going on, Simon?” Hex demanded. She sounded angry again and not a little bit panicked.

“I would like to know that myself. You say the sheikh gave you the cipher?” Simon demanded of Rowan.

Rowan nodded, the pain ebbing just enough for him to begin to focus on the world around him again. Hex’s hand was still on his shoulder. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted it there or not, but he was too weak to remove it.

“Did he tell you anything else? Do you remember anything about him?” Simon persisted.

“He said he knew who I was,” Rowan said, rubbing his eyes wearily. “He gave me the note and told me it was his last request, and that it would fulfill the debt I owed to him for saving our lives.”

“I knew he wanted something from us,” Hex muttered. “Though why would he give Rowan an impossible cipher?” she asked Simon.

“Because the note was for me,” Simon said grudgingly. “He must have known somehow I was aboard the ship. He addressed me by my name. My
full
name.”

“Impossible.
I
don’t even know your full name,” Hex said.

“No one does. No one alive, at any rate,” Simon replied grimly. “Yet somehow he does. And he knows me well enough to know I could break the code. Both are impossible.”

“What did the cipher say, Simon?” Hex demanded.

Simon held out another sheet of paper with clear reluctance. Hex took it and read its contents, her face paling, before handing it off to Rowan.

It took a while for the words to sink in. Simple words, but no less devastating.

To
Simon von Hellenburg. Ask Rowan what year it is. He will tell you 1897 and you will both be correct. On 6-28 an earthquake measuring magnitude ten will strike Cairo. Return Rowan to the tomb and all will be set to rights.

“I’ve analyzed the equations for weeks, and I just finished decoding the message a few hours ago,” Simon said. “I made the decision to return to the tomb shortly afterward.”

“And you thought I didn’t need to be informed!” Hex cried.

Simon lifted a single eyebrow. “You were…otherwise occupied.”

Rowan felt himself blushing like a schoolgirl alongside Hex. But he had a feeling Hex’s red cheeks were caused less by embarrassment and more by sheer outrage at Simon’s audacity.

“And I knew you wouldn’t do it yourself,” Simon rushed to continue before Hex could harangue him. “You would spend hours arguing with me about it, hours that we
do
not have
. We must return to the tomb as quickly as possible.
He
must go back there,” he said, stabbing his finger in Rowan’s direction.

Hex’s fingers dug into Rowan’s shoulder, as if seeking to ground herself. “You find nothing at all suspicious about that note?” she demanded of Simon, her tone incredulous.

“I find everything about it suspicious,” Simon hissed, “but I am convinced we must do as the cipher says.”

“Surely you, of all people, cannot be taken in by so obvious a con!” she cried.

“My conclusions were reached scientifically,” Simon retorted, looking greatly offended.

“Horseshit,” Hex said flatly.

Both of Simon’s eyebrows rose at that, and his mouth thinned into an angry line. He matched Hex’s own angry stance. “The
words
didn’t convince me of anything. The mathematical proofs did,” Simon said stonily. “Numbers don’t lie.”

“What do the proofs mean?” Rowan asked, cutting into their argument.

Simon’s shoulders relaxed a bit at the redirection, and his eyes lit with poorly concealed eagerness. He began to talk very quickly. “Theoretical physics is
not
my area, but these proofs are obviously based off of Maxwell-Hertz equations. Whoever wrote this has postulated that an electromagnetic field of enough magnitude can cause a curve in space-time. He even suggests that it is possible to affect matter through that curvature, and vice-versa.

“He
further
proposes that time functions as a
fourth dimension
, but that it is possible—
possible
—to bypass that fourth dimension, or at least bend it enough to displace matter. The implications for that are…
mindboggling
. Whoever wrote this…” He let out a sigh that could only be termed enraptured. “Is a genius.
Or
a complete bedlamite…”

“Ugh. In English, Simon,” Hex said impatiently. “I didn’t understand a damn word you just said.”

Simon rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently. “
In English
, these are mathematical proofs for the displacement of matter through space-time in…”

“In English
for five year olds
,” Hex amended.

Simon scowled at her. “Time travel,” he bit out. “Specifically time travel into the past.”

Another uneasy silence fell over the cabin until Hex broke it with incredulous laughter. “You can’t be serious!” she cried.

Simon did not look amused at all. “I am. Very serious. The proof goes on to postulate the effect that such a displacement of matter would have, however, and that effect is catastrophic.
Destruction of the universe
catastrophic.”

“Really, Simon. I don’t know what any of that
means
,” Hex insisted stubbornly. Rowan suspected she simply didn’t
want
to know.
He
certainly didn’t.