Maybe if he’d say he was sorry. Maybe if he’d apologize for leaving me to grow up on my own while Mom had to struggle, working day and night to keep Celeste and me healthy and fed and clothed on only one income… if he’d acknowledge it, I could forgive him. But he just stared at me, stupidly, not saying a single word.

Finally he stood up, looking me up and down like I was a stranger. “You can’t be Isaak,” he said.

I laughed. It came out sounding strangled, hysterical. “What do you mean, I can’t be Isaak? I’m Isaak.”

“But you can’t be! How did you get so big so fast?”

“So fast? Come on, Dad, it’s been two annums. Did you think I wasn’t going to grow?”

“Two… annums…?” Dad choked on the words, coughing violently to clear the dust out of his chest. Then he shook his head. “No. That’s not possible. I’ve only been here two, maybe three weeks at the most.”

His sentence was like a punch to the gut. It knocked the wind clean out of me. “What?”

Eos cleared his throat. I turned, wild-eyed, to see him standing in the doorway of the longhouse. Marin was there, too, just a meter or so behind me, watching our conversation with fretful eyes. I’d completely forgotten they were there.

“Do you know him, then?” Marin asked. “I thought you might. There’s… a resemblance, between the two of you.”

“How long has he been here?” I asked, voice ragged.

“Twenty days or so,” Eos said. “One of our runners picked him up. He’d collapsed outside Hope Renewed with no breathing apparatus. He regained consciousness not long after we got him back here, but no one has been able to understand him. He finally gave up talking altogether several days ago.”

Dad was watching me, eyes narrowed. “You can understand what they’re saying?” he hissed.

I glanced at him. “Yeah, but…” The room was spinning. “You can’t have only been here a few weeks. You were gone all that time…” I sank down onto the bed, slumping forward, my elbows on my knees.

Dad crouched in front of me. “You came through the arch?”

I nodded.

A noise like a growl came from the back of Dad’s throat. “That bastard Emil. This is all his fault.”

“It’s not Emil’s fault, Dad,” I snapped. “He didn’t tell you to go through that arch. I know you stole his key. Besides, Emil at least has half a brain stem. I’m sure he wouldn’t have just blundered right through a time machine without testing it first.”

He crossed his arms, leaning back on his heels and glaring at me. “‘Half a brain stem’, huh? But I see you blundered through same as me. Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, mijo.”