“These will give you five minutes of air,” he said, holding up his hand as though we’d forgotten how many five was.

“Air?” Regan asked, eyeing the pill suspiciously.

“You are going to travel to the middle of a factory fire,” Tramble said. “These will allow you to breathe without damaging your lungs permanently.”

“But only five minutes?” Regan asked.

“Think of it like Cinderella and the stroke of midnight,” Tramble said. He waited until we’d both swallowed our pill and chased it with our cups of water before returning to his spot behind the control panels.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Does that mean we will only be gone five minutes here too?” I’d never thought to ask about the actual passage of time when you were on a real honest-to-goodness Glitch.

Regan shrugged. “I know there is some complicated mathematical equation that figures that out, but no, I don’t think it’s a one-to-one ratio thing. We can ask after this is all over.” She didn’t add that we’d have to survive this to ask the question, a fact I appreciated. Still, my insides squirmed like I’d swallowed a nest of live spiders, and I could feel my hands trembling.

“I really hate fire,” I admitted to Regan.

“No one likes fire,” Regan said. “Let’s just get in and get out fast.”

“We have to,” I said. “This isn’t a simulation. If we die there, we don’t just wake up back here.”

“I didn’t really need that reminder, but thanks,” Regan said.

“Is everyone ready?” Callaway called, and I glanced around the room as every partner pair reached out and grasped hands. That was kind of weird. I glanced over at Regan, but her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides, her eyes squeezed shut as though she was waiting for a bus to hit her.

“Good luck,” Callaway said, and I shut my own eyes as the countdown began. Regan and I were going to need all the luck we could get.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Regan

I’d heard Glitchers talk about what time traveling felt like for my entire life. They would sit around our big wood table after a fancy dinner and compare sensations in the same way we cadets compared the blisters on our hands after a particularly grueling training session. It was different for everyone, with no two Glitchers ever feeling the same thing. My mom said it felt similar to the tingling feeling you got in your foot after it fell asleep, while another professor would say it was like plunging into an ice-filled bathtub. The most notable one I could remember was an active Glitcher who said it felt exactly like someone had caught his stomach with a fish hook and was reeling it in at full tilt.