But when you’re in the top secret archives of Olympus in the top secret second basement of the top secret school for the descendants of the Greek gods, on a tiny island in the Aegean that the rest of the world believes to be uninhabited, and a book starts glowing as you walk by, you kind of have to pay attention. It would have been practically negligent of me to ignore it.

I almost passed right by. I was only in the archives to help my friend Phoebe find the transcript of her dad’s trial, but she was several steps ahead of me. The dusty burgundy cover didn’t exactly stand out among shelf after shelf of musty, old, leather-bound books. Except for the Olympic records, which include files from forever right up until the present, nothing in the archive is less than a hundred years old. In other words, it blended like ice in the Arctic.

As I got close, though, the faded lettering on the spine glowed. Commanded my attention. I couldn’t help but read the words formed by the light-etched script.

The Art and Science of Chronoportation

No author’s name. No publisher’s mark or call number or any writing beyond the title on the spine. Nothing to indicate it might even be listed in the admin-only section of the digital catalog.

I pulled the volume from the shelf, shoved it into my messenger bag, and pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Now, in my dorm room almost a week later, with the door locked and my extraspecial do-not-enter assurance in place, I know why the book glowed. Why it called to me. It was waiting for me, to give me the one thing I’ve been waiting ten long years for: the chance to fix everything.

And today is the day I will finally find the courage to actually read it.

“Calm the fluff down,” I tell myself, pacing back and forth in front of my desk like the kind of person who stresses about things, which I’m (usually) not. Like saying the words out loud might have more impact on my freak-out. “Just because it’s the title of the book doesn’t mean it’s real.”

I pull out my desk chair, plop onto the seat, and straighten the book on the surface of my desk. I nudge it into perfect center.

Letting my nervous energy out by chipping the black polish off my nails bit by bit, I resist the urge to start pacing again.

I am so not a fidgeter. I push limits and bend rules and pretty much let everything go. Or at least I try to. But most of the annoying stuff in life is inconsequential, which makes worrying about it ridiculous.

This book—this possibility—is . . . world-changing.