It’s Saturday, the anniversary of my mother’s abandonment. My nerves already won’t let me forget the day’s significance. I don’t need the extra reminder.

“Thanks for not hating me.” Cristela accepts the tumbler from Bandit.

His gaze strays to me once again. “I have a feeling we’ll all be doing a lot of forgiving before this is over.”

I swallow. Does that mean he might forgive me someday? We barely talked during our entire car ride. I can hardly blame him. When all is said and done, I did try to kill him.

How does any relationship move past attempted murder? Can it?

He shifts his focus back to Cristela, and the moment—real or imagined—passes. “The cupcake,” he prompts. “Who was the target, C?”

Again, she looks at me. Again, I can’t unpack her expression.

“Archie,” she says slowly. “I was supposed to give the cupcake to your brother.”

I pitch forward. My feet hit the floor, stopping my body, my stomach, my brain, my heart. Every organ goes spinning into outer space, and in a realm without friction, without gravity, I don’t know how they’ll ever stop.

Oh. That’s why Cristela wanted to sit down. Not for her sake but for mine. She placed that particular cupcake in front of Archie, I suddenly remember. But I switched ours because I wanted to photograph the lustrous pearls.

I think I knew the truth the moment I saw the inscription on the spindle, but I couldn’t admit it. Not to myself, not to Bandit.

My brother, dearer to me than anyone on this planet, cannot be the culprit.

And if he is?

I will never be able to kill him. Not for a million lives. Not for my unborn child.

And yet… And yet… A sliver of hope lives in the most desperate part of my heart.

“That doesn’t mean he’s the Virus Maker.” The words tumble out of my mouth. “My older self tricked me into believing the target was Bandit. Maybe your older self tricked you, too.”

“Maybe,” Cristela says. But I can tell from her peek at Bandit, from the pity in her eyes, that she doesn’t believe it.

I jump off the stool and pace the hardwood floor. Adrenaline bubbles in my veins like the magma inside Mount Vesuvius. “You have to get me to the future. That’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”

Cristela lifts the water to her lips, and I count her swallows, long and slow. Three, four, five. She’s probably spent hours—weeks, months—thinking about this problem. If anyone can help me, it’ll be her.

“I can’t help you,” she says. “You forget, I haven’t invented time travel yet. I won’t do that for another ten years.”