“Really?” My heart pounds so hard, the beats blend together. No. I won’t ruin our first real conversation in six years by thinking about the Voice. This is too important. We’re talking. Maybe not like we used to. Maybe we’ll never get back to the place where I crawled into his lap and cried for forty-five minutes over Harry. But at least he doesn’t look like a male Sydney funnel-web spider is dangling over his head. “Who’s that?”

“My old lab partner from college.” He rubs his chin. “I heard from a colleague that he’ll be attending the ceremony. We…had a falling-out senior year and haven’t spoken since. I’d like to make amends, if possible.”

“What did you fight about?” I prompt so that he doesn’t retreat.

“Back in those days, we thought we could change the world.” He meets my eyes in the mirror, which is the closest we’ve come to direct eye contact in weeks. “Charlie had some wild ideas, but it was exciting stuff. Stuff no one had ever dreamed of, much less seen.”

Suddenly, he drops his face, as though our connection is too intense. Too honest. “When you’re on the knife’s edge of discovery, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right or wrong. Hard to see how much is too far—or not far enough. Mistakes were made. Leaving me with regrets that span a lifetime.”

I tremble from my shoulders to my toes. Because I’ve heard that same tragedy-soaked tone before. I’ve listened to similar despair-drenched words. At this moment, Dad sounds eerily, coincidentally, like the Voice.

But I’m just being paranoid. Right? The future has invaded my present so thoroughly that I’m seeing parallels everywhere I turn. Clearly, Dad and his former lab partner are too old to be the person I’m looking for. Even if they’ll both be at the awards ceremony tonight.

And yet, that doesn’t mean they’re not involved.

This feels like my first break in my mission. Is this why the future chose me? Is my “special access” to the target through my father?

Taking a shuddering breath, I turn up the corners of my mouth. “That must be a heavy burden to bear.”

“No heavier than the responsibility to the future.”

The smile freezes on my lips. There it is again. So many parallels. So many coincidences. They keep adding up.

“One more thing, Alice.” My dad’s eyes are bright, alert. As intense as I’ve ever seen them. “Please don’t blame yourself. For my actions or anybody else’s. You are as good, as innocent, as they come. It’s the rest of the world that’s messed up.”