I pressed the pages of time together, getting ready to jump, but pain stabbed and my vision spun. Breaking Darren’s mind had taken it out of me. I doubted I could do anything more than wind us back, but as long as Tair was alive, there was hope.

It was worth the risk.

Bracing with everything I had, I pulled us back toward the bookmark in time.

Time stilled. And reversed.

I could’ve cried. I would’ve if not for time whipping me in every direction.

We moved backward, backward, and backward some more. Life returned to Tair’s eyes.

And Darren’s too, but I’d take the trade-off.

I was tied down and rolled back, then unconscious, and all the while, time whipped into me like little whirlwinds of razor blades. I bit down and rode it out. Even if my head split like a watermelon wrapped in rubber bands, I’d never let go.

I only had one chance to make this right.

When I jarred back to viewing room, I stood in Tair’s arms, but neither of us could stand this time. Our knees gave, but I was still with him. For half a breath, I leaned into him, squeezing so tight I felt his heart beating.

Alive.

“Quanta…?” Confusion muddled his voice.

Maybe he didn’t remember. For his sake, I hoped he didn’t. He’d been pretty dead. And tortured before that.

I gripped him, trying to suck out every bit of focus his presence could give me. We were alive, but we were still stuck. There had to a path that got one of us out of this nightmare room.

Just a window. One little ray of hope was all I needed.

The guards burst in, tearing us apart; we type frantically, trying to do something with the computers, but the Helixes are already pounding at the doors; Tair forces one of the researchers to mess with the system, but the guards still come; guards; more and more guards.

Pushing out, I tried to reach more pages. It burned, but if my head imploded, so be it.

I had to see.

Darren pounds the door, belligerent; the researchers gape, but one stealthily types a hurried message through his com; Tair pulls me into his arms “This isn’t your fault.”; Tair reaches as he’s snatched away from me; Darren tightens a strap across my ankle; Tair, in sweats and T-shirt, glares murder at Darren. “And if I do remember anything?”

There.

Casual Tair in a T-shirt. He was home. In his own apartment.

And he seemed to have lost his memory.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do.

I gripped Tair tight, one last time. You have to tell Eva about the clones.

I will. But we—