That answered who he was. A little prince, born to be Seligo. But I would’ve spotted that from outer space.

I flipped forward again. I needed more. What was his mission here?

A teenaged Altair grips two hook-tipped swords, circling a hazy opponent. He lunges and his wispy sword cuts through me.

In a single move, he spins, hooking the swords together and swinging both in a deadly arc. The opponent tumbles back, lost from my frame, but a girl’s shriek cuts the air as he lunges again.

Great. He could use swords. That wasn’t what I needed to know right now and I didn’t remember asking about it.

I needed to get to the meat. I hurriedly turned from image to image, drinking in his history.

Altair leans over a microscope; he hunches over a computer screen; he lounges reading a book; his mother and father nag and he glares; his hair all spiked up as he leans into the handlebars of a motorcycle, helmetless and speeding too fast through a tunnel; he sits at the back of a classroom, staring at a blank test screen; he watches, stoic as a man tattoos a Green Helix onto his forearm; he strides down a long aisle of books, carrying a stack of binders—

Gah.

This was no highlight reel. I might as well watch him brush his teeth. Where were the big moments? The things that defined him? His goals?

Who was Altair Orpheus?

The layers of the past gave me nothing, so I switched gears, hopping to the sketchier timeghosts of the future. If I couldn’t see his past, I needed to see what he was planning.

As soon as I had the thought, a wispy Altair snapped into place next to a wispy Quanta.

That’s more like it. I held my breath.

He pulls me close and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

For long seconds, we gaze into each other’s eyes.

Then he presses a kiss to my forehead.

Huh? I blinked hard.

Was that a hallucination?

In the present, Altair had dropped my hand, but I’d already locked into his volume of the universe and the floodgates had opened way too wide.

Timeghosts flickered around me in a torrent, moving so fast their edges glowed around me in a million blue and white lines

Altair kisses my knuckles; holds my hand; strokes my cheek; pulls me close; Altair shirtless; Altair runs toward me; I leap into his arms; we snuggle under a blanket.

Smiling.

Together.

A thousand thousand futures filled with Altair Orpheus. That smiling future Quanta may as well have been another person. I’d never seen that expression before. Could I even make that expression?

And wearing it for Altair?

Impossible.

Well, not exactly impossible. If I saw it, it could happen in real life.

But falling in love? With him? A wannabe Seligo/potential double agent?