“Space-time continuum. Got that, but you went there, right? Got a look at the Earps and Doc Holliday.”

“Yeah, and let me say it was fast and ugly—the gunfight. Time shifting’s tricky, and you learn really fast—because you’re taught and trained, but you have to learn by mucking up—not to use it for entertainment.”

“How far?” Doyle asked. “How far back can you go?”

“I don’t know if there’s a limit. I’ve heard stories—I was weaned on them—of people who didn’t come back. The compass always comes back, but some of the ones who held it haven’t. Because maybe they went too far, or they ended up miscalculating time or place just enough to end up in the ocean or in the middle of a battlefield, an earthquake.”

“And forward?” Bran asked him. “Is that part of it?”

“Even trickier. You want to see how things are going a hundred years from now? What if eighty years from now things went really bad? You figure to hit in Times Square, but instead there’s nothing. Or you drop down in the middle of a war, a plague. Even something as basic as that forest meadow is now a five-lane superhighway and you’re pancaked. You can calculate pretty well going back, but forward? You can’t calculate what hasn’t happened.”

Sawyer closed the lid on the clockface. “I’ve gone back and sideways and around in circles trying to get a handle on what we’re after. Before I got here, before I met any of you. I’d get bits and pieces, variations on the legend or the mythology, but nothing solid. And when the compass pointed me here, and now, that’s where I came.”

Annika touched his hand lightly. “Are you from now?”

“Yeah. Born twenty-nine years ago. And listen, if I knew how to get back to the when and where all this started, maybe I’d risk it. But that’s more than I’ve been able to do. And if I could, I don’t know if there’s anything I could do anyway.”

“Can you take anyone with you?”

“Yeah. I took my brother back to Dodger Stadium to see Jackie Robinson play. It was his birthday—my brother’s—and my grandfather okayed it. But I’ve only tried it with one person. Theoretically, I could take more. We don’t talk about this outside the family,” he continued. “It’s like your deal, Riley, sort of. I went over this with my grandfather and I was going to bring it up last night. But you had to wolf out.”

“Huh.”

“Something like this gets out and you’ve got all kinds of crap to deal with. This asshole got wind of it, and he’s been on my ass for five years now. Son of a bitch tried to ambush me last year in Morocco where I was following a lead. Gave up trying to buy it, and tried to shoot me instead. Fucking Malmon.”

“Wait a minute. Wait.” Teeth bared, Riley leaned forward. “Andre Malmon?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“I know him. Likes to bill himself as a rescuer of artifacts, as an expert on mythology, a consultant, adventurer, whatever suits his needs. He’s a thief, a cheat, and I can’t prove it, but I know he killed an associate of mine. He’s onto you—to this?” she added, tapping the compass.