“People reveal their true character when they’re off center. You have to at least admire her tactics.”

“Bah! I don’t buy it.”

Karas glided toward them, holding the wooden box. “Where is your book?” she asked.

“Show me,” Miranda said, stepping up to the table.

“Are we complete imbeciles?” Johnis said. “Prove that you have the blue book.”

Miranda eyed him. Smiled. She reached into her purse, pulled out an object bound in aging white cloth, and set it on the table.

Johnis unwrapped the blue Book of History and set it down gingerly. It could be a fake, but if so, it was a perfect replica. Silvie didn’t think there was a way to prove the authenticity of the book without actually using it.

“Looks real.”

“Of course it’s real,” Miranda said. “Now yours.”

Johnis nodded.

Karas pulled the black, the brown, and the green Books of History out and laid them next to each other on the glass table. They stared at them in silence.

“So . . .” Miranda finally said. “Tell me how you’re planning to find the other three.”

“You think it’s wise to discuss that in front of her?” Silvie demanded.

“Discuss what?” Johnis said. “We don’t even have a plan. Admittedly, she’s come off like a rude tramp.” He turned to her and shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s true.” Back to Silvie, “But that doesn’t make her wrong.”

What could she say to that?

“I don’t like her attitude,” Karas said.

“She brought us the blue book,” Johnis said. “You don’t have to like her attitude. Or her hairstyle or the way she’s dressed, for that matter. She makes a point. What is our next move?”

Karas sighed. “The subject of my dreams for ten years. I only know details of the mission from what Darsal shared on Other Earth, and she wasn’t the most forthcoming, being so consumed with Billos. But I’ve also pieced together a few details from the people in Paradise, Colorado, that might help us.”

“Such as?”

She sat. “I told you about the simulation called Paradise earlier, the one we entered by touching the cover of the book with blood.”

“Yes.”

“I dug up everything I could get my hands on about Paradise, Colorado, and I found more. It seems to be some kind of epicenter for the books, not only in the simulation, but also in reality.”

“Darsal mentioned Paradise,” Miranda said. “Only to say that it was the first place she searched before going to Turkey.”

“And?”

“Nothing. ‘A small town that refuses to grow up,’ she said.”

“Maybe there’s a reason it refuses to grow up. Follow me here. We know that Thomas Hunter spared this world from impending disaster in 2010, roughly twenty-three years ago, right?”

“Right,” Johnis said, though he couldn’t possibly know this level of detail. “As you say.” Better.