At last the factory loomed into view. Oliver felt a chill run through his spine. Even with its shiny new 1940s appearance, the factory looked like home to him. To think of it in mortal peril made Oliver feel sick to the stomach.

He headed toward it, struck once again by how vibrant it was, with a steady stream of workers filing in and out of the big main doors, wearing the same blue overalls as Oliver.

The same overalls! Oliver thought, realizing that he would blend right in.

He rushed for a group of workers heading from the bus stop to the factory, and muscled his way into the middle of them. As though he were a chameleon, none of them seemed to notice his intrusion. And so he was swept along with the group, right up the steps and in through the double doors of Illstroms Inventions.

Now inside the factory, Oliver was struck once more by how alive the place was in 1944, with so many workers and machines, so much noise and commotion. He gasped in awe at how shiny the machines looked, as if they were made from gold instead of brass. And the floor was so open without Armandos fake walls or labyrinth of corridors concealing secret rooms. In this era, hed not yet lost funding for the factory, the result of which was his construction of fake walls and secret passageways to keep invaders out. This was the factorys heyday, fully funded, when Armando had been on the cusp of inventing incredible things. Thered been so much promise back then, so much excitement. It seemed to permeate the air.

Just then, the crowd of workers who had been concealing Oliver began to disperse. They started heading out in different directions to their various projects, leaving Oliver floundering in the middle of the open-plan floor. He had to find Armando before the guards noticed him and kicked him out.

He gazed around, searching for Armando. The inventor had been at his workbench when Oliver had last been here, but had since moved on. Oliver deduced that the amount of time that had passed out here while hed been in the School for Seers was only around a few minutes. A few minutes to several days. But if that were true, his timetable should have come back online by now. Could it be that time had switched when he stepped outside of the school, with it now running more slowly there than here? He clung to that slim possibility. Perhaps there was still a chance he could stop Lucas before Esthers strength failed.