Auryn cried. “I cannot believe you’re here to meet him. My whole pregnancy I wished and cried that my mother would never see him as a baby and here you are.”

And here you are. Everest had said that same thing to me. Fate had chosen quite a day to send me back in time. To a day when my family needed me. Eighteen-year-old me had never even held a baby before, I’d never even considered whether I wanted to have any, but as Everest sat my grandson in my arms, I felt a click in my soul. It was like my soul had been waiting for this, for me to find little Rae.

Everest brushed his fingers over Rae’s chunky cheeks. “He is perfect.”

I nodded. I’d never cried more in my life yet there I was crying again. “He is perfect.”

Akecheta cleared his throat. He sat on the wooden chair closest to us. “Have you seen him . . . as an adult?”

“No, but you three are very secretive.”

They chuckled.

Auryn let out a deep breath. “I am surprised you are not asking a million questions. You were always super curious.”

I found myself smiling sadly at her. “I’ve spent the last few months, since you and your father came into my life, asking questions nonstop. Demanding answers, bargaining for them in some cases. I got no answers and now I know why. I heard the lectures from everyone about the rules of time travel and the like. You could not tell me who I was to you until I got here to see it myself. I have so many questions, but I have so little time to be here with you and I do not want to waste these moments. Any moment now your father is going to demand I leave.”

Everest groaned. “You cannot stay.”

“I know⁠—”

“Not even for a little while?” Auryn pleaded.

Everest pulled our daughter in for a hug. “I do not want her to leave but she is not ours to keep. Yet. She is a gift here, a blessing of hope for our future. If we want her to still be there seven centuries from now, then she cannot stay.”

“Why are you here?” Akecheta frowned and those black lines spread across his face. “I cannot make sense of what I see, when that happens, I know not to try. But you are searching for something, yes?”

“Yes.” I looked up to Everest. “Am I allowed to tell you?”

He frowned and nodded. “Carefully, with little details at first.”

“Okay, right.” I leaned back to sit with my legs crossed so I had a more stable position while I held baby Rae. “Are you familiar with a certain tome that your father had possession of?”

His eyes widened. “My father?”

“Atzaran, yes.”

He swallowed roughly. “Are you in contact with my father?”