“I’m such a fool—and so are you!” cried the vision of Umbo. “It all works, you save him, his bones are broken, you take him home and leave him, but then he says that Umbo saved him, and so it makes me—us—young Umbo, it makes him look like a liar, like he knew Kyokay was alive and he lied to try to get them to kill Rigg and Father beat him—us—”

“Young Umbo,” prompted Umbo. “Beat him, of course.”

“Broke his skull,” said vision Umbo. “Maybe he’ll die. Maybe he’ll live and be . . . simple. Or crippled. But he’s sure not going on any trips with Rigg. It’s all undone. We just—I just ruined everything. You can’t do it! Don’t do it! Undo this future, you fool! Let him die!”

And then he was gone.

What could Umbo do but dry himself off and think about what his future self had said? Yes, that was a disaster. Of course Kyokay would know that it was Umbo who saved him. He wouldn’t be in any shape to notice how much taller and stronger he was. But Umbo couldn’t blame himself for rushing Kyokay home. It’s what they always did when Kyokay injured himself. Rush him home, take him to Mother, then let Father yell and beat on somebody for not watching Kyokay, even though everybody else knew that you couldn’t watch Kyokay because he would do what he wanted no matter what.

Future Umbo was wrong, though. In the rush of emotion after saving Kyokay, he had hurried home to Mother and that was the disastrous mistake. Not saving Kyokay, but taking him home.

Now that Umbo knew he could save Kyokay, he wasn’t going to unsave him because future Umbo was a hysterical mess. He had just watched Father beat his younger self. It made Umbo sick with fury even now. He hated that man—not his real father at all. Just Tegay, master cobbler, wife beater, child beater, and evil fool.

But I didn’t see it. I didn’t just save my brother from the water. I can think more clearly, and I’m going to save Kyokay and leave the future unchanged.

It meant he would skip a bit of practice swimming to make a few more preparations. He would need more blankets. He would need a much heavier knife than his everyday knife, or the jeweled knife that he rarely used and feared to break. But that was a simple matter, to swim across the river in the night and steal the heavy leather-cutting knife from Father’s—Tegay’s—workbench. Sharp. Yes, Tegay was kind and caring to his tools. Anything it touched, it would cut.