But it wasn’t enough. Noxon had half-expected to fail at his task, learning to reverse the flow of time for himself. But he had not expected to fail at helping Param learn how to slice into the past. She wouldn’t be reversing the flow of time—in the moments she spent in realtime, she and her body and clothing and whatever else she held with her would still be progressing in the normal direction of timeflow.

She followed him so easily when Noxon sliced forward with facemask efficiency. But when he jumped backward while holding her hand, she had no idea how he had done it. And when he jumped backward in time without holding her, he simply left her behind.

“It’s all right,” she consoled him. Time after time she said it, and Noxon believed she meant it. She, too, had not expected to succeed.

They began to spend more of their time just talking, either about their lives in such different upbringings, or about things they had learned in their studies. They had no one else to talk to, most of the time, because even though they had to depend on the Larfolders for their food, they never knew what time—what year, what month, what day—they would be in when their bodies told them it was time to eat.

Fortunately, they could always slice forward until they saw somebody preparing a meal, and it was a part of Larfolder culture that they always welcomed the unexpected mealtime guest.

One day, after such a meal, which had, in Larfolder fashion, turned into a storytelling session, with lots of singing and chanting of old songs and legends and stories, Noxon could see that Param was tired. “We’ve had a long day,” he said to the Larfolders.

The Larfolders laughed, and one of them said, “How would you know?”

That was a good question. And yet it was one that didn’t really matter. They ate when they were hungry and slept when they were tired—those were their times and days and nights, since no calendar or clock could contain them.

Noxon walked away with his sister. She held his arm and leaned on him. “I’m going to sleep as we walk,” she said. “And when I wake up tomorrow, I’m going to make you take me back eight hours or ten so I can sleep that time again.”

Noxon chuckled. “The Larfolders seem to make the most of their time on land. They have no voices underwater, and no ­spoken language. They come here to remember being human.”

“Oh, I love being with them,” said Param. She shuddered. “Their singing drowns out the noise, as much as is possible.”

“The noise?”

She shook her head. “I’m so tired I was almost talking to myself.”

“But I want to know. The Larfolders aren’t all that noisy. It’s not as if they have drums or horns.”