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“Turns out, I’m a bit knackered myself,” he says. And just before I close the door between us, he calls, “And Shiv—sweet dreams.”

66

I don’t dream.

Hell, I don’t even sleep.

Instead, I quietly sneak back into the dining room, where he left that golden decoy sitting on the table.

I’m not even sure what it is I’m expecting to find, but my intuition is urging me to get to that ball. It’s a feeling so insistent, it’s like I have no choice but to follow through. So I fold it into my palm…and wait.

Wait for the energetic message to come.

Wait for the phenomenon of psychometry to kick in, much like my dad once taught me.

Because while it may be true that Braxton is a Timekeeper, I can’t let go of the fact that my dad bore a similar mark to both Braxton and the Timekeeper Killian killed in Versailles. And I know it’s not a coincidence.

And yet—

I close my eyes, steady my breath, and try to clear a space for the message to come.

For what feels like the longest time, nothing happens. And I’m about to give up when the ground begins to shake, and I peek an eye open, only to realize that the reason the lights aren’t blinking on and off is because there’s no electricity in the late fifteenth century.

Besides, this isn’t just an Unraveling.

It’s also psychometry.

The next thing I know, the golden ball warms in my palm, and before I can so much as form another thought, I’m instantly hurled out of this world and into that same ancient necropolis I saw when I held Braxton’s boots.

The air is dank and stale. The space is cavernous, the light dim. Yet, much like the last time I viewed it, I can clearly make out the sight of my father standing before me.

This is a message from him.

Though I don’t know how or why—though it doesn’t make the slightest lick of sense—somehow, I know in my heart, in my soul, that my dad purposely infused this golden sphere with a message for me.

I can feel his energetic imprint as clearly as I can feel the slick surface of the decoy Sun I now hold in my palm.

My stomach churns. My knees fold out from under me, and I sink to the floor, where I sit gasping for breath as I watch the message left by my dad.

It begins with an apology.

A long list of regrets for all that he failed to accomplish—all the things I’ll be forced to face without the benefit of his guidance.

He’s sorry he ran out of time, didn’t have a chance to properly train me for everything still to come.

Didn’t have a chance to explain all that will be expected of me to fulfill my destiny, my legacy, as the youngest Timekeeper in our vast family tree.

Wait—what?

This is a mistake.

I mean, how can that possibly be?

My breath comes too quickly. My heart beats too fast. Afraid of waking Killian, I clasp a hand to my mouth. Silencing the involuntary sob that slips from my lips, I force my focus away from my thoughts and concentrate hard on my dad.

According to him, we are descendants of a long line of Timekeepers. Which means it’s our job to ensure the missing pieces remain hidden forever so that the Antikythera Mechanism is never restored.

There are so many things he wants to tell me, about the tarot, about Christopher Columbus’s map, about psychometry, and about the Unraveling—my gift for seeing into the past. There are ways to control it, direct it, he says. And someday I’ll be called upon to do just that. But now, it’s up to me to figure it out.