Page 139 of Soulbound

"Aye. There are several of us still out there. I could teach you. You could become one of us—"

"Us?"

"Travelers," he replied. "We watch the streams of time, protecting England—and the world—from all dangers from other planes."

"What is the point in watching?" Cleo demanded, thinking of all the death and pain that could have been avoided. "You had this knowledge, and you did nothing with it."

"You're young," Farshaw replied coldly. "You don't understand what it means to slip through time. A single conversation creates a million different possibilities in the time stream. To interfere is to interrupt—possibly even destroy—millions of futures. There are rules, and if the demons must play by them, then so must we. There is a pact in place. I couldn't break it. I did what I could."

His words took the heat from her anger as she remembered the book he'd given her. And a conversation in Balthazar's Labyrinth, so many days ago.

How many times had she tried to prevent what she saw in the future, only to have it twist in unpredictable ways?

"What rules?" she whispered. "What pact?"

"This isn't the first time a demon has been called into this world, or has broken free of its master’s will. During the last black queen's rise, we were forced to forge a treaty with them, or there would have been no means to stop the plague."

"The Black Death?”

He nodded curtly.

"But that was before your time."

"Nothing is before my time."

What would it mean to be able to go back into the past and change the future? The thought of saving Sebastian from all the abuse he'd suffered sprang to mind, but she instantly knew it was wrong. Where would one stop? And what far-reaching implications would those choices have?

No. Far too dangerous. Far too tempting. Farshaw was right.

"The only way to interfere in the current game is to give your candidate knowledge," Farshaw said. "You were my white queen. I could only work through you, and even confronting you was a great risk."

Cleo raked a hand through her hair, turning away from him. "A bloody chess game."

"It is part of the pact," he admitted, taking several steps after her. "The game must be contained."

"It's not a game," she cried out. "These are people's lives you're playing with."

Farshaw tilted his head, and she realized he was so far outside time—the world—that he had no concept of the pieces he played with anymore. He didn't care about poor Odette, who'd been swept up in a merciless war and paid the cost with her life. He didn't care about Drake, or Eleanor, or Bishop, or any of the others.

Not even her.

"Why are you here?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because you won the game," he replied. "You are a worthy successor to our ranks."

Cleo's breath caught. "You want me to join you?"

"I could teach you everything," he said. "How to time-walk; how to see the future in complete Visions; how to guard the world from the threat at our doorstep."

Away from Sebastian and her new family. Cleo shook her head. It wasn't even a consideration. "No. No thank you."

"The world is at risk," he said sharply. "You opened the Gates for the briefest of moments, and something came through. It's out there, even as we speak. You could stop it. You could help us hunt it down."

Cleo froze, haunted by what she'd done when she wasn't in control of her body. The guilt tempted her, where nothing else could....

But how could she fight something without Sebastian by her side? "I think... I think I am right where I am meant to be. You can't see every possibility. You can't see where every choice will take you. But this one? This one feels like the right one. Goodbye, Mr. Farshaw."

He looked taken aback. "You can't mean that."