Page 53 of The Book of Lost Hours

THE CLUB WAS ALREADY full of life when Moira arrived. Music poured from the windows, getting louder or softer as the doors swung open and shut for the patrons. Moira took her things from the passenger seat and got out of the car.

“Park it someplace far away,” she said to the valet as she tossed him the keys. “I won’t be needing it.”

She walked straight past the club’s entrance and around to the back alley.

It had stopped raining, but everything was still slick.

Climbing up the fire escape in heels wasn’t easy but she managed, wanting to avoid being spotted by another tenant in case someone came looking for her.

At the top, she jimmied the window lock on the third floor open and let herself inside, closing it behind her.

Moira set her things down on the counter.

She removed her coat and slung it over the back of the folding chair beside the table.

The radiator didn’t work consistently and the air in the apartment was bitingly cold.

She moved over to fiddle with the knobs on the radiator when the bedroom door creaked open.

“Don’t move,” a man’s voice said. She heard the click of a gun.

“Relax,” she said, turning around.

“Oh,” said her would-be assailant, lowering his gun. “It’s you.”

“At ease, soldier,” Moira said, rolling her eyes at him.

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I should have called.”

“Why are you here? I thought you were with Amelia.” His expression tensed. “Did something happen? Is Amelia…”

“She’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Safe. She’s in the time space.”

“In the…” His eyes trailed downward, taking in her appearance. The blood on her shirt. “What did you do?”

Moira hesitated. “I killed Jack.”

He blinked. “You…”

“Fred too.”

“That wasn’t a part of the plan.”

“I had to. He was going to kill Amelia.”

The tense look returned. “But she’s okay?”

Moira set one hand on her hip. “Yes. She’s safe. She’s with Vasily Stepanov’s son. You know. The Russian boy you failed to tell me about. Which, by the way, almost ended up being a very fatal omission.”

“Right. I guess I forgot to mention him.” He stepped farther into the room, running a hand through his red hair. The same red hair that he shared with Amelia.

“You look tired,” Moira told him. “When did you last sleep?”

His eyes slid upward, thinking. “I slept a few hours yesterday.”

“I meant a full night.”

“I can’t sleep. There’s still work to be done.”

“There’s always work to be done. And you can’t do it in your state.”

“But I…”

“Ernest…” Moira said warningly. “You need sleep.”

There was a pause. Ernest’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “All right, all right. But first, tell me what you mean by ‘fatal’ omission.”

“Anton and Amelia had a run-in in the time space while she was looking for the book. I didn’t know that he was working with you and after everything that happened with the department and his father, I assumed he was a threat.

I wasn’t thinking clearly. As soon as Amelia told me he had the book I should have known that he—”

“Wait, hang on. What was Amelia doing in the time space? I thought you were supposed to go in.”

“Things didn’t exactly go to plan,” Moira said, rubbing her eyes with one hand and coming away with a black streak of her own eye makeup. Annoyed, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wet it under the sink to begin wiping it off.

“Well, what happened?”

“Jack happened,” she said, tossing aside the handkerchief a bit more violently than intended.

Sensing her frustration, Ernest came toward her and pressed a kiss against her temple, one arm sliding around her waist. Moira leaned into him, savoring the familiar feeling of being in his arms. Like the soft murmur of waves finally returning to shore.

“Is that what I think it is?” He was looking at the box of watches. He stepped around her to look closer, frowning. “Did something happen to James?”

Moira sighed. She could tell by his expression that neither of them was going to get any sleep until she explained herself.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing to the card table. “At least let me make some coffee before you interrogate me.”

She watched him cross the room and lower himself into the chair. Watched him run both hands through his hair in distress the way he had ever since she’d met him. He really did look exhausted. Exhausted and worried and perhaps still a bit angry with her. But at least he was alive.

A S SHE and Anton walked through the memories one by one, Amelia felt a slow tension building in her chest. They witnessed the memories of the man called Ezekiel Levy, watching the remnants of his life one at a time, including the final memories he had of his daughter.

They walked through fragments of lives otherwise destroyed by timekeepers.

Quiet moments of love, life, pain, and grief, each one little more than a glimpse into a soul that had long been forgotten.

Amelia began to wonder why Moira had wanted her to see this, until at last they came upon a set of memories that stole the air right out of her lungs.

“Uncle Ernest,” she said, watching his glassy image come into focus.

They were in the time space, tucked between shelves.

Ernest was watching something, but Amelia was too distracted to notice what it was.

She took a step closer, feeling her heart beating out of her chest at the sight of him.

He was not quite the uncle she had always known.

He was younger. His features less firm, his eyes brighter, as though the world had not yet finished forming him.

But beneath the youth and naivete, it was still him.

His mannerisms were still familiar to her.

Beside her, Anton frowned, pointing to a second figure a little ahead of them. “I think that is her,” he said.

Amelia tore her eyes away from Uncle Ernest to see what he meant and was confronted by the sight of a girl in a periwinkle dress kneeling on the ground beside a burning book. Her sheath of blond hair covered her face as she carefully extricated a set of pages away from the fire. Lisavet Levy.

Amelia studied her, head shaking. “This must be my uncle’s memory, but I—” She broke off as a sound met her ears. A hushed whisper emanating from the girl on the ground. She frowned and listened closer, when suddenly, Lisavet looked up from what she was doing.

“Hello there,” Ernest said. He had stepped out of the shadows and was holding the cover of a book in his hand. Blue with a flower stamped onto the front.

Lisavet Levy stared at him as one would a hunter on the prowl.

Amelia and Anton watched as they met for the first time. Watched as Ernest tricked the girl and stole the pages, leaving the cover behind for her.

They continued onward. They were flung forward into a tumult of her uncle’s memories, watching as he fell in love with Lisavet Levy.

Watching as they danced in the memory of a club in New York.

As they walked through time together, their love flourishing in the annals of history.

Watching as he lied to Jack and was eventually caught.

And then watching the scene shift back into a place that was a fixture in all their memories, the hotel in the Swiss Alps where a terrified Ernest begged Lisavet to leave with him.

Amelia held her breath as the memory ended, waiting to see what the outcome of this decision would be. But the next image to fade into view was not one of her uncle’s memories, but someone else’s entirely.

“Wait. That can’t be all of it,” Anton said abruptly, making Amelia jump. She’d been so engrossed in what was happening that she had almost forgotten he was there.

“Maybe there’s more later?” Amelia asked. “Or maybe it’s…”

She fell silent, the blood draining from her face.

“ Koshka? ” Anton asked, reaching out to touch her arm. “What is the matter?”

Amelia raised a hand and pointed to a person within the memory they’d just entered. A young woman with hair as red as her own, sobbing on a hospital bed, head buried in her hands.

“T-that’s my mother,” she said in a barely audible voice. The mother who had neglected her. The mother who had abandoned her. She took a frantic step back, as though to distance herself from the memory. “I can’t watch this,” she said.

She knew what would be here in these memories.

But then she saw the baby in the cradle by the bed.

The nurses lingering by the door with their mournful expressions.

Amelia’s lips trembled as she came forward to get a better look at the baby.

Its face and lips were blue. Its body limp and motionless. Void of life.

“W-what?” she stammered. She took a horrified step back. “That isn’t possible. I don’t understand.”

She heard Anton say her name, his voice hazy and distant.

Her knees started to shake, and she felt Anton grab hold of her arm before all of a sudden the world around them screeched to a halt.

Everything froze as the memory stood still.

Anton let out a shout of surprise. Amelia drew in a gasp and the memory around them shifted again before jolting back into motion.

Only things had changed. There was no more baby beside the bed, and the woman was asleep.

The nurses had gone, and everything was quiet.

“What just happened?” Anton asked, still holding on to her arm.

The door behind them opened and they turned in unison to see someone walking into the room. Lisavet Levy, dressed in a nurse’s uniform, holding a baby in her arms.

Amelia let out a gasp as she drew closer, allowing them a better look at her face. “Oh my god,” she murmured.

“What is it?” Anton asked, his voice a whisper.

“I think that’s…” She broke off and looked closer, wanting to be certain that the person she was looking at was in fact who she thought it was. Lisavet Levy, the girl who had sparked the rebellion, looked an awful lot like Moira Donnelly.

“I see you’ve figured it out,” a voice said.

They turned a second time to see the spectral form of Azrael standing with them in the memory.

“Who are you?” Anton asked sharply.

Amelia ignored him. “Figured what out?”

“You’re moving yourself through two versions of the same memory. One that was altered from what it once was into something different.”

Anton made a sputtering sound. “Wait… you know him?” he asked, looking at Amelia.

“Well… sort of. He just kind of keeps showing up.”

Azrael smiled wryly. “The memories of the dead only hold half of the story. If you want to know everything, you’re going to have to walk through the memories of the living.”

Anton scoffed at him. “Memories of the living? That is impossible.”

“For you maybe,” Azrael said calmly. “But not for her.”

“I can’t do that,” Amelia said, shaking her head.

“Just as you can’t travel along your own timeline?” he said pointedly. “Just as you can’t stop Time in its tracks?”

Amelia’s pulse quickened.

“It’s called temporal displacement. Leaping from one memory to the next. Traveling through the folds of Time as if they are no obstacle to you.”

“Temporal displacement… Moira said that to me once before,” Amelia said, remembering.

“Ahhh, yes. Lisavet was always clever like that.”

Anton looked between them, his eyes wide with confusion. “What is he talking about?”

“The child born outside of Time does not face the same constraints as the rest of us,” Azrael continued.

“Born outside of Time?” Amelia repeated.

Azrael gestured to the child Lisavet carried in her arms. “Perhaps it’s best if you see it firsthand. Through memories.”

Amelia stared at his hand, contemplating. “Whose memories?” she asked.

Azrael smiled. “Hers,” he said, nodding at Lisavet. “There are living memories in the time space, too, if you recall. Most cannot reach them. But you can, if you try.”

Almost at once, the whispering sound Amelia had heard before started up again, coming from Lisavet herself. She frowned, looking back at Azrael.

“But… how do I…”

“Just listen and Time will do the rest,” he said reassuringly.

Amelia cast an imploring look at Anton, to which he only nodded, offering her his hand once again. The whispers became louder. She shut her eyes, letting the sound travel down the length of her spine until the memories began to take shape.

And then it all unfolded before them.