CHAPTER 53: HIDDEN TIME

  There is an old saying: time is a stew with a thousand secret ingredients, simmering for so long that you forget they were ever added in the first place. One cannot dissect a stew into its disparate parts just as one cannot understand the consequences of time from a present perspective. And so, for the sake of our story, let us wind back time for a spell.

  It was three evenings before the final round of The Emerald Cup, and The Sapphire Spirit and its unlikely crew had just survived the race’s second round, meaning they would compete for its highest honor and most lucrative prize. Even still, something was nagging at Elias.

  A few nights earlier at The Thirsty Eagle, Briley had informed them of the source of that nagging feeling. She let them know they now had only twenty-four hours to reach Hamford once finishing the race, assuming they won. That assumption was the problem. If victory was assured, if the money was already theirs, they could have simply asked for an extension. From Grayson’s perspective, until the moment they won their race, his preferred buyer was about as likely to come through as a sunny day in winter (the Broken Isles had a reputation for cloudy weather). Luckily for him, he had another offer. Unluckily for The Two Worlds Trading Company, that offer came with a deadline.

  And so there stood Elias, uninvited before Jalander’s arched white door. He glanced over at the subtle silver plaque to his right and held up his ring for a side-by-side comparison, contrasting this serpent moon with his dented one—the ring that Jalander had given his father after the Five Great Schools had been disbanded. Had Sylas Emerand worn it as a memento to the past or as a call to arms for a future he failed to realize? Either way, it had boomeranged its way back to the Southlander who had gifted it.

  Elias knocked two steady knocks.

  “What is it now?” Jalander greeted him, peering over the younger man’s shoulder, though Elias had never seen anyone else traverse the perilous cliffside alley, tucked away as it was. He imagined its inaccessibility was the reason the Serpent Moon School had set itself up here all those years ago. “Get inside,” Jalander told him.

  “Nice to see you too.” Elias stepped into the former headquarters, now a charmingly disheveled apartment. It looked like Jalander had just started a fire. The evening had cooled, but Elias recalled that it had been far colder the first time he had sought refuge here. Jalander’s fireplace had warmed him back then, though nothing had burned hotter than the questions he’d brought with him. In that regard, little had changed.

  Jalander poured tea and beckoned him to get on with it.

  “I need a favor,” Elias said.

  “Of course you do,” Jalander replied.

  Not wasting any time—for time is also valuable—Elias went on to explain their present predicament: the tentative deal they had struck with Briley’s old friend to buy a paper mill, the unexpected deadline dropped on them a few days earlier, and now their plan to race to the Broken Isles—assuming they won their cash prize—in under twenty-four hours.

  “Impossible,” Jalander said. “Sorry, lad. You won’t make it.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Elias retorted. “You know that better than anyone.”

  Jalander’s sigh was so long and steady that Elias mistook it for the tea kettle. “I hope you’re not asking what I think you’re asking.”

  “If you could help deliver a message to the Broken Isles—assuming we win—letting them know we’re on our way with the money, it would give us a chance.”

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  “No.”

  “Then come with us.”

  “What?”

  “You’re an ascendant collector,” Elias clarified. “You have the sight. Hell, you live in the old Serpent Moon School headquarters. You can navigate sky rifts.”

  “It’s not my forte.”

  “But you can.”

  “I’m not helping you,” Jalander said flatly.

  Elias was running out of rebuttals. “Please?”

  “Have some tea. It will help with the disappointment.”

  “I will never ask for anything else again, I swear.”

  “Hah.” Jalander said it like a word as he handed Elias tea and sat down across from him, blowing steam off his own brimming mug. “I told you to keep a low profile. Obviously, you haven’t taken my advice to heart. But entering a race is one thing. Crossing the Great Continent with impossible speed: now that can attract the wrong kind of attention. You may think yourself subtle, but the timing of The Emerald Cup is well known. Maybe someone does the math, realizes what you’ve done, and mentions it to someone else. Maybe the story catches the ear of a Valshynarian spy, for they are more pervasive than you think. It only takes one small slipup.”

  “I’ll be careful.” It was not the first time Elias had offered Jalander this assurance.

  “Says the man balancing a barrel of beer on a tightrope,” the elder collector shot back. “Some things are inherently reckless, and no amount of being careful can make them otherwise.”

  They had reached an impasse, Elias quietly conceded, but was it also a dead end for him, or could he take matters into his own hands? He knew no other method of defying the limits of time, limits that were adhered to unquestionably by normal men, men not named Elias Vice.

  “There are many things you can do with fifty thousand relics in the Rise,” Jalander said. “Utilize that creativity of yours. You needn’t be so single-minded, lest your fortress fall like a house of cards.”

  * * *

  The two collectors parted ways shortly after Jalander made his position clear in no uncertain terms. He had unspecified business to attend to. It was always unspecified business with Jalander, for he had built a formidable wall of secrecy between his professional duties as a reluctant but vaguely loyal Valshynarian and his relationship with Elias. Neither half could know about the other: that seemed to be the mortar of his masonry, though perhaps his fortress also had a few cards propping up the foundation.

  For example, the window that Elias had unlocked while Jalander was busy cleaning mugs in the kitchen. It should be said that Elias really, truly did not want it to come to this. He hadn’t been certain he could even go through with his plan B (or whatever godforsaken letter he was on now), but the alternative was going through with failure—and besides, he reasoned, no one would ever find out.

  Jalander would return later that evening, though Elias had no idea when. He decided somewhat arbitrarily that he could take an hour and that anything longer would be too risky. After sneaking through the window unseen—an easy task given that no one else ever wandered down the hidden alley—he dashed over to the large scroll rolled up behind Jalander’s desk, having already eyed its location earlier that evening. For a brief moment, he imagined himself an adventurer stumbling upon lost treasure, but nineteen was too old for childish thoughts, and there was nothing innocent about the deed he was about to commit.

  He flattened the map and searched for answers in its constellations—more specifically, a sky rift that would shorten the travel time between Sailor’s Rise and the Broken Isles. He followed the same line thrice to ensure he had found the one. It would cut their journey in half, assuming everything went smoothly inside the sky rift. It was a big assumption.

  But Elias had not a moment to spare for second thoughts. He retrieved his own blank scroll, tucked into his belt under the veil of his navy coat, and unrolled it beside Jalander’s priceless artifact: a map that unlocked the world. The map was one key. The other, Elias would have to discover inside himself.

  He sketched reference points first, as many as he needed to ensure he would not mistake one mountain for another, before dotting his forgery with the two sky rifts he required, connecting them with a thin pencil line. Elias also noticed a shortcut to Azir. He might never have another opportunity like this, he told himself, and he had given himself an hour. It was all one sin, besides, but the benefits could be numerous. And so he mapped his entire business: routes to Azir, the United North, countries he had not even visited with connections to Sailor’s Rise. He mapped everything he could, finally stopping after an hour. Time was one line he wouldn’t cross, at least not yet.

  Elias rolled up his scroll, slipped through the window—closing it quietly behind him—and made himself anonymous as he departed the alley like some lost tourist. Jalander had not caught him, and Elias had covered his tracks carefully, but the Southlander’s warning still trailed the not-so-young man all the way home: “Some things are inherently reckless, and no amount of being careful can make them otherwise.”