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“Trust? I don’t think you, of all people, have the right to expect that from me, Buffalo.”

They stared at each other, acknowledging the impasse. The argument wasn’t about the mission anymore and they both knew it. This was old baggage resurfacing at the worst moment possible. The lost and found damage of their past. But now that the floodgates were open, Amrita couldn’t seem to shut them.

“You stayed with Larkspur Lathrop even after you knew she made herself look like me to trick you,” Amrita said. “You knew what she did. And yet you stayed with her. My best friend and my boyfriend. You both betrayed me.”

“Larkspur was pregnant.” Buffalo’s voice was steady, controlled.

“I’m well aware,” Amrita replied.

“I’m not going to apologize for doing the right thing.”

“I know,” Amrita said. “I’m not asking you to apologize for that. I’m asking you to consider why it’s difficult for me to trust you now. And consider too that you had a choice to make, but I did not. I could only watch. I had to build something, afterward, from the wreckage of a situation I did not create. I built my life well, and I built it alone, and that was hard, Buffalo. My career is not a frivolous diversion, or an afterthought like you seem to think.”

“I do not think of your role at the Society like that!” Buffalo argued.

“Then why are you’re standing in front of me in ancient Alexandria asking me to drop my mission so we can chill out, maybe take a little jaunt down to see the pyramids… That feels—” She stopped.

“It feels like what?” Buffalo tipped his chin up.

“Like you still don’t understand at all what losing you, and having to rebuild my life again, cost me.”

Buffalo was quiet for a moment, reflecting. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged. “I have no regrets about my daughter. I will never, ever, have regrets about my daughter. But everything else—” He stopped. He started again. “I have been trying to find a way back to you for thirty years, Amrita. I am here. I am standing in front of you in ancient Alexandria just thrilled to be here with you. I want only to spend time together while we can, making as many new memories as we can.” He sighed and shifted the load on his back. “I cleared my entire schedule for a month, and Will can back me up on this; I don’t normally clear my schedule for anything or anyone. What else do you need from me?”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Amrita said. The statement felt both true and wrong at the same time. She didn’t need anything. But she wanted… She wasn’t even sure what it was she wanted from him now. She couldn’t change the past.

Buffalo looked at her for a moment, deciding whether to continue.

“I think,” he said, “that you’re worried something is going to come between us again. And that fear is keeping you from allowing yourself to pursue anything real with me. And I think you’re so busy managing and rationalizing that fear that you can’t be here with me. Even in the past, you’re living in our past.” He tossed his head, frustrated. “I’m not going anywhere, Amrita. I haven’t gone anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere, not without you.”

She did not answer.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you two,” Will said. His face conveyed the awkwardness of the moment, but he pressed on. “But we need to get going. It’s almost sunrise and this place is going to be crawling in another hour. We don’t want to be caught smuggling so many books out and the cloaking spell on the dirigible isn’t set for peak daylight hours.”

“Yes,” Zani said. “You two need to wrap this conversation up now. Please. We’ll give you two more minutes.” She was less patient than Will. “And then we’re out of here. With or without you.”

Amrita looked down at the book she was still clutching.

“What about this? Are we taking it or not?” she asked.

“Your call, Director.” Zani shrugged and turned to give them a moment’s privacy,

Amrita stared down at the smooth, cool blue book. The surface was stormier now, the water churning in an agitated chop. She wasn’t sure if it was responding to her or to the argument she was having.

She lifted the cover to peek at the contents. Inside, on the first page, she glimpsed three tiny skeletal painted figures rendered on a silken, papery material she could not name. There was a message in an ancient language she shouldn’t know. But the translation charm made everything clear.

You’re so busy managing fear that you can’t truly be here.

She thought about what she had not said in reply to that. That she’d always had the vague feeling there was another version of herself, somewhere. A woman who had not sacrificed her life for her career, who had not dedicated the last thirty-seven years to being the most competent, loneliest person in any given room. Somewhere in some alternative timeline, there was a woman who had joyfully lived her life and gone on her own adventures. She had her own story to look back on, not an agency’s story with her name pasted on top of it.

Amrita was almost fifty-eight years old and she had been searching for this other self, this alternative version of herself, for more than half her life. She now understood that she might never meet this other Amrita. She was stuck being the one who kept her best teacups in her office desk drawers, because there was nobody to drink tea with at home.

Amrita closed the book and ran a hand over the lid. The water on the surface moved toward her fingertips, threatening to submerge them. She stared at the water, thinking.

I wish I knew what to wish for.

The knife was pressed to her throat before she heard the footsteps.

“Don’t move.” The voice was low, accented, and without theatrics. She could tell that whoever the man was, he’d issued this threat many times before and didn’t care to make it unnecessarily dramatic. “Nobody moves.”