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“How do you feel about bacon?” She pulled a strand of dark hair around her finger, twisting and untwisting.
“Passionate.” I followed her down the stairs.
“I knew you had good taste. Speaking of passions, you never told me how you got interested in the Infinityglass in the first place.”
I followed her into the kitchen.
“My dad. In the bedtime stories he told me, the Infinityglass was shaped like an hourglass, and the sands inside were powerful. They could reverse time, stop it, speed it up. It could transfer abilities between people who had a time-related gift. It had unknown magic that could be used to cure all the world’s ills.”
She turned away from me and opened the bread box. “The perfect fantasy story.”
“I know how goofy that sounds, especially now that I’ve met you. Unless you’re full of sand.”
“I’m full of something, but it ain’t sand.”
She was joking, but the set of her shoulders told me that something I’d said bothered her. “The stories are a good memory of my dad. I always imagined going on an adventure with him to find the Infinityglass, kind of the way people chased the Holy Grail.”
She popped four pieces of bread in the toaster and said, “I fart in your general direction.”
“What?”
“Monty Python. Holy Grail. ‘I fart in your general direction.’ You need an education, big boy.”
“I know Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The girl continued to impress while simultaneously throwing me off my game. “I just can’t believe you know it.”
“I never leave my house, remember? Movies—good movies—are my friends.” She took jelly out of the fridge and honey from the cupboard, put the jars on the table, and leaned against the edge. “I have to apologize. We’re out of bacon.”
“You don’t have to make me breakfast,” I said.
“Sure I do. My humanity stole your quest potential. I feel like I owe you.”
“The quest just looks different than I thought it would.” A lot different. “It’s more complicated than I expected it to be.”
“It sure is.” She stared at me for a long time.
I stared back.
The toast popped up and we both jumped.
“I’m sorry I’ve put it off for so long. So you’ll understand my head space: loyalty is an issue.” Hallie buttered the toast before offering me two pieces.
I took the bread. “I don’t blame you, and I’d feel the same in your situation. But if we approach this logically, you have to tell me what you do know, or I can’t help you discover the things you don’t know.”
“And vice versa.” Hallie sat down with her toast and got busy tearing off the crusts, focusing on them instead of me. “Let’s start with basics. Do you know what Chronos does?”
“What the world thinks it does, or what it really does?” I asked.
“The world doesn’t know about Chronos.”
“Mine does.”
“The Hourglass?”
I nodded. “For a long time, we just referred to Chronos as The Powers That Be. We thought you were like … an absentee-landlord governing body. According to Liam, that’s what Chronos used to be. Protectors of time. He left when your mom took over, and I guess things changed a lot after that.”
“They changed even more when Dad got involved. He didn’t think she was making the most of her resources. I can promise governing was the last thing on his mind. Even less so now.”
“What is?” I flipped open the top of the honey to pour some on my toast and waited for her to continue.
