Page 69 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

Thorne openly preens. “First of all, flattery will get you everywhere. And next, the answer to your bleary query is no.”

“Screw that,” Drue volleys. “Allie needs a break, damn it. Some rest…”

“And, apparently, a few other things,” he quips.

I raise my brows. “More than a few.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Dmitri drawls. “But this has nothing to do with anyone’s lasting power and everything to do with our Allie-rific’s rising—or shall I say shooting—star.”

As his announcement sinks into Alessandra, my heart is halved by her reaction. One side of me beholds her tentative smile of surprise and hope and rejoices with her at once. But the other side…

Plummets.

Already sensing—knowing—that this good news for her will be the hammer to my dwindling hourglass.

“What?” Raegan finally prompts. “Whaaaat, Dmitri?”

Even Drue’s face is animated. “It’s Hemline, isn’t it? It’s totally Hemline. Look at his face.”

“Are you shitting us?” Raegan splits the air with a shrill yelp. “Okay, if you are shitting us right now, Dmitri T, speak or forever hold your peace. But if you are saying the world’s hottest fashion network has finally looked at this girl’s audition reel, and—”

“Decided that they want to talk concepts about a show of her own?” Dmitri wields the paper in his hand like a courtesan flicking a fan. “All right. I won’t say that. But I’d be withholding the truth.”

At once, the two women rush Alessandra with tears and shrieks. I look on, my heart still split open like a melon.

Tomorrow.

She is leaving tomorrow.

If they respond positively, it could mean a reporter job—and in a few years, maybe my own show.

Because her dream is calling.

And now we have run out of time.

I have run out of time.

Bizarrely, the one person who appears to understand is Dmitri himself. When I look up, the man’s flamboyance has vanished. In its place is the face of a friend, ready with silent comfort—and a larger message. The resigned set of his face tells me that all the fancy words and humor aside, he wants exactly the same thing for Alessandra as I do.

For her to have all the beauty.

For her to have all her happiness.

But that is where the similarity between us rolls to a harsh end.

Because he will have the miracle of getting to see her joy and success.

And I will be gone.

Hoping against hope that the Almighty will grant a sliver of mercy on my soul, forgiving me for consenting to a witch’s hex to get here. Perhaps, if God is truly merciful, he will grant me a glimpse of her elation before I am confined to my eternal fate. I still know naught what that will be—into death, back to the Revolutionary mob, or banished to timeless blackness—but I am absolutely certain of only one truth.

The sacrifice will have been worth it.

She will always be worth it.

Chapter Eleven

Allie