He had the advantage of taking the animal by surprise, but it didn’t stop my heart from lurching sideways at the sight of its teeth. My hand grasped the locket at my neck, air burning in my lungs as Caesarion raised a sword and drove it straight down through the reptile’s head.

It thrashed and rolled, smacking Caesarion hard with its powerful tail. He flew sideways and went under, but the wound he’d inflicted seemed to confuse or frighten the croc enough that it floated away, ribbons of red trailing over the frothing water in its path. Caesarion righted himself and reached for the tiny child, who clung to his neck as they waded back toward the bank.

I looked down to see that the woman had died, but the girl who had run for help embraced the boy. They both looked up at my True with eyes filled with gratitude and a hero’s worship.

Pride swished through me. Underneath it ran a certainty, a knowledge, that filled me with sorrow, but in the midst of this wonderful day, I couldn’t figure out why.

Chapter Thirteen

“I have to leave, Caesarion,” I whispered over the racket in the inn where we’d stopped for supper.

He turned around in his wooden chair, confusion and something akin to panic tightening his cheeks. “No. It’s late. Where will you go?”

My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, but this time I let the bio-tat have its way with propriety. The pain meds had worn off, and if Caesarion and I had the chance to really be alone again it was going to inflict a horrible headache. Not horrible enough to stop me, but still.

“Would you come outside with me? I need to speak with you privately before I go.”

The request in itself raised eyebrows up and down the table, and the round-faced, too loud innkeeper even shut his trap to stare. Caesarion’s guards kept their gazes averted, perhaps grown accustomed to the strange rhythm of our relationship, perhaps just accustomed to Pharaoh doing what he liked.

The largest guard radiated distrust and anger. He did not like me here, and if it mattered in the grand scheme of things, he would have scared me. Maybe he should frighten me more—there were no rules, physical or otherwise, that prevented a Historian from dying within the past. I was fully here, and vulnerable. At the mercy of this world, not mine.

I cast the burly man a wary glance while Caesarion unfolded his lanky frame from the short table. He gave his manservant a small shake of the head before taking my hand and pulling me outside. I didn’t stop on the other side of the door, but took the lead, tugging him into the sagging barn to the left of the main building.

A few lanterns lit the interior of the rickety wooden building. It smelled of animals and hay, of spicy earth and manure. Between the lanterns, the last beams of setting sun pierced the cracks in the ancient wood, combining with the warmth spilling through my body and casting the whole moment in a surreal glow.

“Why must you leave, Kaia? We don’t have long. I had hoped we would spend these days together. I promise to behave.” His voice was soft, coaxing.

In another lifetime, another past or present or future, I would have done anything he’d asked. And I wouldn’t have wanted him to behave.

“Do you think I’m insane? Not right?” I tapped my head, unsure if the translation came through correctly when a Greek word that wouldn’t quite fit into English fell from my lips.

He frowned and reached out, setting his hands on my hips. His long fingers wound around my back, pressing lightly through the thin fabric and weakening my knees. This molecular compatibility thing wreaked havoc on my basic motor function. And with keeping down dinner.

“I do not know what to think of you, Kaia. You are clearly something different. The things you say, they do not seem possible. And yet …”

“And yet?” I pressed.

“And yet they feel not only possible, but true. If a man cannot trust one’s heart, then what can he trust?”

My chest filled with happiness and I grinned up at him, struggling to breathe. “Your heart says you can trust me?”

“My heart seems to know you, even if I do not. Yet.”

I nodded, pulling back a little to try to clear my head. Nerves trembled in my hands and I closed a fist around my ancient locket, determined to draw on my family’s courage.

A deep breath steadied me. We weren’t supposed to speak to people in the past, never mind tell them about the future. Caesarion was different, though. He not only accepted the inevitability of his death, but understood that things happened the way they were meant to. My lifelong loyalty to the Historians warred with my instinctual faith in this ancient king. I knew that I should stop, let him go on believing I was an oracle—something he understood.

But he trusted me. I wanted to show him that I trusted him, too.

Not to mention, I had to disappear in a minute. There wasn’t a way to explain that he would understand, and the last thing I needed was him freaking out and telling everyone in ancient Egypt about flighty, disappearing girls who wore black pants under their dresses.

A deep breath didn’t help, but three more started to work. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “I’m not an oracle. I know what’s going to happen because I’m not from a distant land, Caesarion, I’m from a distant time.”

Pain slammed into my brain in a fruitless effort to snatch back words already spoken. I tried to keep the effects of it from my face, making a mental note to bring more painkillers next time.

Breath caught in my chest. Would there be a next time?

Caesarion said nothing, just stared at me, looking a little dumbfounded. I tried to step away, assuming he had changed his mind about my craziness, but his fingers tightened on my waist.

“A moment, please, Kaia. You do not need to run. I need … a moment, is all.”

“I can’t stay in the past longer than twenty-four hours, and the longer I stay, the bigger chance that I will be missed.”

“You are not supposed to be here with me?” he asked after another lengthy pause. The expression in his eyes conveyed the curiosity I had grown used to, along with a befuddled confusion and the tiniest sprinkle of disbelief.

“No.” A hysterical giggle escaped. “Definitely not. And I’m not supposed to be touching you or talking to you at all, never mind telling you who I really am.”

“Why, then?”

“I told you the truth before—we’re supposed to be together. I wanted to know you.”

He pulled me toward him almost unconsciously, sinewy arms gathering me close until only the smallest sliver of light could wriggle between our loose clothing. “If what you say is true, and we do not exist in the same time and place, how is it that we are supposed to be together?”

“Our sciences are very advanced. We can predict ultimate compatibility based on a number of genetic factors.” Frustration thickened my tongue. He wouldn’t understand any of those concepts. “Honestly, I’ve never understood it until you told me of your gods earlier today.”

“What do you mean?”

“That our lives are a single breath in an infinite lifetime. Perhaps your time and mine seem aligned to their faraway eyes.”

“But you do not believe in my gods.”

“I believe the universes are infinite, and mysterious, and harbor a great many secrets.”

He pulled me closer still, raising a hand to my jaw. His thumb swept over my lips. Our gazes locked, and everything except the million feelings crashing over me faded away. His hands on my skin. His eyes lighting a fire deep, deep inside me. The sense of perfect rightness cloaking us as surely as the creeping twilight.

That he would die. That I should let him.

The kiss felt different this time. Familiar instead of strange, with both our bodies desperate to touch the other. His lips were soft, like petals falling against my mouth, and it felt as though my body cracked open. As my hands found their way to his chest and slid up his neck, he pressed me flush against him. The moment changed, growing demanding as his tongue slipped against mine for the briefest of moments before he eased back.