Free Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel by Devon Monk

already is?”
    “I’m doing this for you, Matilda,” he said. “Yes, I wish Mom and Dad were still alive, and if there’s any chance that can happen, I’ll take the chance. But if we don’t try to adjust time, to slide through that gap and go back to the origin point of the event, then you
will
die. That isn’t a theory. That is an absolute I have spent years trying to change. And I . . .” He swallowed again, shaking his head, his voice down to a whisper. “I can’t endure that.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I don’t want to die either. So we’re in agreement there. You think if can we get home and trigger something . . . What did you build—a bomb?”
    “Not a bomb. Do you know the timetable in the basement control room?”
    The control room was where we received and sent all transmissions for House Brown, and where we tried to coordinate staying ahead of the other Houses while trying to keep the people who claimed House Brown safe.
    “You never told me what it was. I thought it was some kind of clock.”
    “It is, in some ways. I built it to predict the exact moment when the time event would trigger. Once I knew when the break was going to self-heal, I knew that I’d have to rework the calculations of the original experiment and spot the error our great-grandfather made. It wouldn’t have been difficult if I’d had all the information, but since I never found the journal . . .”
    “I thought you said you pieced together information.”
    He shrugged. “I didn’t find the journal. Just bits of it. So without the journal, this will be a little more difficult.”
    “Holy crap, Quinten. So you’re just winging this? Making best guesses while you’re going to try to alter time? No. Very no. Our grandfather already screwed up time, killed hundreds of people with that experiment, and caused all manner of hell for the thirteen people who survived his meddling. We’re not going to repeat that mistake.”
    “It is not a
guess
.” He sounded offended. “I found bits and pieces of reliable information here and there, stored away in different House histories. Enough to know that other people over the years have tried to track down all the information on this experiment.”
    “Why did Grandma have the information in her journal anyway?” I asked. “How did she get it?”
    He shook his head slowly. “I would love to know the answer to that.”
    I glanced over at Abraham, who still looked more dead than alive.
    “All right. We’re going to alter time. One more time: how?”
    “We get to our basement and trigger the timetable, which should generate enough power to catch themoment time mends. In that moment, a portal through time should open. Then all I need to do is step through.”
    “You? Alone? And you’ll be where exactly?”
    “When, is what you really want to know. 1910. Before the Wings of Mercury experiment is carried out.”
    “And what do you think you can do in 1910?”
    “Find our grandfather and convince him to change his calculations.”
    “Change them to what?”
    He leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m still working on that.”

7
    Quinten and the others talk about me in hushed voices. What I am. How worried they are about hiding me from the others.
    —from the diary of E. N. D.
    I ’d heard a lot of crazy things in my years. I’d seen my fair share more of impossibilities that turned out to be probabilities, and probabilities that went on to become realities. But time travel?
    “You’re going to go back in time,” I said.
    “Don’t say it like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like you don’t believe me.”
    “Well, I’m just trying to understand the details.”
    “Someone was going to break the code on time travel,” he said. “I don’t know why it couldn’t be me.”
    “Sure, you’re smart.” At his scoff, I added, “The most brilliant person I know.”
    He gave me a grin. “Go on.”
    “But you’re going to walk in on what I