Free Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel by Devon Monk Page B

for that,” I said. “Not really. I think . . . yes. I do. But I don’t think we’ll have time to really find out. You know?” I offered a smile, but couldn’t hold it for very long.
    He squeezed my shoulder once, then let go. “Whatever time you have, take it, Tilly. Love doesn’t last. Not for people like us.”
    He meant House Brown, I supposed. Unclaimed, off radar, and on the run. Or maybe he meant just usCases—people who broke rules, defied authority, and messed with time itself.
    “People like you and Gloria?” I asked.
    He was quiet, his gaze caught on the ragged edge of a painful memory.
    “Yes,” he finally said in a whisper. “People like Gloria and me.”
    His eyes ticked down to me and made me regret bringing up the subject.
    “Isn’t there a way you can apologize to her?” I asked. “Make it up to her? Tell her how you feel?” I didn’t even know what had happened between them, but I hated seeing my brother like this.
    “I have done what I can. We’ve said what can be said. Now I’m going to catch what little time there is left. For sleep,” he said.
    He turned and started across the room toward the hall.
    “Don’t leave her,” I said.
    He stopped but didn’t look back at me, didn’t turn.
    “If you love her, then take whatever time you have. Good times, bad times. Live it with her. You’ve left her behind before. For years, Quinten, but I see how she looks at you. I’ve seen what she feels for you in her eyes. And if I don’t make it”—his shoulders tensed at that, but I powered on—“if I die, I don’t want you to go through your life without happiness, without love.”
    He still wasn’t moving. I thought for sure he’d say something. When he didn’t, I said, “Time won’t ever be on your side, Quinten. Don’t let it slip away.”
    “It isn’t on anyone’s side, Matilda. What I had with her . . . what I could have had . . .” He inhaled and held itlike he was sorting through the possibilities of unattainable tomorrows. “That’s gone.” Then he walked out of the room.
    I’d never seen my brother give up fighting for something he wanted before. He was so determined to save my life that he was willing to go through with a half-cooked plan to travel back in time for me.
    But for himself, for Gloria and whatever they had once been and might still be, he was just letting it all go.
    I rubbed at my face with both hands. “I will never understand people,” I said into my palms. “If you love someone, if you want to be with them, if they make your life better, and you want to make their lives better, then you stand up and do what must be done to get on with it.”
    I pulled my hands away and studied Abraham in the low light. Still asleep, or what appeared to be sleep. Pale and bruised. I didn’t know the details of how he had gotten shot, but from the short time I’d known him, I figured he’d done something stupid and loyal and noble.
    “That’s a surefire way to get a target on your head,” I said, leaning one arm on the side of the bed, careful to keep it outside the blanket and out of danger of touching him. “Did you stand up for your friend Robert Twelfth? Or did you just get in the way of some stupid revenge between Houses?”
    Abraham, being unconscious, didn’t say anything.
    “Who shot you?”
    I sat there in the silence while my thoughts chased questions with no answers, then finally crossed my arms and closed my eyes. It would be dawn soon, and we’d have to be moving on before the Houses tracked us down.
    But I had decided if it was the last thing I did, Quinten was going to survive this. He was going to live a life, a long life, without worrying about his little sister anymore.
    I just wasn’t sure how I was going to make that happen yet.

8
    Do you remember me? I still remember you. You changed my life. You gave me life.
    —from the diary of E. N. D.
    A braham grunted, the deep, painful sound of waking up hurting.
    I opened my