Eliana glared at her. “I am still human.”

“Not entirely. Humans cannot do what you can do. Humans cannot do what your mother could do. You are something more than that, and so was she. You know this.”

“You could have come to me,” Eliana insisted. “You could have done to me everything that Corien did, remade me as you saw fit. There was no need to bring me here. Remy would have been spared what he’s gone through. Maybe my father would still be alive.”

“Centuries ago, the city of Âme de la Terre occupied this land. Now, it is Elysium. Corien constructed his palace not far from where the castle of Baingarde once stood.” Ludivine paused. “It is difficult enough for even the most skilled marque to travel through time. To ensure success, I eliminated the need to travel through space as well.”

“Traveling through time.” Eliana swallowed, her throat dry. “You want to send me back, to find my mother. Or to kill her?”

A slight flicker of feeling on Ludivine’s placid face. “Hopefully, it will not come to that. You will come upon your mother in a moment of peace, when her mind is clear and open and her loyalties are still firmly with Celdaria. You will attempt to reason with her, convince her to turn on Corien and kill him. If she attacks, you will fight her until she surrenders or you reach an impasse. Or you will come back, and we will try again. Another day, another moment. We will try until we cannot anymore. We will try until we run out of time.”

“You mean until Corien finds us.”

Ludivine inclined her head.

“And then? Once we’ve run out of time?”

Ludivine paused. “Then you will return to the past a final time, and you will kill her and Corien. You will close the Gate as soon as you can, before any more angels can escape the Deep.” The silence was thunderous. “As I said, hopefully, it will not come to that.”

Eliana’s bile rose. “But if I kill her before I am born, how would any of this work? How could I go back to kill her if I never existed?”

“I have been assured by someone much more intimately familiar with the art of time travel than I am that if the threads are pulled in the correct sequence, if the magic is calibrated precisely, this paradox can be avoided. If you are forced to kill her, if she leaves you no other choice, you will kill her—and thereby yourself, past and present. I sincerely hope it does not come to that. You must not let it come to that.”

Eliana felt nothing at the thought of her own death; she had long ago surpassed such small, narrow fears. But at the mention of time travel, a bubble burst inside her. She could no longer contain the question. Her fingernails dug into the table’s polished wood, leaving tiny gold crescents behind.

“Simon,” she bit out. “Tell me.”

Ludivine lifted her glass of water to her lips. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“No, I won’t. You can sense my questions, and you are no fool. You know what I’m asking.” Tears rose fast, but she was too angry to dash them from her eyes.

Ludivine watched her thoughtfully. “Do you remember when Simon sent you back to Old Celdaria? You attempted to reach Rielle. She fought you, and you were too weak to match her.”

“Of course I remember. How could I not?”

“Corien was there that day, in Rielle’s mind. When you arrived, he skimmed your thoughts.”

Eliana tensed. She would never forget the words. Ah, Eliana. This is not our first time to meet, it seems. How curious.

Ludivine nodded. “The Emperor had touched your mind before, but only distantly and without much success. He knew you existed but could only find your thoughts intermittently, much to his frustration.”

“Because of you?”

“Because of me. But that day, you were far from me, in another time, and that Corien was able to find you, if only for a moment. And he said something else, didn’t he?”

A chill moved slowly down Eliana’s arms as she remembered Corien’s words. What a life you have led. What interesting company you keep.

“I remember,” she said, a mere whisper.

“In that moment, he did not see everything we had worked for, but he saw enough of it,” Ludivine continued. “He saw Simon and knew he was a marque. He knew you loved him but was not sure if he loved you. He knew that you meant to end his Empire before it truly began. He knew enough, and when you returned to your present, it was altered.”

Ludivine leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly weary. “I, of course, saw all of this too. I saw it in Rielle’s mind when she came home that night. But I kept everything I knew from her, and from Audric too. I was a coward then. I was too afraid of what this all might mean, and I didn’t act until it was too late. I could not face the scope of my own failure. So I went into hiding. I watched Rielle kill Audric. I watched the angels invade Âme de la Terre. I watched the world end, frozen in the grip of my own fear. After the invasion, I protected the boy Simon so Corien would not find him. Then I watched Simon summon threads and attempt to travel with you to the kingdom of Borsvall. I told him to hurry. I told him he was strong enough, and he was. But it didn’t matter.”

Ludivine closed her eyes. Her voice became a whisper. “The force of Rielle’s death knocked the threads of space askew and summoned forth threads of time. Volatile and unpredictable. I watched them snatch both you and Simon into darkness, and then I watched as Baingarde collapsed, the mountains around Âme de la Terre crumbled, and everyone living in the city was extinguished. I watched the angels crawl from the ashes. Those who had managed to cling to their stolen human bodies could no longer taste and see and feel as they had only moments before. Their eyes were black, and so were mine. I listened to them howl, Corien loudest of all, for he had lost her.”

A long moment passed. Eliana’s heartbeat pulsed in her temples. “But Simon said that we would be the only ones to notice any changes. Anything that us being in the past would have altered. I thought…” Words tangled in her throat. “I thought that meant…”

“That he would be protected from any changes to the altered future? He was, Eliana. But don’t you see? It was the only way. I made sure that the child Simon was there on the night of your birth. Rielle urged him to take you to safety, and I encouraged him, thinking I would join the two of you later. That I would protect you as I had failed to protect your mother. While the world healed from Rielle’s death, I would raise you and Simon as my own. Then, when you were old enough and strong enough, I would send you both back to the past to save Rielle before she began losing herself to Corien and to the empirium. Of course, Rielle died before Simon could travel, and the shock wave jarred his work. Both of you were thrown forward in time, and I was left alone in a shattered world.”