The very first thing I did, besides stupidly blurt the woman’s name, was send my ghosts to warn Percy to stay back. I really had no idea how it would go if Gaia saw her, but things were complicated enough already without adding that into the mix. I didn’t know enough about the woman back in this time to guess how she would react. To that or to any of this, really. I knew she had been Morgan le Fey at one point, but that was long before this. And yet, from what Avalon had said, Gaia/Morgan had done her own bit of time traveling to get from her early Arthurian days to several centuries later. How long had it been since she made that jump? Was the Gaia I was talking to only a few years out from having been Camelot’s nemesis? Or a few decades, or–fuck, what if she hadn’t chosen the name Gaia yet?! What if I had just called her Gaia and she wasn’t even using that name?

I really needed to learn more about Gaia’s past. But hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that. I couldn’t exactly ask her to wait a minute, go find Ehn, tell him to tell my past self everything he could about all that before coming here, then come back and absorb the knowledge that my past self would look up. I mean…

No. No, that wouldn’t work.

For a long moment, Gaia just looked me up and down, clearly assessing. She didn’t say anything at first. Which was fine as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t quite ready to try to speak anyway. I was too busy reeling from seeing her out of nowhere like that. Especially after she had been locked for so long in the present. In my present that was. She had been out of our lives for almost a year. Hell, considering I had been in this time period for a couple months now, it might’ve been a full year for me. Either way, it had been a while. And now she was right there. I wanted to hug her. God how badly I wanted to throw myself that way, embrace the woman as tightly as possible, and tell her everything. I wanted to warn her about what was going to happen the night the Committee came and arrested her so she could be ready. I want to tell her all of it.

But I couldn’t, of course. Yes, it might help change things. But if she was prepared and managed to stop that from happening, what if that would mean we never killed Fossor? A lot of those events could be dependent on Gaia not being there. What if it meant I never got this extra Necromancer power on top of the one I already had from Manakel? That wouldn’t just be bad for me, but also bad for all the people I had helped. It would be bad for the whole plan to stop the Fomorians–hell, it would be bad for my ability to actually stop Maestro in this time period. And that was just one change. No, as painful as it was, I couldn’t tell her any of that. It was too risky. I couldn’t even tell her–

“You’re from the future.” Gaia’s voice was crisp and definitive. There was no hesitation or uncertainty there. She was simply stating a fact. “Quite a long way in the future as well, if my guess is correct.” I started to say something, but she stopped me. “No. Don’t speak just yet. You are from the future, and you are also in disguise. Probably because you didn’t want me to recognize you and realize who you are the first time we meet in your timeline. That’s good. Don’t change back.” Her gaze meant mine intently. “Do not allow me to see what you truly look like, and don’t give me your real name. First, did you attempt to come back here to warn me about something that will happen in the future? If you did, I must ask you not to. The potential damage to the timeline is too great, no matter how much you believe you are helping. Unless you are undoing a change another time-traveler instigated–”

“No, no.” I quickly insisted, shaking my head. “Trust me, already been through that and I really don’t need a repeat performance. I–” Oh God, what was I supposed to say now? Gaia had already guessed that I was from the future. She said it with such authority that it would be dumb with me to try to deny it. And she didn’t want to try to get answers about what was going to happen. In fact, it was the opposite, she had ordered me not to tell her. So was acknowledging the part she had already figured out okay, or would that end up changing things too much as well? She was so confident about it, I was pretty sure I could possibly do more damage than she was right. I just had to be careful about what exactly I said. I couldn’t even give away exactly how far in the future I was from.

So, after taking a deep breath, and still trying to adjust to the fact that I was in a male body at the moment, I spoke carefully. “Yes, you are right. I mean, about me being from the future.” As soon as I said that, I stopped and let my gaze snap around from one side of the cave to the other, tensing up. It might’ve looked silly, me looking around the cave as though that would tell me if the sky had started falling as the timeline imploded. But I was also looking through my ghosts who were still outside, as they scanned the wilderness as well. Obviously, they didn’t see anything either. That wasn’t how changes to the timeline worked, as far as I knew. We wouldn’t find out immediately. But still, the fact that everything seemed as calm as ever made me relax at least a little bit. I was in this for the long-haul now. I’d confirmed that Gaia was right about the time travel thing.

Finally, I continued. “But no, I didn’t come back to warn you about anything, or to change anything like that. I mean, I did change something, but it was to fix a thing that someone else came back and changed, like you said. It–that part’s done now.”

Once again, Gaia didn’t even hesitate. “That rush of magical power that everyone felt a couple months ago. That was you. Which means you are… quite strong.” She took a breath, frowning thoughtfully. “Whatever you came back to stop, it would have done a lot of damage, wouldn’t it?”

We were definitely in dangerous territory about how much I could say. Did she even know about the Fomorians at this point, or how dangerous they were? If I told her anything now, she might be more prepared when they did invade. Which would be good in the short term, but if it changed things–fuck, this was hard. I hesitated before giving a single short nod. “Yes. It would have destroyed everything. But it’s–it’s okay now. We stopped it.” Only after saying all that did I wince a bit. I had said we, so she at least knew it was more than one person.

Okay, I was definitely being too sensitive and nervous about this. Gaia knowing there was more than one person who had time traveled to come back here wasn’t going to completely change things any more than her knowing there was one person. I had to calm down and keep myself together. So, I forced myself to keep talking. I could safely give her at least a little bit more of an explanation. “I’m here in this time right now because I’m training to get stronger. It’s–it’s a long story and I can’t even start to get into it, for obvious reasons, and some that aren’t so obvious. The point is, I can’t say anything else except that I’m not trying to change the timeline at all. I’m here in the middle of nowhere just trying to get all the practice in while I can. Things… things are busy in the future. I needed peace and quiet to train.” There, that was probably about as much as I could say as far as that went. Just telling Gaia that things were busy in the future wouldn’t be too much. It wasn’t as though things were all naps and frollicking in meadows through the rest of the timeline. That wouldn’t give away too much.

Raising a hand to indicate the small cave we were in, Gaia calmly asked, “And what were you doing in here? This communication magic… I don’t think you were the person who put it together. Nor were your curious companions who are waiting outside.”

Yeah, I should have known that she would realize Percy and Cerberus were out there. The question of how much she knew about them remained, but still. I hesitated just a bit before shaking my head. “You’re right, we didn’t. The town I’m staying in, they know a lot about me. Not everything, but they know I have power. The man who was out here was arranging a surprise for his wife.” I explained what was going on, and why I was here. The whole time, I watched her expression. One of the many things I didn’t know about Gaia in this time was how she felt about non-humans. I had very carefully avoided saying that this guy wasn’t human, as well as the fact that most of the town in question wasn’t either. But if she pushed it–if she tried to attack the town because of– fuck, was I going to have to fight Gaia? No, no, not gonna happen. Gaia would listen to reason, right? Except that would potentially be changing history too. And what if–

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Did you kill him?” I found myself blurting that question without even thinking about it, as soon as the horrifying possibility popped into my head. Oh God, if I had come out here to help the poor guy and it turned out my own former headmistress had slaughtered him because she didn’t yet understand or believe that Alters weren’t all evil, what was I going to do? What could I do? I couldn’t exactly fight her, whatever wild and horrible thoughts kept dancing through my head. I didn’t even know if she was a part of Crossroads yet, but I did know she was far too strong for me, even with my Necromancy. And even if I could fight her, I wouldn’t. Between the danger to the timeline, and the fact that it was Gaia, I couldn’t.

There was no answer at first. While my brain was racing a million miles a second trying to figure out what I could do if this came down to violence, Gaia simply watched me curiously. Then she inclined her head. “I did not harm him. Though from the tone of your voice and what you’ve said, you are aware that he is not a human. Yet you wish to protect him. You also seem to believe that my killing him would be within the realm of possibility. I hope that the version of myself who exists in whatever time you happen to be from would not be the type to do such a thing without… cause.”

Before I could say anything, she continued. “On the other hand, you also seem appalled by the possibility, so I’m going to assume that while it is culturally acceptable to do that sort of thing in whatever society has been put together, you are accustomed to me not doing so. But you were afraid that, this far in the past, I might have been sufficiently different that I would.”

Okay, how was I supposed to react to that? What could I say or do when she put so much together that easily? I was starting to wonder if Gaia had known exactly who I was from the very moment she first met me. Had she known, despite my current rather efficient disguise, that I was the person she had met several hundred years earlier? She had to have been on the lookout for her time-traveling stranger from now until then, right? Oh, what if she thought I was my mother, or another descendent? There were plenty of options, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that she had known the whole time I was at her school. When we got her back, the next time I saw her in the present, I was going to have to ask her about this.

While I was processing all that, Gaia continued. “Don’t confirm or deny anything, I’m going to stop guessing now, I promise. It’s just… very interesting.” She looked wistful for a moment, like she wished she could ask other things, but shook that off. “Yes, interesting indeed. But for now, I will settle for accepting that you know me as a person who should not have killed the man who was here. That is good enough for me. Though I do need to be able to refer to you as something.”

My mind raced. I couldn’t do the cute thing and tell her to call me by any name from my own life, like Lincoln or Sean. That was too risky. Instead, I chose a name at random. “You can call me Jacob.”

“Jacob then,” Gaia acknowledged. “Quite interesting to meet you, Jacob. And yet, if I have not harmed the man from this cave, and you certainly have not… where could he be?”

Oh right, there was still something very important I had to deal with besides talking to Gaia from the past. Shaking off my confusion and uncertainty, I looked around. “You mean you haven’t seen him? Wait, why are you even here?” That was a pretty big thing too. If she hadn’t been in this cave because she was attacking Millersby, and I believed her when she said she hadn’t, then what brought her here?

Gaia gestured toward the symbols on the wall. “I was simply passing by, a few hundred miles north, when I sensed… something.” She paused, clearly taking her own time to figure out how much to say. “My true gift revolves around the manipulation of technology. I’m sure you’re aware of that if you know me so well.” Even as she said that, however, her gaze seemed to pierce through me, trying to determine if I actually did know her that well. Still, she pushed on when I didn’t respond. “I am accustomed to sensing some bits of that technology here and there. But what I sensed in this area was… much stronger than anything I’ve felt before. It was on the edge of my awareness, yet the power in it… I believe it was an intact stars-vessel making a trip to this spot. Unfortunately, it took me several days to locate this specific cave after coming to this area. I was afraid the trail would have completely disappeared. Then you arrived.”

A spaceship, I realized belatedly, staring at the woman. She had sensed a spaceship coming down to this area right where Millersby had been. He was here, using this magical communication and they came down to– “Hang on, are you telling me the guy was abducted by aliens?!” That was–it was just so–seriously? Millersby was technically an alien anyway, so he was an alien who was abducted by other aliens. That was… a lot. I genuinely had no idea how to react. Of all the things I had expected to find when I came out here to investigate his disappearance, ‘Gaia Sinclaire tells me he was abducted by aliens in a UFO’ was absolutely nowhere near the list.

Finally, I exhaled. “I have to figure out who they were, and why they took him. I have to make sure he’s okay, that–that they don’t hurt him.”

“Is that a good idea?” Gaia’s voice was as calm and careful as ever, though tinted with the compassion I knew her for. “Yes, wanting to help is quite admirable. And yet, if you are not from this time, interfering could cause more damage than it helps.”

She had a point, obviously. Still, I shook my head. “Uh, it’s okay, I have a sort of system in mind to make sure I don’t do too much damage to the timeline.”

A faint smile came to the woman’s face then, and I felt a sharp pang. I really had missed her over the past year. Oh God, if only Avalon was here. It was far from the first time I had wished both of my girls were with me, but still. This one was particularly hard. I knew how much Valley wanted to get Gaia back.

But on the other hand, it probably would’ve been even harder for her to avoid telling Gaia too much. Or reacting in a way that the other woman would have guessed more than she should. It was probably for the best that she wasn’t here right now, no matter how much I wished she was.

All that was passing through my mind while Gaia spoke up. “My assumption would be that you have promised yourself that if anything terrible does arise from your interference, that a future version of yourself will send some sort of strong message back in time to prevent you from doing it.”

My head bobbed. “Yeah, that’s right. It’s part of the time travel philosophy espoused by the temporal professors William Preston and Theodore Logan.” Yeah, okay, I couldn’t help myself. I had to get at least some amusement out of this whole thing. Besides, Dad loved those movies. It was the whole reason I knew anything about them.

Gaia raised an eyebrow, clearly curious about that. But instead of asking, she just replied, “Well, until you get such a warning message, perhaps we should investigate. I would have found this location whether you were here or not, so my own investigation shouldn’t change too much of the timeline, hmm?”

That made sense. “Sure, yeah, I’ll just… uhh, help. Um, you know I have a couple friends outside. They aren’t exactly… I mean–they have to keep details about themselves secret. But they could help if we run into trouble.”

“By all means,” Gaia agreed with a gesture, “invite them in. Though I’m afraid your larger friend won’t fit in this cave.”

Right, technology. She sensed technology and controlled it. Of course she knew everything about Cerberus. And she was right, he wouldn’t fit in here. Still, I sent a ghost to tell Percy it was okay to enter, but that she had to keep everything about herself, especially the whole Seosten thing, a secret. Gaia hadn’t known about the Seosten until last year. I couldn’t change that.

I had come out here to look for a missing guy for his wife. And now… now I was going to be searching for an alien spaceship alongside a past version of Gaia Sinclaire.

One thing was for sure, whatever happened next, Ehn’s plan to put me through some training was definitely going well.