Cressida looked weary. “Tell me you’re not surprised that the Anachronauts named a time concept after something in a Cramberleigh episode. Anyway, the more anachronisms filter in, the more Event Space gets — oh, soft, I suppose. Pliable. Spongy. The Anachronauts have connected up the soft spots. They’ve done a lot of work here, at Fenthorp Manor — again, time travellers who are obsessed with Cramberleigh, not a shock. Some of their aisles travel in time and space. Some are just in time. The softest spots of conjunction are usually at ground zero of what created the Event in the first place. This particular house is the squishiest hot spot you can imagine.”
“How do we get back to Basic Time?” asked Oxford abruptly. He really didn’t look well, poor fellow. That was what came from putting your trust in institutions. Oxford had always been a bit too willing to go along with whatever the Founders wanted — a parent pleaser, if ever there was one.
There was a long pause after Oxford asked his question. Monterey didn’t love that long pause.
“We can get back, can’t we?” he pressed.
“I’m still figuring that out,” Cressida admitted. “I hadn’t rescued myself yet when you all crashed in here. I have no idea how you even got here. I had a theory about me, but it doesn’t fit this.” She made a sweeping gesture to encompass them all under the umbrella of ‘this.’
“Cressida,” said Monterey as a thought woke up inside him and started to dress for the occasion. “Are you saying that we can access all the years that have been walled off by Events?”
Lovelace patted him with a paw. “Just catching up, are you, darling?”
“Don’t mind me. Thinking through the ramifications, darling.” His mind was ablaze with the possibilities.
“Technically it’s possible,” said Cressida. “I only know a fraction of the available aisles, though.”
Monterey waved off the details. “Can I finally meet Cleopatra?”
Lovelace groaned loudly. “What has that poor Pharaoh done to deserve your flailing attempts at conversation, Monterey?”
“Easy for you to say, met-her-three-times,” he retorted.
Cressida took the question seriously. “I recommend against it. Cleopatra’s not a fan of travellers these days. She’s met too many Anachronauts.”
“Does this mean I can attend Freddie Mercury’s legendary 1978 Halloween party?” Monterey pressed, getting more excited. “1978 has been an Event forever.”
Cressida looked sceptical. “It wasn’t that great.”
“How dare you.”
“The year, not the party. I haven’t been to the party.”
“What a waste!”
“Monterey,” Lovelace said huffily. “There is more at stake here than ticking items off your precious bucket list.”
“I know,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes at his partner. “But wouldn’t it be a lovely reward for all our hard work?”
“Roll it back a bit,” Oxford said in one of his stuffier tones of voice. “The Anachronauts are here, in this house, right now? How many are we talking about?”
“Filling the dining room as we speak,” Cressida sighed. “It’s their Annual Festive Function. The aisle that leads to 912 is in the small ballroom leading off the dining room, which is why I wanted to get there ahead of the crowd. We’ll have to wait them out.”
“How many of them?” Oxford demanded.
Cressida gave him an awkward shrug. “Enough for a festive dinner. They’ve been recruiting since the Medici Raid — and honestly I don’t think they suffered as many losses from that as we were told. I’d say they’re back up to full strength.”
Monterey saw which way the wind was going. “Dear fellow, you had better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
Oxford straightened his shoulders. “I know you don’t have a sense of loyalty, Monterey, but those people are traitors. It’s our responsibility to…”
“To what, arrest them?”
“At least identify them. Detain them if needs be. We can take them back to Chronos College to face their crimes.”
“Excellent plan,” said Cressida cheerfully. “How exactly were you planning on doing that?”
“That’s not the point,” said Oxford, floundering only a little. “You’re proposing we skulk around and save our skins without taking any responsibility for the house full of time terrorists.”
“Skulking around and saving my skin is most of what I’ve been doing since I found myself in Event Space,” Cressida snapped. “You don’t know what you’ve stumbled across, and you are not ready to start making decisions on behalf of this group, let alone Time herself. You didn’t even have the sense to bring your cat!”
Oxford reared back, as if it was the height of rudeness to point out his lack of Nero.
Monterey brushed his hand against the back of Lovelace’s spine, to reassure him that she, at least, was still here.
“You lost your cat seven years ago, Cressida,” Oxford grumbled back. “You’re hardly in a position to…”
Cressida looked like she had been slapped. “Seven years? Is that how long it’s been?”
“I thought you knew,” Fenella said in a small voice.
Stricken, Cressida turned and gave her sister a hug. “I knew it had to be years,” she muttered. “But that’s… wow. Seven. Big number.”
“You wouldn’t believe how many pens I’ve stolen since you ditched us,” said Monterey, to break the tension.
Cressida, teetering on the brink of tears, laughed instead. “Fiend. Not Shakespeare?”
“Shakespeare was easy,” he told her gravely. “The Bronte sisters were the ones that put up a fight.”
