Ruthven felt frozen, not sure what to think or feel.
It was Boswell who went to Oxford, settling on the step nearest to him. “What was it supposed to be like?” the marmalade tabby asked.
“The Founders planned this,” said Oxford, staring miserably at his knees. “Right from the start. They’ve always been concerned about keeping time travel secret. The Global Official Secrets Act. Containing their base to three colleges on three separate space stations. I don’t know all the details, but they used the Jade Pineapple to shield the stations. It was never the government they were hiding from, or anyone else in the twenty-fourth century. It was the future. That future.”
“So it’s all true, what they said at the trial,” murmured Ruthven. “Nero and Banksia and Aesop. They came from the thirtieth century?” Oxford had known about it. All along.
Hard not to feel like you’d swallowed a concrete block, with a revelation like that.
He saw Boswell shoot an uneasy look at Lovelace. She looked shocked, at least. Boswell looked tired.
Oxford stared into empty air. “Do you think Nero’s okay? I thought they had more of a plan. Why did Professor Shelley pass the Violet Sunflower to me if the Anachronauts didn’t have a plan to escape when I set it off?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” said Lovelace. “Since you and Nero are such good friends with the Anachronauts.”
Oxford gave her a startled look. “I honestly don’t know much about them. Mum — Melusine didn’t approve of how deep Mother was in with them. They both tried to keep me out of it.”
“Celeste,” said Boswell thoughtfully. “She’s been involved with the Anachronauts all along, hasn’t she?”
Oxford shrugged. “She was Dean of Aleister College, from the start. On paper she resigned when the Anachronauts took over, but… yeah. I don’t think she ever really left them.”
“The Founders approve of what the Anachronauts get up to?”
Oxford gave a dry laugh. “Nothing happens on this campus — at any of the colleges — without the Founders’ approval.”
Monterey lifted Lovelace down from his shoulders, setting her near Boswell on the step. Then he loomed over Oxford, looking about as gutted as Ruthven felt. “How do you know all this?” Monterey demanded. “The Founders. Our parents. How do you know so much about what they’ve been up to all these years?” When I don’t, went unspoken.
Ruthven did not know why it was a relief that Monterey had not been lying to them all for years, even with the confirmation that Oxford had.
“I’ve always done whatever my parents told me,” said Oxford, as if it was obvious.
“And I haven’t?”
Oxford winced. “You rebelled, Monterey. You always rebel. You told them exactly what you thought of their plans, of their choices. And every time we talked about it, you remembered less. I was a coward. I didn’t want that to happen to me. So I never said a word to question what they were doing, and they left me alone.”
Monterey looked like he had been hit with a brick. “They took my memories?”
Oxford spun the circle of purple glass over and over in his fingers. “Mum had custody of the Basalt Sphinx. She oversees the cat development program. Banksia and Burbage hid the Jade Pineapple before they left, which is why we’re all still hopping through twenty-year-old time hoops. But the Violet Sunflower — the Founders took turns with it. Some of the high-ranking Anachronauts, too. You never knew who was going to use it, and when.”
“They gave it to you,” said Lovelace, still glaring at him, even as she kneaded her claws against Monterey’s arm. “Does that make you a high-ranking Anachronaut?”
Oxford shook his head. “I’m not anything. I don’t know why Shelley pressed it on me, when we landed at Aleister College. I suppose she thought I’d give it to Nero — or that it was best in the hands of someone unimportant. They knew then, I think, that we’d be taken to the future. They installed a protocol to set off a mass wipe of the memories of the Grimalkins and the rest of the thirtieth century cats, if anyone got the opportunity. To erase the knowledge of time travel and humans. It was all set up, years ago. All I had to do was tap the thing, agree to the terms and conditions, and set it off.”
“Do you think,” said Ruthven, hating himself for saying it. “Someone else should hold on to it for now?”
Oxford met his gaze, looking sad. “Get it out of the wrong hands, eh? It is a lot of power. Who do you think we should trust?”
Not you. The thought came from nowhere. Ruthven wasn’t sure if he felt judgement or pity over what Oxford had done. He held his hand out.
Oxford drew his hand back, keeping the Violet Sunflower out of Ruthven’s reach. “I don’t know much about how this works. But I do know that anyone who holds it for any length of time starts getting back all the memories that they lost. That’s why the Founders and the Anachronauts passed it around between them, as a way of checking they still remembered everything they should.”
Monterey stepped forward. “So if I — ow, bloody hell, Lovelace.”
Lovelace had drawn blood through the sleeve of his blue jumpsuit. “No,” she warned. “How much did they change? What if you’re a whole different person when you get your memories back?”
Monterey froze in the act of reaching out for the chronocle. “I don’t think you have too much to worry about, darling. According to Oxford, I was always a rebel.”
Ruthven, aware that they were all crowding Oxford now, took his own step forward. “Am I going to learn more things about you that I don’t like?” he asked. “If I get my memories back?”
Oxford gave him a wavering smile. “That’s not even the reason you’re going to hate me,” he said. The circle of purple glass flipped back and forth in his fingers, as if Oxford was tempted to make this whole conversation go away. To make them forget what he had told them. He took a deep breath, and threw it away from himself.
The circle flipped, spun and bounced on the cobbles. It rolled along the uneven surface, finally coming to rest between the statues of Cressida, and of Aesop.
Cressida, following the glass with her gaze, was startled to see the statue of herself for the first time. “What the bloody hell is that monstrosity?”
“I told you about the statue,” said Monterey quickly.
“You did not! Any conversations you had with me between 912 and now were with those other Cressidas, the scattered copies. Not me.” Cressida backed away the statue, looking distressed. “They gave me that haircut for posterity?”
“You don’t remember any of our conversations when you were running around in a tie-dyed bustle?” Monterey sounded crushed. “We bonded!”
“Never happened.” Cressida gave him an awkward grin. “Text me a recap?”
“You’re the worst,” he said, shaking his head. “Fenella, back me up here. Tell Cressida she’s the worst.”
“You don’t remember any of it?” Fenella asked Cressida in a small voice. “Fenthorp Manor, Fleur Shropshire’s wake, Cleopatra? All our conversations?”
“You finally met Cleopatra?” Cressida crowed at Monterey, hugging him around the neck. “Nice one.” She looked back at Fenella. “Sorry, we haven’t met. You’re one of the new kids, are you?”
