A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8) Read Online Free PDF

relatively minor, but others…they can change the course of human history. Knowing which is which is a science beyond my understanding. But we have analysts who parse it all out. Even with all that, it’s rare, thank God, to find a moment that has cataclysmic possibilities.”
    Elizabeth’s sinking feeling sank deeper into the mire. “But the Shadow Council found a way around that?”
    “Alistair believed they might, and so he started a special project: Aegis. Somehow the Shadow Council found out about it and started one of their own. They found a scientist of nearly the same caliber as the Watchmaker. His name is Drasko Skavo, and he, like Project Aegis, was trying to create a watch that would allow the bearer to break through this wall, to change any moment in time at will.”
    “That sounds like a very bad idea,” Jack said, and Elizabeth wholeheartedly agreed.
    As did Travers, who nodded. He spread his arms out helpless resignation. “And our own little arms race began.”
    “And so each tried to create a watch that could change time before the other did?” Simon reasoned.
    “Yes. It was mad, of course. Skavo was young and brilliant, but it eluded him. It seemed impossible. And it should have been. But one man succeeded. The only man who could.”
    “Teddy,” Elizabeth said.  
    Travers nodded.
    “Is he here?”
    Travers’ face fell and he shook his head. “I’m sorry. He passed away ten years ago.”
    Elizabeth’s heart dropped. Logically, she’d known that Teddy and everyone she’d met in the past was dead by now, but hearing it, knowing it was true was something else. She swallowed a lump of sudden emotion and forced herself to focus on the now.
    “Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Ten years ago. If he was thirty in 1906, that would make him…”
    “139,” Travers supplied. “If he had lived in only one time period, but Mr. Fiske loved to travel.”
    Elizabeth and Simon exchanged a glance. That explained Teddy’s visits to Charlotte in the future. But why hadn’t he come to see them?
    “He was technically 87 when he died in 2005.”
    Elizabeth tried to wrap her mind around that and pushed down the small sting of disappointment that he hadn’t come to visit. She had no way of knowing why he hadn’t but was sure he would have had his reasons.
    “So Teddy built this thirteenth watch?” Simon asked, steering them back on course.
    “Yes, but once the impossible was done, Alistair realized the danger in having pursued it at all. It was too great a power for any man, even the best of us, to have.”
    Travers sighed and sat back down. “Alistair asked Mr. Fiske to destroy it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d spent years of his life trying to do the impossible and, in the end, couldn’t destroy it. Alistair finally agreed that Mr. Fiske should hide it. If, somehow, Skavo should find a way to create his own, they’d at least have some power to counter it.”
    Simon sat forward. “And the journal? Whoever has it knows where the watch is hidden?”
    “No, thank God,” Travers said. “They only know that it exists, which is troubling enough. The whereabouts of the watch are where you come in.”
    “I don’t understand,” Simon said.
    “The hiding place of the watch died with Mr. Fiske. He was the only one who knew. Not even Alistair knew.”
    “How can we possibly help?” Elizabeth asked. “We haven’t seen Teddy in a year.”
    “No,” Travers said, his eyes traveling over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “But someone else has.”
    Elizabeth turned to follow his gaze, although she knew full well where it had landed.  
    Charlotte.

Chapter Five

    C HARLOTTE MUST HAVE FELT everyone staring at her because she looked up from her drawing and looked at each adult in turn.
    “What did I do?”
    Elizabeth laughed. “Nothing, honey. Would you join us for a minute?”
    She put down her paper and pencil and walked back over to Travers’ desk. Simon stood and she took his