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retrieving it? She’d lose the job she was so desperately fighting for. Worse, if they stopped her, she’d lose the opportunity to be the one to find the book and save her sanity.
    With a shaky hand, she mashed the End button and returned her attention to the road.
    “I’m going to call Lea.” She pushed buttons on her little phone while glancing up occasionally. “Lea? This problem with the Book of Worlds is worse than we thought.”

    Ian listened with half an ear as Fiona explained to Lea what Logan had told them. The telephone she used was so tiny—even odder, it had no wires connecting it to anything. He shook his head. The world had changed very much indeed.
    While Fiona talked on her tiny phone, he looked around the vehicle, noticing anew how modern and small the car was. He was so close to her he could smell her soap, clean and fresh and very suited to her no-nonsense personality.  
    The car sped through the dark night, and he marveled at freedom. And how different the world was, though he’d barely seen any of it. He needed the book to bargain with if he wanted to make this permanent. But when she’d said that she was the worst kind of failure, he’d been dumb enough to say no’ for long . If he stole the book from her, he’d be screwing her. And he liked her. Damn it.  
    But he didn’t have a choice. The thought hardened his resolve.
    As they drove, the country road turned to suburb and then to city street. Suddenly, there were flashes of dozens—no, hundreds—of lights hitting him in the face.  
    “Jesus,” he breathed. Cars streamed by on the other side of the road. Nothing at the university or the pub—besides the cars—had looked terribly different than it had in 1916. But Edinburgh…
    Fiona continued to talk into the phone while she swerved in and out of traffic. Ian’s eyes ate up the changes to Edinburgh as she neared Old Town. His gut clenched at the sight of the familiar old buildings.
    He’d made a point to stay out of this part of town once he’d escaped it as a child. The construction of the Scottish Museum of Antiquities in the early nineteenth century had been the only thing that could drag him back, but only for brief visits to add to his collection.
    Fiona dropped her little phone into her lap and said, “Right. Lea said that she has to alert the rest of the university to the fact that a god is after the book.” She swerved to the side of the road and tucked her car neatly into the little space between a lorry and a motorbike. The museum rose tall on the other side of the street. “Here we are.”
    “What’s your plan then?” he asked when they got out of the car. He sucked in the cold winter air. Even city air tasted fresher than the air of the prison or Moloch. He wanted to tear the collar off and disappear down the street.
    “Try to get it before they do. It’ll take at least a day for them to compile a team. I want to be the one to find the book. I have to be. I did what’s right and told them about it, but my department thinks I’m a failure and a jinx because I’m a Failte . They doona trust me to go after it and would yank me off this case and shove me back into the stacks. So we go in tonight.”
    “I like how you think.” Less supervision by the university meant he’d have no trouble snatching the book from her and bartering for the removal of his collar. He stifled the twinge of guilt he felt at putting her in such a shite situation. But it had to be done.
    He followed her across the rain-darkened sidewalk toward the brick building that loomed in front of them. People rushed by on their way to pubs or home, but it felt like he and Fiona were an island unto themselves. After so long in prison, he craved the intimacy of that connection as much as he feared it.  
    Damn it. He couldn’t let her distract him.  
    Ian followed Fiona up the stairs, his gaze riveted to her form and the trousers that molded to it. Christ, the way women dressed these days. The