The Time Keeper (The Guardians of Time Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

speak.’
    Emilia couldn’t help the sceptical look she knew was on her face.  ‘And how exactly do you do that?’
    ‘The Elders have an incredibly complex data system, something like an exhaustive family tree of everyone who has ever lived.  They use it to pinpoint those people who were destined to be harbingers of positive change, but through circumstances were prevented from being so.’
    She must have looked baffled, because David changed tack.
    ‘Imagine if Thomas Edison had died before he invented the light bulb.  Would candles still be our only source of light?  Or how much longer would it have been before someone else invented the light bulb?  How would advances in the technology we live with today have been delayed or not yet discovered because the light bulb wasn’t invented at the exact moment Thomas Edison invented it?’
    ‘No one can know the answers to those questions,’ Emilia pointed out smugly.
    ‘True.  But what if someone had the ability to travel through time and make sure Thomas Edison didn’t die before he invented the light bulb?’
    ‘Right…’ Emilia said thoughtfully.  ‘So that’s what you do?  You go back in time and stop certain people from dying?’
    David nodded.  ‘Dying, trusting the wrong person, preventing the destruction of environmental advancements by natural disasters or wars… that sort of thing.’
    It almost sounded real, but how could it be possible?  Time travel was a thing of fantasy, the imagination run wild in movies like Back to the Future or The Time Traveller’s Wife .
    ‘So you’re telling me,’ she said slowly, ‘that using this time piece, I can jump back in time whenever I feel like it?’
    ‘There are a few rules and –‘
    The doorbell rang, interrupting David.  He rose from his perch on the desk and as he went to answer the door, looked back over his shoulder.  ‘Why don’t we take a short break and have some dinner.  Then we can talk about it more once you’ve had some time to think about what I’ve said.’
    Emilia slumped back in the chair, her mind buzzing with an information overload.  David definitely believed what he was saying and he’d seemed quite rational – no feverishly darting eyes or crazy cackling laugh.  How cool would it be if she could skip anywhere in time?  She could visit Paris in the roaring twenties, go to a Beatles con-
    ‘Emmy, there’s a delivery for you,’ David called from the front door.
    When she got to the hall, David passed her a bunch of deep red roses before making himself scarce.  She didn’t have to read the card to know who they were from, but she pulled it out of the little envelope anyway.
    I’m sorry.  Please forgive me. Justin.
    It wouldn’t exactly win any literary awards but she supposed it must be hard to compose a decent sonnet with a hangover.
    She found a vase and put the roses in the centre of the kitchen table.  It would be rude to ignore the flowers, so even though she didn’t feel like talking to Justin yet, she pulled her phone out of her discarded bag.  There were three missed calls – all from Justin. 
    He answered on the second ring.
    ‘I thought you were ignoring me,’ he said quietly, his voice unusually contrite.  ‘I can’t say I’d blame you.’
    ‘I’ve had a busy day.  Thanks for the roses,’ Emilia said briskly.
    Justin sighed heavily.  ‘I’m really sorry, Em.  I was mad at you and then I had too much to drink and I… I don’t know what came over me, but you didn’t deserve what happened, no matter what you’d done.’
    So he still thought he had reason to be mad at her.  Emilia gritted her teeth.  She was tempted to tell Justin where to shove it like Stace had instructed, but she couldn’t be bothered with an argument right now – she was more interested in getting back to the conversation with David.  Not that she was going to let Justin off entirely.
    ‘You really scared me, Justin.  I trusted you and you violated that