“I’ve been helping her with her prep research. For the Blitz. I need to be here when she comes through to-” He began to say, “to give it to her,” but Badri was likely to tell him to leave it instead and they’d give it to her. “-to tell her what I’ve found,” he amended.

“We haven’t scheduled her retrieval yet,” Badri said.

“Oh. Is she going straight to her Blitz assignment when she gets back?”

Linna shook her head. “We still haven’t found her a drop site-” she began, but Badri cut her off with another glare.

“It isn’t going to be flash-time, too, is it?”

“No, real-time,” Badri said. “Colin, we’re extremely busy.”

“I know, I know. I’m going. If you see Mr. Dunworthy, tell him I’m looking for him.”

“Linna, see Colin out,” Badri said, “and then bring me the spatial-temporal coordinates for Pearl Harbor on December sixth, 1941.”

Linna nodded and escorted Colin to the door. “Sorry. Badri’s been in a foul mood this past fortnight,” she whispered. “Polly Churchill’s retrieval is scheduled for two o’clock Wednesday next.”

“Thanks,” Colin whispered back, grinned crookedly at her, and ducked out the door. Wednesday. He’d hoped it would be on the weekend so he wouldn’t have to sneak away from school again, but at least it wasn’t this Wednesday. He had over a week to talk Mr. Dunworthy into letting him go somewhere. If Mr. Dunworthy was going to rescue the treasures, Colin might be able to talk him into doing research in the past for him. If he was still at Wardrobe. He loped over to the Broad, down to Holywell, along the narrow street to Wardrobe, and up the stairs, hoping he hadn’t missed him again.

He hadn’t. Mr. Dunworthy was standing in front of the mirror in a tweed blazer at least four sizes too large for him, and glaring at the cowering tech. “But the only tweed jacket we had in your size has already been taken in to fit Gerald Phipps,” she was saying. “He had to have a tweed jacket because he’s going to-”