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her hand as if she were in school.
    Chronos pointed at her. “Question?”
    “Am I supposed to track Henry Winslow down in the twenties? Just keep tabs on him until everyone reaches me?”
    “Yes.”
    “What if they don’t reach me?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What if . . . okay, I don’t even want to say this out loud, but . . .”
    “What if Jonathan, Brand, and Kelly lose to Henry in the past?”
    Rayna nodded.
    “If they lose, you won’t exist.”
    “Um, actually, I will. I was born on the other side of the Dragon Gate.”
    “Oh, well, that could prove interesting.” He rubbed his chin. “You may see the world change around you, in which case, you’ll be trapped there.”
    Rayna looked at me. “You’re not allowed to lose.”
    “I’ll have Kelly. I’m good.”
    Kelly looked away for a moment, but before her face was turned, I noticed a look of concern. I chalked it up to my imagination. Kelly was the most stable person I knew. She wasn’t prone to worrying because she tackled every problem head-on.
    “What do I do?” Esther asked.
    Chronos looked at her. “You, my dear, will go to the Old West, but once that’s done, you’ll be pulled forward to the present.”
    “But I want to go to Egypt, and I know the twenties. I can be helpful then.”
    “I can’t send you back to ancient Egypt. I might be able to send you up to eighty-five years prior to your birth because you’ve existed that long after death. I’ve never tried to send a spirit anywhere before, so I’m not sure it will work. I do know that I can’t send you to the twenties because you were alive then.”
    “So? I’m just a ghost; I can’t change anything.”
    “You are correct. Your spirit isn’t the problem. Your typewriter is the wrench in the machine. Rayna won’t be able to take a typewriter key with her, so you won’t be able to go there. And before Jonathan, Kelly, and Brand move forward to the twenties, they’ll need to destroy their typewriter keys because the keys can’t physically exist at the same time in two places in the same form. Also, while it may seem instantaneous to you, spirits travel much slower through the portal than physical beings, so Brand will be alone for a time before you arrive.”
    “Not fair,” Esther said and crossed her arms.
    “Is Esther upset?” Rayna asked. Rayna didn’t have any magic, so she couldn’t see or hear Esther.
    “She’ll be all right,” I said. “Leave your keychain here.”
    She nodded. One of Esther’s typewriter keys was attached to her key chain too.
    Sharon came back inside carrying a black canvas gym bag and strode over to the circle of chairs. She dropped the bag on the floor. “Are we up to speed?”
    “Almost,” Chronos said. “We just need to give them the devices.”
    “We get toys?” Brand asked as he returned from the office. “We’re going to be like James Bond!”
    “You don’t,” Sharon said. “Jonathan and Kelly do.”
    “That’s not fair,” Brand said. He had several pieces of paper in his hand. “Jonathan, Kelly, Rayna, you might want to have a look at this.” He held up the paper, which had a black and white picture of a man in his forties standing with one leg up on a bench. He wore a nice old-style suit, and his hair was slicked back. “This is a picture of Henry Winslow. I pulled it from Wikipedia.”
    He handed a print to each of us. We studied the image for a moment then folded the pictures and tucked them away in our pockets or, in Rayna’s case, in her purse.
    Chronos rose and dug in his pocket. He pulled out what looked like two pairs of earrings and two wicked-looking metallic double-pronged fish hooks. He handed a pair of earrings to Kelly and another pair to me. “Wear these earrings because we had a magician cast a spell on them to automatically translate language for you. If you aren’t wearing them, you won’t be able to understand what anyone says to you.”
    “I don’t have pierced ears,” I