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free of the bandage on my thigh.
Even though the streets are mostly empty this late, I'm glad Jess has an extra
few inches at the waist so that I can grab the medallion without having to drop
trousers.
    I pull up my room on the display, setting the time for a few
minutes before eight, about when Jess said Kate left the store. The lamp isn't
lit, which means she's probably not there, but Jess might have had the time a
bit off. And if I beat her back to the apartment, she'll have less time to
worry. She's going to have a few dueling memories of the past hour or so, but
at least this will minimize the confusion.
    I blink once to initiate the jump, and nothing happens.
Taking a deep breath, I try again, hoping that the multiple jumps at my
audition haven't drained me to the point where I'll have no choice but to walk
home.
    This time when I open my eyes, I'm in the apartment, a few
feet away from the bed, which Kate straightened at some point during the day.
In the dim light of the medallion, I see the quilt is pulled up and the pillows
are fluffed. Her phone and a copy of Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles sit on the nightstand, next to the open tin of mints.
    I change out of the borrowed clothes and toss them into the
corner of the room that Kate cordoned off as a makeshift closet. Then I stretch
out on my side of the bed, closing my eyes. Something feels off and I open them
again a second later. There's a faint buzzing sound, almost like a fly in the
room. I sit up and light the lamp to get a better look, but I don't see
anything. And although that could be the result of having my head whacked about
earlier, I keep my eyes open just the same.
    A few minutes later, I'm starting to worry, both about
Kate's absence and the possibility that the damage to my head is greater than
I'd thought. While Kate might have jumped straight to Katherine's house when
she left the store, I can't remember her ever leaving her phone here, let alone
leaving it out in the open like this. That bloody thing is a permanent
appendage; even here in my time when there's no signal she seems to feel lost
without it.
    As for my head, the buzzing noise is constant. It increases
every now and then, eventually fading a bit but never letting up entirely. And
the nausea I felt during the time shift is still lurking in the pit of my
stomach, bad enough at one point that I drag the basin from under the bed, just
in case the sandwich and cookie that Amelia fed me decide to make a hasty exit.
    I curse myself for not dialing back to seven o'clock rather
than eight, because it doesn't seem likely that I can make another jump tonight.
Even though I'll have to wait for Kate to come to me, at least I can use the
medallion to figure out when she left.  I scan the CHRONOS display for
this room at seven, when Kate should have been waiting here. The room is dim,
with only a tiny bit of sun coming in, but the apartment seems empty. Then the
picture blurs and I can see her momentarily, sitting on the edge of the bed,
before it blurs again and the room is empty. I shake the medallion, even though
I know it's more likely a problem with my head than with the CHRONOS key. I
look back about half an hour, and again see the bed, the room a bit brighter in
the daylight. The Conan Doyle book is fully open, and the display on the phone
next to it is lit up like it is when Kate checks the time or plays a game. I
watch for a few minutes and the picture flutters several times, and I see a
blurry afterimage stretched out on the bed. Later, a stray breeze flips a page
in the book.
    I scroll to locate the stable point for Kate's room, the
only room at Katherine's house that I have set on my key. The display doesn't
waver at all, even though the stable point seems to fade in and out. It's
weird. I've never seen the key act this way and I wonder if it was damaged when
I was mugged. The image stabilizes for a moment, and I catch a brief glimpse of
Kate's room. The curtains are pulled and