Page 81 of Love and Other Paradoxes

She looked at him, a hundred conflicting emotions warring on her face. “You,” she said, like the universe was about to end and it was all his fault.

He took a breath. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he had to start with what was important. “Darcy’s your mum. Your mum is Darcy.”

She rubbed her temples. “Sorry, you’re going to have to run that past me again.”

“Rob’s nemesis! The Deadly Mr. Darcy. That’s your mum’s Assassin name. She and Rob are going to have a duel at my college May Ball on the twenty-third of June. If she beats him, she gets an award. For winning the Game twice.”

Her brow furrowed, then cleared. “You’d better come in. Tea?” She headed back to the small kitchen.

“Aye, that’d be great,” he called. Music was playing, a woman’s soft voice twining around complex beats. The living room was a cosy nest of mismatched sofas and slanted bookshelves, the walls plastered with photographs of Shola and her housemates. The most recent batch prominently featured Esi: laughing in the canopied basement of a club, cooking with Shola in the kitchen, their housemates acting as judges in what appeared to be some kind of rice-off.

She brought the tea, looking marginally more awake. “You’re sure about this?”

“Hundred percent. I showed him the photo. He said it’s her.”

She shook her head in wonder. “So all this time, Rob’s literally known her?”

“More than that. He’s been actively hunting her down. We just never thought to ask him, because—you know. Assassins.”

Her face lit with realisation. “That’s why she was so hard to find. The whole time we were looking for her, she was in the Game.”

“Until February. Rob told me Darcy got killed. That’s why she let her guard down. She wasn’t playing anymore.” He smiled. “You used to play, right? Something else you have in common.”

She sat down on the sofa, tucking her legs underneath her. “But it’s just a stupid game. How could it be that important to her that she’d come back for the anniversary twenty-five years later?”

“Maybe she had different priorities than you thought.” The phrase chimed with something in his memory. “Shit. Diana knew.”

She looked up at him sharply. “What?”

“You were right. She was lying. They were friends in first year. She pretended not to know her because your mum didn’t want to be found. Diana said she didn’t understand her reasons, but she’d still respect them.”

Esi shifted on the sofa. “I guess that’s nice of her. Annoying for me. But nice.”

“We’re not together anymore,” he said hurriedly.

He caught her relief before she tried to hide it. “Oh?”

“I broke up with her. You were right. It wasn’t fair not to tellher the truth. I gave her the book.” Her eyes widened. “I wouldn’t worry about it disrupting anything,” he reassured her. “She’s planning to stick to it word for word.”

She looked down at her hands. “So she thinks you’re still going to get together in the future?”

“Yeah. And the weird thing is, it looks like the future agrees. The time travellers came back this morning.” A troubled look crossed her face. He thought he knew what was worrying her: the idea of the future correcting itself, converging back to its original path. “Hey.” He touched her arm. “It doesn’t mean we can’t save your mum.”

She met his eyes. The troubled look lingered, as if that wasn’t all she had been thinking about. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “And now we know how.”

He nodded. “We have to help Rob win.”

An hour later, they were assembled in Joe and Rob’s living room. Rob was in the armchair, looking uneasily up at Joe and Esi, who were flanking him like prison guards. “What’s happening?”

“See this duel with Darcy?” said Joe. “I can’t overstate how important it is that you win it.”

Rob laughed. “I mean, obviously I agree. But why do you care? You’ve never been invested in how I do in the Game before.”

“This is bigger than you, Trevelyan,” said Esi sternly. “This is about setting history right.”

He looked up at her, baffled. “Again, I agree. But you don’t need to worry about it. I’ve got it covered.”

“No. You haven’t.” Joe paced away, exhaling. “Whatever you were planning, it’s not going to work.”

---