Hana Greaves's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Hana sat on the fresh ice and shook her cracked handheld device. The screen flashed a year, then another, then a wrong one again. She had jumped back through the portal to the loop's origin. But she could not prove it. The numbers on the little screen jumped and stuttered. If she'd missed the mark, even by a day, the vine would fire and snap her back with nothing gained. She needed to confirm the moment before the spores lit. "Vera," Hana said. "I can't read it. The screen's dead behind the crack. I need—" She stopped. Her hands were shaking too hard to finish. Vera pointed across the ice. A man walked toward them from a wrecked hauler, a leather satchel bouncing at his hip. A dry sprig poked from the band of his wide hat. He moved slow, blinking at the gray sky, reading it like a page. "You two look lost," the man said. "Miles Ashford. I carry news between the camps. Been walking these flats longer than I care to count." He eyed Hana's scorched jumpsuit, then her flashing device. "That thing's fried." "I need the date," Hana said. "The exact one. Right now." Miles tipped his head at the tower on the horizon. "Third morning since the cold snap broke. I mark the days by the ice melt and the courier drops. You're standing in it." He named the day. It was three days back. The origin. Relief hit Hana so hard she almost dropped the device. She had landed right. But the flashing screen would fail her again the next time she needed it. She needed a real display, not a dead one. "Your device," Miles said. He crouched and studied it. "Screen's the only broken part?" "The guts still work," Hana said. "Just can't see them." Miles jerked a thumb at the wrecked hauler. "Old cockpit's in there. Dials, screens, half of it cracked, but some still light. Pull a panel and splice it in." Hana ran to the hauler. Inside, a battered control board hung from bent brackets, worn dials and cracked screens crammed together. One small readout still glowed faint green. She pried it loose, stripped the wires, and wired it to her device. She held her breath and thumbed the switch. The salvaged screen flickered, then steadied. Clean numbers. The date held firm. No more flashing. She could finally trust what her device told her. Vera gripped her shoulder. "Now what?" Hana watched the far tower. Somewhere inside, three days from now, Chronwell would fire the vine and lock the loop. But he wasn't there yet. She had arrived before him, with time to spare and a screen she could read. "Now we stop him before he starts," Hana said. "We find the vine before it burns."