“Yes.” Well, I said so anyway.
“So Gideon met the young Margaret this morning at the time of her second official date to elapse. She had been driven straight to the Temple after her first journey in time. And even as the preparations were being made to read her into the chronograph, she traveled for the second time. That’s the longest uncontrolled journey in time so far known to us. She was gone for over two hours.”
“Mr. George, you could leave out these minor details,” suggested Gideon, with a trace of impatience in his voice.
“Yes, yes. Where was I? Gideon visited Margaret when she was going to elapse, and once again he explained the story of the stolen chronograph to her, and the chance of putting things right with the second one.”
“Aha!” I interrupted. “So that’s how the older Margaret knew the whole story. Gideon had told her about it himself.”
“Yes, that looked like one possibility,” said Mr. George. “But yet again, the young Margaret wasn’t hearing the story for the first time.”
“So someone else had got in ahead of Gideon. Lucy and Paul again. They traveled into the past with the stolen chronograph to tell Margaret Tilney that, sooner or later, it was very likely that someone would turn up wanting to take some of her blood.”
Mr. George said nothing.
“So did she let you take her blood this time?”
“No,” said Mr. George. “She refused to let him have it.”
“Although at sixteen she wasn’t quite as obstinate as later, in her old age,” said Gideon. “This time she let me talk to her for a while. And finally she said that she would negotiate, but only with you.”
“With me?”
“She gave me your name. Gwyneth Shepherd.”
“But…” I chewed my lower lip while Mr. George and Gideon watched me closely. “I thought Paul and Lucy had disappeared before I was born. How could they know my name and tell this Margaret?”
“Yes, that’s the question,” said Mr. George. “You see, Lucy and Paul stole the chronograph in May of the year when you were born. First they hid in the present with it. For a few months, they cleverly managed to keep eluding the detectives employed by the Guardians, laying false trails and using other tricks. They moved from city to city and traveled over half of Europe with the chronograph. But we were coming closer and closer to their hiding place, and they realized that they could escape us for good only if they took refuge in the past with the chronograph. Unfortunately they had no intention of giving up. They defended their mistaken ideals uncompromisingly.” He sighed. “They were so young, so passionate.…” There was a slightly dreamy look in his eyes.
Gideon cleared his throat, and Mr. George stopped staring into space. He went on: “Until now we always thought they took that step here in London in September, a few weeks before your birth.”
“But then they can’t possibly have known my name!”
“Correct,” said Mr. George. “That’s why, since this morning, we have been considering the possibility that they went into the past with the chronograph only after your birth.”
“For whatever reason,” added Gideon.
“But we still have to find out how Lucy and Paul knew your name and your destiny. One way and another, Margaret Tilney refuses to cooperate with us.”
I thought about it. “So how are we going to get at her blood now?” Oh, my God, surely I hadn’t just said that, had I? “You won’t use force, will you?” I pictured Gideon doing sinister things with ether, bonds, and a gigantic syringe—and that ruined my perfect image of him.
Mr. George shook his head. “One of the golden rules of the Guardians is that we use force only when nothing else will work. We try negotiation and amicable agreement first. So we will do as Margaret has suggested. We’re going to send you to see her.”
“So that I can convince her?”
“So that we can find out about her motives and her informants. She’ll talk to you—she said so herself. We want to know what she has to tell you.”
Gideon sighed. “There’s no getting around it, but myself, I’ve been talking to a brick wall all morning.”
“Yes, Gwyneth, and that’s why at this moment Madame Rossini is making you a nice summer dress for the year 1912,” said Mr. George. “You’re going to meet your great-great-grandmother.”
“Why 1912?”
“We picked the year at random. All the same, Gideon thinks you may be falling into a trap.”
“A trap?”
Gideon said nothing, just glanced at me. And he did look worried.
“By the laws of logic, that’s as good as impossible,” said Mr. George.
“Why would anyone set a trap for us?”
Gideon leaned toward me. “Think about it: Lucy and Paul have the chronograph in their power, and ten of the twelve time travelers have already had their blood read into it. To close the Circle so that they can use it for themselves, they only need blood from you and me.”
“But … Lucy and Paul wanted to stop the Circle being closed and the secret from being revealed,” I said.
Once again Mr. George and Gideon exchanged a glance.
“That’s what your mother thinks,” said Mr. George.
And it was what I’d thought myself so far. “And you don’t?”
“Look at it the other way around. Suppose Lucy and Paul want the secret all to themselves?” said Gideon. “Suppose that’s why they stole the chronograph? Then all they still need to go one better than Count Saint-Germain would be our blood.”
I let the words sink in. Then I said, “And since they can only meet us in the past, they have to lure us somewhere there to get at our blood?”