The Copernicus Archives #2 Read Online Free

yet.
    I had to admit that since our relic hunt began, I’d come to know Nicolaus Copernicus as I knew my own friends. I wanted to talk to him, to open my bag and show him what I had. I wanted to scream to him:
    Do you know what my friends and I are doing? We’re Guardians just like your friend Thomas!
    I burned to see what page he was writing on, so that I might read it later—the page he wrote while I stood near him. I moved closer, an inch maybe, no more. The candle’s flame quavered, as if the air was disturbed. Surely not by me. I was a ghost. Copernicus lifted his eyes from the page and observed the flame wobbling. I breathed as silently as I could. Still, the flame’s tongue reacted, as if the air around me had rippled.
    Copernicus set down his pen.
    He turned his face to me.
    â€œRebecca Moore,” he said.

C HAPTER F OUR
    M y vision went black around the edges. My heart pounded as if it would explode. But I held on to myself. I bit my lip, felt my feet on the floor, and focused. I was still afraid to take a step out of the shadows.
    â€œYou’re Copernicus? You’re really him? How can I . . . how . . . ?”
    â€œLet us not waste time on these things, Rebecca Moore.” His voice deepened suddenly. “We have a few moments only. Yes, this is London. Yes, it is November of the year 1517. By some trick—or gift—that I do not understand, travelers such as we can see each other. I am here, but these others cannot see you.”
    â€œSo what am I, a ghost?” I said.
    He waved that away. “I know, of course, what willhappen to my friend Thomas, though I must not tell him. The horror of knowing and not being able to warn, the horror of knowing it will happen anyway. This is why, you see, we use codes. To hide the truth—not only from the Teutonic Order. But from ourselves.”
    The candlelight warmed his face, as the fire in the hearth must have warmed him, though I saw him shiver. I tried to shape my thoughts. I couldn’t.
    â€œFor Thomas,” he said, “it will happen in eighteen short years.”
    â€œWhat will happen to him?”
    â€œA rise in fortunes, then a fall. Friendships with King Henry seldom end well. Thomas will be executed on the sixth of July in 1535. Everyone knows this in your time.”
    I felt my head emptying out, like water going down a drain. I was faint, ready to fall to the ground, to fall somewhere, but Copernicus rose quickly, took hold of me by my arms, and settled me in a chair. I didn’t think it was possible to have form and weight in a dream. Maybe I imagined that, too.
    He stood, his forehead deeply furrowed. “Rebecca Moore, I bear much guilt. Perhaps I am guilty even of this .” He glanced to the other room. “A time traveler is like a blind man with a torch, setting fire to everything he stumbles into.”
    My mouth was as dry as sand. “What do you mean? How can traveling in time do that?” I wished Wade could have heard this, to understand the time thing.
    â€œTime travelers are sleepwalkers,” he said. “We trail destruction behind us. Accidental murderers. This is why I took the astrolabe apart. I saw what I had done. What more horrors could be done by the Order. Do you see now?”
    â€œI don’t see. I don’t understand—”
    He seemed upset. “Horrible things happen when you travel this way!” He waved his hand up and down to signify—what?—a passage through time? “I didn’t know this until my second journey. The holes we created, the holes we left behind. The first journey was joy I’d never known! Rebecca, there was beauty and wonder everywhere, and yes, the blessed power of good!” His eyes sparkled, then faded. “The second time, no. I saw what horrors I had begun.”
    I was getting so little of what he told me. “What horrors you had begun? But you wouldn’t have. You’re good. How? And