Ava awoke to a musty smell and a dim light overhead. She was lying on a small bed, with a hard mattress, propped up with several thin pillows. Across from her, Charlie sat in an armchair watching her, a permanent scowl set on his brow.

She tried to sit up, but the room swung wildly around her the moment she exerted herself. "I did it," she said weakly as she settled back against the pillows. "I fixed the Unchangeable."

Charlie chuckled to himself--a brash, unpleasant cough of a laugh. "I know you did," he said. "Would you be here right now if you hadn't?"

Ava tried to stifle the fury rising in her throat. "You knew I could have been trapped?" She tried not to picture where the plane would be now if she hadn't been on it. She reminded herself it was supposed to happen. It had always happened. It had to happen -- for Allie.

He grinned. "Technically, you had an eternity to figure it out," he said. He leaned forward with a wolffish look in his eye. "Tell me," he said hungrily, "what did you see?"