Stealing Infinity
by Alyson Noël

Copyright © 2022 by Alyson Noël. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Prologue

The Timekeeper

Basilique Royale de Saint-Denis, France
1741

I wake to a void of darkness and the tip of a cold, sharp dagger jabbing into my bound wrists.

“Get up,” a voice shouts. “The sooner it’s done, the sooner I’m gone.” With a single flick of the blade, the rope that binds my hands falls away.

I grunt, flex my fingers, as a pair of rough hands forces me to my feet. The sudden movement causes a jolt of nausea to lurch through me so violently, I double over in agony and empty my belly.

“Good God!” my captor cries. Ripping the blindfold from my face, he smacks me hard across the back of my head. “Now look what you’ve done!”

A searing pain shoots through my skull, but at least the fog of sedation is beginning to lift. Swaying unsteadily, I focus on the vomit covering my captor’s polished black boots.

New boots, not yet broken in. The boots of either the young, the vain, or the wildly inexperienced. When I meet my captor’s gaze, I realize I’m looking at a match for all three. The blue eyes that stare back belong to a boy no more than fourteen.

Back home, he’d be considered a child, sheltered by parents and governed by laws meant to keep him safe from exactly the sort of people he undoubtedly works for.

But here…

I glance around, trying to distinguish where I am. Though there’s no question as to why I was taken.

Two boys had grabbed me off the street and stuck a needle into my arm. Just before I blacked out, I saw one of them bore the mark, or at least the beginnings of the symbol, but still, he offered no help. And though only one boy stands before me now, that doesn’t mean the other isn’t off lurking somewhere.

“What year is it?” I ask, the spike of dread in my unused voice echoing through the ancient, cavernous space. Something feels off. Something’s not right about this place.

“1741,” the boy spits.

So it is true. A slow chill creeps down my spine, my breath grows shallow and weak. I heard this was possible—traveling backward through time. And now that I’ve done it, it seems a shame I won’t live long enough to tell anyone.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “You’re being used. Sent on a coward’s mission. You—”

“Silence!” The boy flashes his dagger, clearly eager to use it. Though he won’t be willing to use it just yet. Not until he gets what he came for.

After that, escape is unlikely.

Though I’ve spent a lifetime training for this very moment, I’m still surprised to find that just beyond the regret lies a quiet acceptance of the doom that awaits me. Is this how my ancestors felt when confronted with a Timekeeper’s fate?

I watch the boy unfurl a roll of old parchment and point to a faded sketch of a skeleton holding a vertebra.

My god. I inhale a quick breath, instantly recognizing the map as the one that once belonged to Columbus. Though the symbol was added a full century after the explorer had used it to cross the Atlantic. How in the hell did he get ahold of that?

“The Death card,” the boy says, those blue eyes glinting as he seizes my shoulder and drives me toward a single crypt against the far wall.

Of course—we’re in the Royal Necropolis. Where the French royals were buried for centuries. The boy, and whoever employed him, has misinterpreted the tarot and played right into the Order of the Timekeepers’ hands. The treasure is safe. And, for now, at least, it’ll remain that way.

“The Antikythera Mechanism is nearly complete. Only one piece to go.” The boy’s grin is smug, but the claim is a lie. The Antikythera will never be complete. The Timekeepers date back to the great Mystery Schools of Egypt—we understand the true workings of time and have dedicated our lives to protecting the very pieces this boy wants.

“You’ve solved all the clues,” I say, “so don’t let me stop you from winning this game.”

It’s a challenge the boy can’t meet. The missing pieces are enchanted so that only the worthy can retrieve them. This boy clearly doesn’t fit the criteria.

“Grunt work’s on you.” The boy glares. “Or I can always bring the girl back to finish the job…”

A sudden coldness seizes my core. I’ve gone to great lengths to keep her a secret. Hell, the other Timekeepers don’t even know about my daughter. So how does he?

“It’s time for you and your brothers to give up the pieces and return the Antikythera to humanity—where it belongs!” the boy snaps.

There are so many dangerous lies contained in that statement, but for me, one thing rises above the rest. “She’s a child!” I shout.

“Not for long. We can either travel forward and find her in the future or wait it out. Now’s when you get to decide if you’ll spare her that fate.”

Can they travel forward? I’m doubtful. Though there’s clearly nothing to stop them from waiting it out.

“I’ll get it.” My voice shakes. “Just—leave her out of it.” I squint at King Dagobert’s tomb and the three carved panels above that tell the story of the Hermit John.

The early tarot portrayed the Hermit card—also referred to as Time—as an old man carrying an hourglass. Modern decks switched that hourglass to a lantern. Once again, the boy and his employer have played right into our hands. But still, two things are clear.

The boy has no intention of letting me live.

And my daughter is no longer safe.

Though…if I can delay long enough, the window for travel might close, leaving this boy trapped in a time and place he doesn’t belong.

Not exactly a happy ending, but it’s the best I can manage.

I get to work, prolonging the struggle to move the slab. But the boy grows impatient, pushes me aside, and shoves the lid to the ground where it breaks into chunks. “It’s not there!” he cries, punching his dagger to my neck.

“It’s enchanted,” I remind him, my jaw clenched. “Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

To the ordinary eye, the crypt is nearly empty. But a Timekeeper’s sight is far from ordinary. When I look inside, the years quickly unravel to reveal the spot where, centuries before, one of my brothers stashed the gleaming gold decoy.

I reach past a pile of decaying cloth and old bones, close my fingers around it, and set about infusing the golden ball with an energetic message that can be unlocked only by my girl. Though I’d already started the lessons she’ll need if they ever do find her, I realize now that I moved too slowly. Took too long. Foolishly believed I had an abundance of the one thing there’s never enough of—the one thing that can neither be purchased nor conquered.

Time.

And yet, this boy and whoever employs him are determined to do just that. For them, the golden ball is a step toward ultimate power.

For me, it’s my last chance to finish what I’ve barely begun.

When the boy does find my daughter—and he will—I can only hope it will lead to her uncovering this object.

“What the hell are you doing?” The boy makes a grab for the piece, but I ram past him and race for the exit.

There is so much to tell her about her Timekeeper legacy—how to manage the Unraveling, her gift for seeing through time. A gift that only recently surfaced.

She’d been terrified when it happened. And though I was glad I’d been there to help, I deeply regret never getting the chance to show her how to control it, much less explain how one day soon, she’ll need to use it against our adversaries.

But now it’s too late for any of that. The most I can leave her is a glimpse of the face of this young, blue-eyed enemy.

I’ve made it only a handful of steps when the tip of the blade slices through the air and plunges straight into my back.

The pain is immediate, slamming me to the ground, as the boy comes up from behind, pulls the blade free, and snatches the golden ball from my grip.

“Were you fool enough to think you’d get away, old man?” With a scathing grin, the boy stands over me, raises the bloodied dagger, and plunges it deep into my heart.

In an instant, my vision narrows, the world begins to fade. With a gaze clouded by pain, I look into the boy’s eyes and say, “Are you fool enough to believe you’re holding the real one?”

With my last ragged breath, I watch the color drain from the boy’s face, then close my eyes and fall into nothingness.

Chapter 1

Natasha

A Southern California high school

Present day

“God, I hate this place.”

Mason shakes his head and mashes a plastic fork into a clump of avocado, quinoa, sweet potato, and some silky white block I’m guessing is tofu. I recognize it as one of the more popular Buddha bowls he must have picked up from the vegan café where we work. But to me, it looks like the adult version of baby food.

“I mean, what messed-up twist of fate landed me here?” He sweeps an elegant brown arm past the suburban hellscape of boring cinderblock walls to the hot-lunch station of our school’s cafeteria, his collection of silver bangles clattering softly, before pausing on the tables reserved for the popular kids. The same tables where I used to sit, back when I was another girl, living another life. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain I was switched at birth, and now I’m trapped in someone else’s dystopian nightmare.”

I pick at my bag of vending machine chips, remembering how I used to play the “switched at birth” game, too, until my mom unearthed my birth certificate and waved it proudly before me. “See?” she said, face flushed with triumph as she dragged a chipped nail across her name and my dad’s just below it. “Like it or not, we made you.”

I shut myself in my room and cried all afternoon.

“Just take me away. Anywhere but here.” Mason abandons his lunch and stretches leisurely across the bench. With an arm draped over his face, I’m left with a view of perfectly drawn red lips, reminding me of an actress in a black-and-white movie badly in need of some smelling salts. “So bored,” he groans. “Draw me a picture with words.”

“We’re in Paris,” I say, not missing a beat. It’s one of our favorite games. “We have the very best table at the chicest sidewalk café, and we death stare anyone who dares to dress better than us. Which is basically no one, since I’m wearing a silk slip dress with a faux-fur stole and jeweled biker boots, and you’re practically swimming in an elaborately embroidered tunic, vegan suede leggings, and five-inch blue velvet mules.”

“And what are we eating?” he prompts, licking his lips.

Since I’m not exactly a foodie like him, I stick with the basics. “I’m idly picking at a chocolate croissant while you nurse a dairy-free but remarkably creamy café au lait that somehow never goes cold no matter how long we linger.”

“Do you ever miss it?” He sits up so abruptly, it yanks me right out of Paris.

“Miss what?” I ask.

“You know, being part of all that?” He sweeps a hand over his shaved head and nods toward the place where I used to sit—before I ended up next to the recycle bin.

“No,” I say, quick to turn away so he won’t see the lie on my face. While I don’t miss the table or the people who sit there, I do miss the person I used to be—the one who cared about my grades, the one who dreamed of a brighter future beyond these beige hallways.

I’m about to add something more when Mason groans and starts gathering his things. “All hail the queen,” he says, and I look up to see Elodie approaching. “I can’t believe you’re still hanging with her.”

I watch as Elodie makes her way across the cafeteria. Like a celebrity on a red carpet, so many people clamor for her attention, the trip takes much longer than it should.

“She’s fun.” I shrug. “And she has access to some pretty amazing things. VIP guest lists, courtside seats to the—”

“To the Lakers?” Mason shoots me a razor-sharp look. “Since when do you give a shit about sports?”

“I’m just saying…maybe you should give her a chance.”

Mason shakes his head. “Trust me, I know a bad vibe when I see it, and that girl is trouble.” He slings his knock-off designer bag over his shoulder, wanting to be gone before she can reach us.

“Sometimes trouble is fun.” I laugh, needing to lighten the mood. But the way Mason scowls, it clearly doesn’t work.

“Magic always comes with a price,” he says.

“Are you seriously quoting Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Just stating the facts. Someday all this fun is going to catch up with you. If it hasn’t already.”

“And now you sound like my mom,” I grumble, but then I remember how he met my actual mom the one time he showed up at my house unannounced. “Well…like someone’s mom.”

“It’s not too late.” His earnest brown eyes meet mine. “You can still turn it around, get your grades back on track. So why are you acting like the choice isn’t yours, like you’re not the one who writes your own story?”

He’s right, of course. But what he doesn’t understand is that I’m nothing like him.

Mason lives with his grandma, and what she lacks in money, she makes up for in her determination to help him succeed. His grades count toward his future—they’ll pave the way to a brighter life in a much better place.

I could be valedictorian and it wouldn’t change a thing. I can’t go off to college because I can’t leave my mom. She’s completely dependent on me.

As Elodie closes in, she sings out my name—“Natashaaaaaa.”

I really need her to stop calling me that. Natasha is the before picture of my life. The name given by a mom who dreamed of her baby girl’s shiny future.

Nat is who I became after my dad ran off and never came back, leaving my mom too depleted to bother with the extra syllables.

Mason mumbles something about texting me later, then bolts before I can try to convince him to stay. It’s the deal we agreed on. He’ll (mostly) stop talking trash about her if I stop bugging him to give her a chance.

I know I should follow him before it’s too late, but I find myself turning toward Elodie instead. And when she waves, and I watch her face break into a grin, I secretly smile to myself, pretending not to notice all the envious looks directed my way as the coolest girl in school again sings out my name.

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Release Date: February 18, 2026 Page Count: Content Warning: Read Content Warning No content warning available for this book. ×

Release Date: February 18, 2026

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Release Date: February 18, 2026

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