Graymere

Due to the heavily guarded nature of the prison cell Fire resided in, we were unable to get close to her before the trial.

Luka Redwood, dressed in a stylish red suit, stood with the other witnesses at the trial, ready to make a move on my command. Nurse Foxwell stood in the front rows of the massive audience. Since I was officially dead, I decided not to make a public appearance at the trial, but I was watching the whole thing unfold on a screen from a secure location, talking to them through their earpieces.

As it turned out, we were not the only ones to show up to the trial with the intent of rescuing Sapphire Graymere.

When Fire was called up to the stand, I could see they had removed her wristband. They had to give the appearance of a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty. That was their first mistake.

She had been appointed a defense attorney, although no one paid much attention to him because he was destined to lose. That was their second mistake.

Martin Fisher barely had a law degree. He was first and foremost a scientist, and a magnificent one at that. However, he kept his projects a secret from society due to their somewhat sinister nature. Unbeknown to the agency, he had developed a form of time travel that did not require trains and was not limited to Mortimer’s vast underwater tracks.

He had disappeared from the jurisdiction of Mortimer by traveling to a time before the agency was founded. Now the trial of a mysterious girl who had also escaped Mortimer’s eye had brought him back into the light.

Just as Fire was declared guilty and Luka began sprinting towards her with the intent of saving her from incineration, Martin Fisher froze time.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he froze everyone in the courtroom except for himself and Sapphire.

“Now then,” he addressed Sapphire. “Who exactly are you?”

“My name is Sapphire Graymere,” she said nervously, hoping the stranger was intent on not letting her die. “My parents were-”

“Calloway and Eloise Graymere, who survived the third Incident,” he finished. “Blah, blah, blah. We heard that all before in your trial. No, no, no. What I want to know is,” he paused, gesturing around the huge room of frozen people, “why you are here.”

She looked at him like she was getting annoyed by this idiot. “I was captured and-”

“No, not that. For your whole life, you evaded the eye of Mortimer. Why have they only found you now? They have jurisdiction over time itself!”

I could see her eyebrows knit together in a combination of confusion and anger. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I found myself wondering what her hair smelled like, and I had to snap myself out of a poorly timed daydream and back into reality and its pressing matters.

“It’s not fair for them to have that much power, is it?” he asked her. I may have zoned out a bit during the conversation, but he seemed to be convincing Sapphire that Mortimer was evil. Not that she needed much convincing. “Come with me,” he proposed “and we can work together to take down Mortimer.”

That was all she ever wanted. Revenge. Now the mysterious man was offering it to her, in addition to saving her life. I was glad she was safe from execution, but if she was leaving, I would miss her. And also if they were destroying the only life I could remember, that would suck too. Then she finally spoke. But she only said one word.

“Leah?” she asked, though whether it was directed at me or Martin Fisher, I could not tell.

I’m really sorry Luka, I muttered as I increased the volume on his earpiece to the maximum, hoping his being frozen would prevent any damage I could cause to his eardrum.

“Fire, can you hear me?” I asked. She smiled brightly, looking so beautiful that I almost forgot what I was going to say. “Luka and Nurse Foxwell and I were trying to rescue you, but it looks like this guy’s doing a much better job than us.”

“I’ll go with you,” she told Martin Fisher, “on the condition that you let me bring my friends.”