Katrina waddled across the hanger, clean clothes piled high in her arms, so high in fact that she didn't not realize until she hit him that one of the pilots was standing in the way.

“I'm sorry,” Katrina blurted as she scurried to pick up the uniforms before the ten second rule could deem them to be dirty once again.

“It's not a problem,” Officer Andric, whom she could now recognize due to the greatly diminished height of her laundry pile, bent to help her retrieve the articles she had dropped. “Let me help you.”

“Thank you,” Katrina responded when they reached their destination: the supply room, where she would be ironing and folding these for tomorrow.

“So,” the Serbian pilot leaned against the door frame, “they say when you started you said you wanted to be a pilot.”

“I am a pilot,” Katrina intoned. It was one of the first things she had ever learned to say in Serbian, but it sounded much more eloquent now that she had a little more practice with the intonation of the language.

Officer Andric chuckled, “Perhaps so, perhaps so.”

He had been watching her for awhile now. He couldn't say what it was about her exactly, but Katrina was different from other girls. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty or hang out in a hanger full of men. She was young, yet she acted like she was already grown. That, and she had shown up randomly one day claiming to be an American pilot and wouldn't leave until she had been given a job, even if it was just cleaning and doing odd chores around the base.

She was curious, to say the least. And cute, though, not in a way that he would ever think of dating her. It was more like she had become the little sister to the six pilots at the base and they all wanted to protect her.

“It's nearly Christmas, you know,” he pointed out. “The guys and I thought maybe as a present, you'd like a ride. In one of the Blériots.”

...

Slate! She called out before she was even within hearing range. “Slate! Guess what? I just got the best...”

When she burst through the door, it wasn't Slate that was standing in the middle of the mechanic's shop. It was Gavrillo's girlfriend, Jelena, with a big fluffy bundle in her arms.

“Slate's not here at the moment. He's with Gavrillo getting ready,” the older girl informed Katrina matter-of-factly.

“For what?”

“My employer is hosting a Yule Ball. Merry Christmas, by the way. I brought you a dress to wear, but don't spill anything on it. It's borrowed and I could be in huge trouble if it gets ruined. Come on, let's go get ready.”

It was pale cream and silky, with full skirts and white lace beneath a split front panel. The straps sat just off the shoulders, a very daring style for 1913. It was a dress for a fairy tale princess, not a poor girl who lived above a mechanic shop and worked at an airbase washing uniforms.

“It's beautiful.” She couldn't wait to see Slate's face when he saw it.

The tuxedo was white, with gold edging. The mechanic had gotten in a very good laugh about it when Gavrilo came to pick him up.

“So, Americky, you are Prince Charming? You’d better change somewhere else, unless you want grease stains all over you.”

When Katrina and Jelena had finished changing upstairs, however, the man was mute. He simply held the door for them, and his hat in his hand. The butler did the same, at their destination. Inside, their respective male companions looked properly taken aback. Slate offered out his arm.

You look beautiful, Katrina. Fit to attend a President’s Ball, or a King’s; certainly a merchant’s Yule Ball.

They did not know the dances, but it didn’t seem to matter; they tried copying what others were doing, and then... simply danced. They traded partners; Gavrilo cut in, leaving Slate with Jelena, who tried to coach him in a few simple steps. He heard her laughing when he later tried them with Katrina. He smiled, and kept dancing.

On the balcony between dances, Gavrilo stood next to him, their breaths making white clouds into the night air.

“She is quite the catch, your Katrina.” The Serbian said.

“So is your Jelena.” Slate said, to be polite.

“Jelena? Ha. She’s good enough for now, but...” Slate raised an eyebrow as his companion leaned out over the rail. “I don’t know. I just feel like I should be doing more, right? There’s so many things wrong with this country, with the whole world—I just want to fix them. Stupid, right?”

The young mechanic, former Kabal leader, and future Pax teacher, met the Serbian’s eyes levelly. "If you want to fix things,” he said simply, “then fix them.”

“Ha! One man can’t change the world, Slate.” He broke the gaze first. Shrugged. “In any case, I don’t think I’m cut out for the domestic life. Not like you two.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” the Serbian flashed a grin, “are you going to buy her a ring, or are you going to let one of those pilot boys beat you to it?”

He clapped Slate on the back, and went back inside with another laugh. Slate turned his gaze to the sky. The stars were much brighter here than in New York; brighter here than any place he had been in 2011.

It seemed like only a few more minutes before the musicians started to put away their instruments and the kitchen staff came out to retrieve the now empty platters from the banquet table. It seemed too early, but there was little point in staying longer. Gavrilo and Jelena waved good bye just outside the door, with promises to come over on boxing day to pick up the borrowed clothing.

That left Katrina and Slate to walk home on their own. Katrina used one hand to keep her skirts out of the slush in the road, the other one was occupied with holding Slate's hand in Slate's pocket, so it would stay warm.

It was a deceptively short walk back from enchanted magic ballroom to their own tiny little apartment above the garage. Almost too short to think that two such different places could exist in the same world. Though it was cold out, Katrina wasn't quite ready to let their fairy tale evening end.

“Wait,” her words made a cloud as she spoke, “I've got your present. I hid it around back so you wouldn't find it early.” The little illusionist slipped her hand out of his pocket and disappeared around the corner of the shop. There was a little broken flower pot, underneath a rusty shovel, next to a wagon wheel, and inside was a little package wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a piece of twine.

It was just a moment before Katrina slipped in into Slate's waiting hands.

She covered his eyes for just a moment with her hand. When she let her fingers fall again the plain paper was transformed into a surface that swirled with galaxies and sparkled with supernovas, with shooting stars as ribbons that held the whole thing together.

“ Merry Christmas, Slate,” the little illusionist whispered with a smile.

The chess pieces were wooden, with a simple stain to distinguish black pieces from white. Their shapes were only the most basic approximations of kings and queens, knights and rooks. Really, they were nothing more than a collection of spheres and cones and cleanly cut lines, sanded down smooth.

Slate turned them over in his hands, liking them immensely. He looked back up at Katrina, a smile starting on his lips. "I—"

...Forgot to buy you a present, he realized, with a sudden empty feeling that could have easily slunk away and hid between the galaxies and comets still spinning on the wrapping paper in his hands. I forgot to buy you a present. I forgot that I was supposed to buy a present. "I'm sorry, Katrina—"

You could give me something free, she thought. And stood waiting on the cobblestone street below the window of their one room apartment, with the stars and moon and galaxies and comets spinning across the sky above her. It was enough to make a man dizzy.

Slate leaned forward, and kissed her. It was not his first kiss, but it was the first that meant something.

"Merry Christmas, Katrina."

Whispers at the market. Whispers in the streets. Whispers, even in the hanger.

Buy a little extra, just in case.

Have you heard the latest gossip about the kaiser?

The airforce might play a significant role.

Katrina, having only the most basic grasp on the Serbian language hadn't really understood most of it. She was too preoccupied with teaching Slate the rules of playing chess, with snuggling, and dreaming, with acing her first solo flight, being made a real pilot, and with humming everywhere she went. Her mind was living somewhere on a happy pink cloud, and she mostly didn't pay attention to what was happening back down on Earth.

She didn't really start to become concerned until the day they mounted guns on the wings of her plane.

Then she started to notice other things, like the way their captain was becoming increasingly more strict with the pilots, drilling them more and more often or the way Gavrilo got angry each and every time he saw a new headline in the paper about an alliance or a kaiser. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, as if they were waiting for something.

Her Serbian wasn't good enough yet to read the newspapers, but she did have a source in her own native language that she thought she could understand a little bit better. One weekend morning she finally dug around under the bed and pulled out a textbook Slate had brought with him. After brushing off several months worth of dust from the cover, she started reading.

And then she understood what everyone was so worried about.

The door to the apartment opened and Katrina jumped, slamming the book shut guiltily. It was only Slate. The little illusionist relaxed, then ran over to hug him and tell him what she had found out.

“Did you read that?” She pointed at the book.

“Did you know where we are and what's going to happen here?” She didn't give him a chance to respond. The words rushed faster and faster in a torrent of information, about how the next world war was on it's way, how the triple alliance was going to try to take over all of Europe, how Serbia and the other Balkan countries were going to be made into provinces of Austria-Hungary, how its resources were going to be stripped from them to help fuel a deadly war, how Franz Ferdinand, who was now only the heir apparent of Austria-Hungary, was going to become an overbearing dictator and even start the holocaust once he became leader, how that would start a second great war...

In their dreams a war had just begun, and they knew perfectly well how horrifying that could be.

“Oh Slate, what are we going to...”

A clatter of something that sounded like an oil can falling outside the door, then a light, hasty knock on the door that was already standing ajar.

Gavrilo poked his head in, “Hey, are you two ready? I thought we were going on a picnic to celebrate the first nice day of the season.” He sounded so cheerful, like for once alliances and kaisers and impending wars were the last thing on his mind. Those things were part of some other world, and here, in the real world, it was happy and sunny and time for a picnic.

Katrina tried to copy the happy expression on their Serbian friend's face, but the smile that had come so easily to her features over the last few months was more hesitant to make an appearance on this bright and sunny day.

“We're coming.”

She left the book on the table, grabbed the blanket they had folded up in preparation for their picnic, grabbed Slate's hand, and followed Gavrilo out the door.

Months ago, years in the future, Slate had been writing a term paper about World War I. Specifically, on the role of chemical weaponry. He'd once had a half-remembered dream which left him interested in the topic—he remembered that dream much better now, and found it not so much "interesting" as "incredibly distasteful." If he had to write the paper again, he would go with something that reflected humanity in a kinder light. Perhaps airplanes.

He had not read the start of his textbook—the first paragraph of the first chapter, which briefly detailed the failed assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand. The date—June 28th, 1914—had seemed very far from his own life. His instructor had not yet led them to the later chapters, either: to World War II, where the Archduke's raise to power was only overshadowed by his rise in lunacy. ("While in retrospect his madness is easily traced," one historian commented, "to his contemporaries, caught up by his oration and the scope of his plans, it was not 'madness' but 'vision' that they called it... a vision for a perfect society, populated by perfect people. The world did not at first realize what Ferdinand had planned for those who were imperfect in his eyes, and even when the rumors began, not everyone was willing to believe...")

Any history buff could easily pin down the Holocaust's cause: it was because his wife had been shot on June 28th, by Vaso Čubrilović. The Duchess Sophie took a bullet meant for him. In a perfect world, no one would want to shoot an innocent woman like her. Not those vagabond gypsies, or deviant homosexuals; not those traitorous, rebellious Serbs.

When Slate saw Katrina, he did not think of any of these things. He didn't yet know them. When he opened the apartment door, she was sitting on their bed, his Egyptian satchel open next to her. She gave a start—a guilty start? a caught-in-something start?—and ran to him. What he thought was, She found it. It was with the utmost of self-restraint that he kept this thought contained to his own mind.

“Did you read that?” She asked, pointing to the book.

Read...? He blinked. "No, not all of it. Only the assigned chapters."

Later, he would feel guilty for his rush of relief. Even as she explained, that is what he felt: relief. Until her words began to sink in, and the dates began to seem much closer than they had months ago, and years in the future.

It was May 26, 1914, and they were going for a picnic.

Katrina grabbed the blanket; Slate grabbed the chess set, and discretely pocketed something else from his satchel.

The park was green and warm. Jelena had put together sandwiches; Gavrilo claimed to have helped. After lunch, they broke out the chess board: Gavrilo and Slate played first (Slate won, but did not feel good about it). Katrina and Slate played next (Gavrilo loudly complained about Slate's moves making no sense—he could not see the illusion doubles that populated the board: Katrina's response to in inadvertent psychic cheating.) Jelena loudly claimed a match with the winner, which neatly paired up her and Katrina for the next round.

This allowed Gavrilo and Slate to quietly move to the leeside of their little hill, for a private conversation.

"I found a jeweler who will set any stone you bring him, or so he says—the work in his shop looks good. I still say it's easier to just buy a ring, though," the Serbian said, furtively glancing over his shoulder at the game. Jelena used an impolite word to describe Katrina's white knight; on the next move, her queen took his head. Jelena always led with her queen.

"It would not have the same meaning," Slate said. He made sure his body was shielding the women's view; then he discretely removed his hand from his pocket, and uncurled his fingers.

"Ah," the Serbian said, with sudden understanding. "That is a lot of meaning. For that much meaning, you could probably hook a princess."

The diamond sparkled flawlessly in the sunlight. He had found it tucked in the seam of his satchel, a few weeks back.

"How soon can we go?" Slate asked, sliding his hand discretely back into his pocket.

Gavrilo grinned conspiratorially. "How long can you sneak off tonight without your princess getting suspicious?"

It was May 26, 1914. Katrina's ring was done on June 12th. Its single diamond was the size and shape of a tear; the last of their Dragon Speak gems.

It was May 27, 2019.

Katrina had kept the Chinese president alive long enough for him to agree to peace talks in Prague, which were to take place tomorrow.

Slate had kept seven Pax Academy seniors alive long enough for them to escape on foot through Tibet and into northern India where they were able to catch a series of trains to the Czech republic just in time for the .

This would be the first time the two young teachers had seen each other for five months.

Katrina abandoned valet standing in the lobby wondering what to do with her luggage as she threw herself into Slate's arms.

“Slate! I missed you. I was so worried when...” She would have continued, but her words were silenced by soft lips pressing against hers.

She didn't even care that their students were watching.
-------------------

It was June 28, 1914.

The first ribbons of light streaked the dark sky, each carrying an image of war, destruction, and loss. Katrina rubbed her eyes to clear them of the dream's after images, gave Slate's hand a squeeze to make sure he was awake, then reached for the most sensible clothes she had: her pilot jump suit. The last thing she needed today was to be tripping on skirts.

It was June 28th, 1914 and today was the day they were going to rewrite history.

Slate had seemed a little distracted the past few weeks, almost as if he were nervous about what they were going to do. She understood completely: after the dreams they had shared, they knew very well what could happen if they made a mistake. That, and even if they didn't make any mistakes, changing history could have all kinds of consequences. They were counting on the fact that saving millions of lives would be one of them.

Soon it would be over, and they could live out the rest of their quiet lives, with the world none the wiser to its neatly averted disasters.

At least, that was the plan.

On the way out the door, Katrina made sure they had their train tickets tucked safely in her pocket: round trip from Belgrade to Sarajevo.
-------------------

It was fool proof. Almost too easy, like an open book history test. Their textbook told them where the countess Sophie's assassins would be standing, what kinds of weapons they had, it even provided pictures of the two, right as they were getting arrested captioned “the arrest of assassins Vaso Čubrilović and Muhamed Mehmedbašić”.

It was easy to spot them in the crowd waiting for the archduke and his countess to pass by in their motorcade along the Appel Quay.

Easy to set up position behind them.

Easy to create an illusion of an imposing police officer right next to them to make them nervous.

Easy to make the royal couple in their motorcade invisible as they passed.

It was perhaps too easy, for once the couple had passed by, the cheers from the crowds further up the street were punctuated by the sound of an explosion. Katrina looked at Slate, horrified, then took off running to see what had happened.

They arrived just in time to see a young man put something in his mouth and jump into the river. The river was more a puddle than a river, though, due to lack of rain lately, and the police captured him easily.

“I didn't realize there were three,” Katrina admitted to Slate quietly beneath the noise of the crowd as it spread the news of what had happened:

“Good thing it didn't explode right away.”

“Thank God the archduke escaped.”

“Thank God? We would have been better off without him.”

“What do you think he'll do to the Balkan states, now that two of his friends were injured and he knows there are assassins after him?”

“Who knows?”

“I think it worked. I think we did it,” Katrina whispered excitedly to Slate, her ear tilted to listen to the rumors that were circulating. She grinned at him, then her tummy rumbled. “I think I saw a cafe back a little ways, by the bridge. Let's get some breakfast to celebrate.”

Then, in the crowd, she saw a face she didn't expect to see all the way in Sarajevo.

“Gavrilo! Come join us for breakfast, we're celebrating!”

In retrospect, Slate wondered if Gavrilo hurried to their side just to make Katrina stop shouting. Policemen were already swarming; the Serbian was more than happy to accompany them off onto the side streets, away from the scene of the bombing.

Katrina may have felt like eating, but Slate was not particularly hungry, and Gavrilo did not seem particularly inclined to sit still for long. Rumors flew all around them—one hundred killed, the mayor dead; no, the mayor was meeting with the Archduke in city hall, and it was more like five, don't you cater to those rumors; no—no one dead, but quite a few injured; the Archduke's car landed in the river; wasn't that the assassin? Five inches of water, ha! Not from around here, that boy. The crowd beat him good before the police wrested him away, got in a kick myself—

Gavrilo voted for a shop where they could pick up a few things, and find somewhere more peaceful to actually eat them. Slate seconded, giving Katrina an apologetic look as they democratically ousted her little cafe. The food there did smell good, he admitted, but he could still hear the commotion a few blocks back. One hundred or five, a bomb had certainly gone off. There were injured people over there. He was a healer. But this was 1914, and mutants were not yet known.

They had done enough for one day.

They ended up wandering into a little shop off of Franz Josef Street; Schiller's Delicatessen. Gavrilo's hands were shaking. He shoved them in his pockets, and gave Slate a waxen smile.

"I'm going to get some fresh air. You pick something for me, all right?" Slate nodded mutely. The bell above the door jingled as the Serbian stepped outside.

It was just a coincidence. If they'd gone to Katrina's deli, if Slate had stopped him with any stupid, simple question—'turkey or ham?', 'what cheese would you prefer?', 'what kind of bread?'—it wouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have.

The Archduke! The thought hit Slate's mind with the same electric crackle that it went through the Serbian's own. It all made sense, then—a string of events, leading here. To this. The protest where they'd first met; the card nights with Gavrilo's friends, and the intense conversations he could only half-understand; a night out on a cold balcony. The reason why Gavrilo was in Sarajevo at all; the same reason they were.

One man can change the world.

Slate dropped the rolls Katrina had been piling in his arms; he was out the door only a moment after the Serb. The Archduke's car was stalled in the street. Pedestrians flowed past on the sidewalks, gossiping, staring, unconcerned. The gun wasn't even fully out of Gavrilo's coat yet. Governor Potiorek was yelling something at their driver, who was muttering something to their car, which was loudly turning over (bad alternator, Slate diagnosed, even as he pushed his way through the crowd). The Archduke was frowning, turning to say something to his wife, who looked worried but not alarmed.

Slate grabbed for Gavrilo's arm. The Serbian pistol-whipped him in the face, and took a step closer. Aimed. Fired twice.

Katrina was the first to get her hands on him; with her hair tied back and her airman's clothes, history would remember her as a man. Other men on the street certainly weren't shy about piling in. Katrina let his arms go, then, backing away in horror—that at least gave him a fighting chance. His gun was gone. It was him against the crowd, until the police could break their way through. Slate touched a hand to his forehead. He was bleeding.

"Sophie! Sophie!"

The Archduke was making no effort to stop his own bleeding. His wife was in his arms. She looked up at him, her mouth moving silently as if she was trying to speak—

She was still alive.

Slate stood. He was a healer, and she was still alive. If he could just—

A heavy hand settled on his shoulder, holding him in place. Another grabbed Katrina's arm in a harsh grip. He looked up into a face that seemed somehow familiar. Dark skin, black hair, the start of a stubbly beard.

"Don't you think you've done enough?" The Egyptian man asked. He pulled them backwards, hopping over the stub of a candlestick.

It was like falling away from the world. The angry crowd and Gavrilo's shouts were cut off; the car, the Archduke and his wife, disappeared. There was only blackness with no sight and sound; not even the smell of gunpowder. There was only a sense of movement. Of going back—

--To another crowd in Egypt, where a burly man with more than his share of muscles was still pushing through the crowd towards them, his face twisted in anger. Slate was in front of Katrina now. That was just as well. His head already hurt; it spun with black and red, with after-images of Serbia and someplace else.

His head hurt, even before the punch landed.