Part 1 – Plot questions
Part 2 – Character questions
Part 3 – Pelletier questions
Part 4 – World questions
Part 5 – Temporis questions
Part 6 – Gripes
Temporis questions
In Chapter 3, how did Hannah crack a city bus just by running into it?
She only cracked the window, and she did it by running into the side at accelerated speed. She’s lucky she only dislocated a shoulder.
If Amanda’s tempis is triggered by stress, shouldn’t she have been covered in the stuff from the minute her world ended?
Realistically, yes. But for the sake of the story, let’s just assume she was in too much shock during those first two hours on the new world.
How exactly do Evan’s powers work?
Evan Rander can rewind the chronology of his life, whether it’s a minute, an hour, a day or even longer. He’s essentially a time traveler who jumps back into the bodies of his past selves. This gives him a firsthand knowledge of events that, from other people’s perspectives, have yet to occur. For him, it’s all hindsight.
How come no one else remembers the earlier things that Evan does?
Just the nature of psychic time travel. If you jumped back to 2004 with all your current knowledge, met me on the street, and said “Hey, Dan, I loved The Flight of the Silvers,” I’d have no idea what you were talking about, since I’m still the Daniel Price from 2004.
Evan mentions that he’s killed Hannah in past “rewinds.” It’s also implied that no matter where Evan rewinds, the Pelletiers will be there, still aware of all events. Why is round 55 different? Why would the Pelletiers warn him not to kill the sisters this time?
The way Evan perceives time is very different from the way the Pelletiers perceive it. As Azral explains to Theo in Chapter 33, Evan takes a hopelessly linear view. He believes the past is a single line that can be erased and redrawn at will, while the Pelletiers know that all timelines happen concurrently. Picture Azral and Esis in a room with a trillion TV screens. They see ALL versions of Evan causing trouble at once. And now they’re doing something about it.
Why is Hannah so prone to injury when she speeds?
Because even though it doesn’t feel like it from her perspective, she’s moving with 10-20 times the usual momentum. Just knocking on a door in Chapter 10 made her feel like she was punching a mailbox from the window of a speeding car.
The people she touches are also more vulnerable while she’s shifting, as she learns the hard way in Chapter 29.
How is David able to select specific images from the past?
He has a special hindsight that allows him to mentally scan the history of any area he’s in. From there, he can pick and choose which images he wants to display as lumic ghosts.
What happens to someone if they’re standing in the path of a tempic barrier when it’s activated?
I imagine the results wouldn’t be pretty. I’d also guess that the technology has tons of safety sensors to prevent such a thing from happening.
How exactly did Azral kill Quint?
He turned Quint intangible, but still subject to the pull of gravity. So the poor man had nowhere to go but down through the floorboards, the first floor, the parking garage, the crust of the Earth, until he eventually suffocated.
It’s a very nasty power, even in the hands of nice people. You’ll meet one such man in The Song of the Orphans.
How does David pull off his invisibility trick?
It’s not true invisibility. He merely hides behind a projected ghost image of an empty background. Obviously the illusion isn’t perfect, especially if the person you’re trying to fool is looking closely or moving around.
Why did that poor fawn explode when Zack tried to heal her?
Living creatures are complex beings and require a certain amount of finesse during temporal reversal. Zack still has virtually no experience in that regard.
If tooping results in such inferior duplicates, how did Zack create a perfectly functional replica of a car key?
Because metal toops better than most other materials. The key was rusty, but it was strong enough to let Zack turn the ignition.
But doesn’t tooping require a container of some sort to work?
Yes. In this case, the key ignition slot was the container.
How come Evan can change the past with his temporal rewinds but Mia can’t change it with her portals?
As Azral explains to Theo, the past isn’t a single chain that can be erased and redrawn. Like the future, it’s a path with infinite branches.
So in effect, Evan and Mia both create a spinoff branch of time whenever they tamper with the past. But while Evan has the ability to back up and travel along the alternate path he created, Mia has the settle for the fact that she created a new timeline remotely.
Heady, isn’t it?
How is that some tempis-wielding people can shoot projectiles while others, like Amanda, can only extend solid white objects from their hands?
Tempis is the most common of the temporal abilities, and there are many different kinds. Some, like the ill-fated Gotham who David kills, can also create levitating discs. Some can even fly.
You’ll meet a character in The Song of the Orphans who’s found an even more unique use for tempis.
What’s the deal with the weird hallucinatory artifacts Amanda sees when Hannah shifts her into high-speed in Chapter 35?
Let’s just say the wall between realities gets thin when one is shifting at that velocity. The full effect will be explained in Book Three.
Why are time portals fatal but spatial portals aren’t?
For the same reason that skydiving is easier from 10,000 feet than 100,000. Some journeys are harder on the body than others. And some are downright impossible.
And yet the Pelletiers are time travelers. They clearly found a way.
They sure did. Their trick will be revealed before the series is done.
.
Plot questions | Character questions | Pelletier questions | World questions | Temporis questions | Gripes
.
Have a question that isn’t answered in this FAQ? Need clarification on something I posted here? Send me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do.
