Costumes for Time Travelers

Pocket, a waypoint town for time travelers, has always been aspiring teenage tailor Calisto’s home. There, Calisto crafts clothing from across the centuries for adventurers alongside their grandmother. During Pocket’s traditional moonful festival, Calisto’s celebrations go awry when bedraggled and desperate Fawkes—the legendary savant rumored to effortlessly travel through time—pinwheels into the town square. Though Fawkes and Calisto have never met, Fawkes reveals that, as the savant, he is unanchored in time and has therefore caught glimpses of a future in which his and Calisto’s fates are entwined. He also claims that he’s being chased by the time wardens—faceless, malevolent soldiers intent on stopping time travel. When a powerful time traveling secret is stolen (one that, if revealed, could unravel every reality), Calisto must accompany Fawkes in his efforts to save the cosmos one stitch at a time. Themes of found family, self-discovery, and personal acceptance underpin Calisto and Fawkes’s slowly blossoming romance. Capetta (Tasting Light) yo-yos between 16th-century London, the distant future, and other timelines in this lighthearted and low-stakes fantasy. Calisto cues as white; Fawkes has brown skin. Ages 14–up. Agent: Sara Crowe, Sara Crowe Literary. (May)