Unanswered questions about the complex nature of time linger throughout the novel, such as whether or not Diana and Matthew are actively changing the outcomes and course of time and history, or if, instead, they were always fated to go back in time and make the choices they did.

Evidence for the former is that Matthew remembers the last time he lived through the 16th century. That seems to indicate that he was not “displaced” in his own timeline the way he has displaced this 16th-century version of Matthew. He ruminates on all the things he did then that he now regrets and tries to set things right. When witches are being persecuted in Scotland, he says, “Before, as the Queen’s spy, I delighted in the trouble in Scotland. As a member of the Congregation, I considered Sampson’s death an acceptable price to pay to maintain the status quo” (327). He believes he has another chance to live the same events but do things differently and help the witches more.

Matthew and Diana constantly fear that they are affecting the past too much. Stephen convinces Diana that she “screwed up” by changing the past. Diana and Matthew think they are making changes in the past that create aspects of the present that were not there before their timewalk.