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G lenhaven Castle

May

The sun shone high and hot over Glenhaven Castle, turning the lake below to a band of hammered silver. From the battlements, Baldwin could see the shimmer of fish breaking the surface. Lazy, content, unbothered. Unlike him.

Inside the solar, the air was thick with the scent of parchment, beeswax, and the faint trace of lavender from the rushes strewn across the floor.

The window stood open to the breeze, but it did little to soothe the heat crawling under his collar.

A scroll lay unrolled on his desk, ink drying in the margins, the latest missive from court.

He had read it thrice and still it rattled his teeth.

The queen had grown bolder. Jacquetta’s influence, once a whisper behind embroidered veils, had swelled into a gale that stirred every corner of the court.

Baldwin did not trust it. Her daughter, Elizabeth, now Queen of England, had risen from widowhood and obscurity to a throne meant for the highborn, and though Baldwin was sworn to King Edward IV, a loyal Yorkist from the first clash of steel at Towton, he did not share his liege’s blind admiration for the Woodville women.

Jacquetta, cloaked in piety and silk, moved through the court like a chessmaster, her hand behind every new title, every sudden elevation.

She spoke in prayer, but her ambition gleamed sharper than any sword.

The White Queen may have been born common, but she held the king’s ear like a blade to the throat, and Baldwin had seen too many good men fall to ambition masked as devotion.

He rubbed at the scar along his jaw, the skin tight in the heat, and leaned back in his chair, its wood groaning in protest. A knock came at the door. Not urgent, but anxious.

“Enter.”

Lady Agnes, his younger sister’s appointed companion, slipped inside, fingers twisting in the folds of her gown. Her lips trembled, and her eyes darted to the hearth, as if hoping it might swallow her whole.

“My lord,” she began, voice breathy, “I—I cannot find Lady Eleanor.”

Baldwin’s jaw flexed. He didn’t sigh. He was above sighing, but the urge was there. Eleanor had vanished before, usually in search of trouble or adventure. Or both.

“She was to be stitching altar cloths,” Lady Agnes continued, wringing her hands now in earnest. “But I’ve checked the chapel, the garden, the kitchens…”

“And the training yard?” Baldwin asked dryly.

Lady Agnes flinched. “Yes, my lord. Sir Roland said she was not there either.”

Of course she wasn’t. That would have been too easy. He rose, the movement smooth despite the weight of the sword belted at his hip. “Fetch Sir Alric. We ride.”

Lady Agnes curtsied and fled, skirts whispering behind her.

Baldwin strode from the solar, his tread echoing over the flagstones.

Servants scattered like pigeons. He felt the hum of tension settle into his spine, the way it always did when Eleanor vanished.

She was headstrong, yes, but clever. Too clever.

And these were dangerous times, even in Glenhaven. Especially in Glenhaven.

He met Sir Alric by the stables, already mounted, a warhorse snorting beneath him. Baldwin swung into the saddle, his own destrier eager to move. The gates creaked open, and they rode into the woods, hooves muffled by moss and pine needles.

“She’s taken your second-best bow again,” Alric said after a time, deadpan.

Baldwin exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound nearer a growl than a sigh. “She’ll not like what she gets in return.”

Alric chuckled. “She never does.”

His gaze drifted toward the tree line, jaw tight. “She was but ten when our father died. A child with too much grief and too little guidance.”

“You raised her well,” Alric offered.

“I raised her wild,” he muttered, folding his arms. “I let her run too free. Indulged her every whim while I kept Glenhaven from crumbling. And now—” He broke off, shaking his head. “’Tis a score and two years she counted this past May. She should be wed by now.”

Alric tilted his head. “She’s refused all offers.”

“She has,” Baldwin said grimly. “And I’ve let her. But if I do not make a match for her soon, the king shall do so in my stead. His Grace grows impatient.”

He fell silent, the weight of duty settling like armor on his shoulders. “I cannot shield her forever.”

Beth was going to die in a forest. Not from dehydration or exposure, no, but possibly from shock or a neurological event brought on by temporal dislocation, massive trauma, or whatever hellish science experiment she’d just accidentally conducted.

She clutched a fistful of moss and forced herself to breathe.

This was England. The Lake District, if she had to guess. The geography matched, the air crisp and unpolluted. But how? She’d been in her lab. One moment she was muttering about TikTok and vinegar reactions, the next. Boom. Light, sound, pressure. A vision? A seizure?

Somehow, she’d blacked out and woken up here. “But that’s impossible,” she whispered, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple. “There were no flights. No one drugged me. No time for a coma, no head trauma…”

She spun slowly in place, scanning for a trail, a road, a cell tower, anything.

Her brain raced through possibilities like a spreadsheet of hypotheses.

Hallucination from chemical exposure? Maybe.

But she’d been careful. No gas leaks, no burns.

And this didn’t feel like a hallucination.

The breeze was cool against her damp skin.

Her scraped palms throbbed. A bug landed on her arm and bit her with rude enthusiasm.

“Nope. Not a dream.” She slapped it away.

The trees were too real, the dirt too gritty beneath her nails. And the castle, God, the castle, still loomed across the lake like something from a fever dream. Massive, ancient, utterly out of place.

Beth dragged her fingers through her hair, dislodging a twig. “I didn’t teleport. That’s not a thing. There’s no quantum tunnel in my chem lab.”

But she had seen something. A flash of images. Haunting grey eyes, a sword, stone walls braced against the wind. Like a memory that wasn’t hers.

She shook her head, trying to make sense of the impossible. “Okay. You’re a scientist. Think. What do you know?”

Chemical reaction. Electrical storm. Exposure to copper sulfate, maybe a catalyst she hadn’t accounted for. Blood in the mix. And lightning.

Energy. A lot of it. Enough to … what? Blow a fuse? Short-circuit her brain?

Or punch a hole in space-time?

Beth laughed, sharp, breathless, slightly unhinged. “I did not invent time travel with vinegar, blood, and copper sulfate.”

And yet. The forest pressed in around her, silent and watchful. No phone towers. No wrappers or soda cans. No sign of human life as she knew it. She peered again at the castle across the lake. No modern scaffolding. No warning signs. Just stone. Banners. Smoke curling from chimneys.

Oh no.

Her stomach dropped.

Not just England.

Not just somewhere remote.

But somehow, impossibly… the past. But when?

Beth swayed, her sneakers sinking into the damp earth. “Okay,” she breathed. “Either you’ve lost your mind, or you’ve broken every known law of physics.”

She swallowed. “Let’s hope it’s the second one.”

While she was thinking about time travel, a young woman appeared out of nowhere, blond, beautiful, and full of fury, a bow drawn with unshaking precision.

She’d frozen mid-step, arms raised like a cartoon villain caught stealing pies.

Now, she stood ankle-deep in brambles, facing the business end of an arrow that looked entirely too sharp.

“State your name and intent,” the girl demanded.

Beth raised her hands slowly. “Normally I’d say carbon because it’s the building block of life, but I’m guessing that won’t mean anything to you.”

Eleanor blinked. “You speak sorcery with a smile.”

Beth sighed. “Not sorcery. Just chemistry. Which, I guess, still sounds like witchcraft to you … fabulous.”

Just great. She was going to die without figuring out how she’d traveled through time. And to make things worse, she was going to be murdered by a twenty-something Legolas in a dress.

“What is your name?” The arrow was awfully close to her very thin, fragile skin.

Beth blinked. “Um. Beth?”

“You are not sure?” The girl’s eyes narrowed. “You wear strange hose and footgear. Are you a jester?”

She glanced down at her leggings. “They’re Lululemon. Also, not a jester. Just misplaced.”

“You speak in riddles. Are you French?”

Her mouth fell open. “Do I sound French?”

“You sound mad.”

“That’s fair.”

The bow didn’t lower. In fact, the girl took a step closer, the tip of the arrow now uncomfortably aligned with Beth’s left eye.

“What fabric is your hose made from?”

Without meaning to, she flinched. “Is this a fashion interrogation?”

“They cling like a second skin. You could move swiftly in such things.” The girl’s gaze sharpened with interest. “Are they made for fighting?”

“I mean, they’re great for yoga.”

“Yo … gah?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “It’s like sword fighting, but with more stretching and fewer blades.”

A pause. Then, almost reverently, the girl said, “Show me.”

Beth blinked. “What?”

“Show me this yo-gah. Now.”

“Oh, I don’t think?—”

The girl loosed an arrow without warning. It thudded into a tree trunk three inches to Beth’s right, dead center of a knot in the bark.

Beth yelped and stumbled back, hands raised. “Okay! Okay! I’ll show you, just don’t shoot!”

With a breathless laugh of panic, she dropped to the mossy earth and pushed herself into a wobbly backbend, limbs trembling. “See? Perfectly harmless.”

Without thinking, she kicked one leg up, then the other, lifting into a shaky handstand that lasted all of three seconds before she toppled sideways into a tangle of ferns and leaves.