Page 5

B aldwin stood in front of the narrow window in his solar, watching the mist rise off the lake below Glenhaven’s walls.

Dawn had barely broken, painting the eastern sky in hues of amber and rose.

His hand rested on the cold stone, fingers tracing the familiar groove worn by years of this same contemplation.

Even after bolting the door to the chamber where the strange woman now lay, Baldwin had not retired.

Her speech, filled with odd turns and foreign words, had tangled with her outlandish garb.

Hose like a knight’s under-armor, some strange tunic clinging to her frame, stitched without visible seams. Ridiculous.

Yet it was none of that which needled at him most. It was her gaze.

Those fierce green eyes, alive with fury and no proper fear, stared back across the hours, mocking his command of his own thoughts.

He’d spent the long hours alone in his solar, a fire guttering low beside him while he reviewed ledgers, looked through accounts from the larder, and read thrice the stiffly phrased letter delivered the prior eve by the king’s chamberlain’s man.

The ink blurred. Always, his mind drifted back to the green-eyed mystery Eleanor had plucked from Glenhaven’s woods.

A rap sounded at the heavy oak door. “Enter,” he called, his voice rough, barely scraped together.

Sir Roland stepped into the chamber, the lamplight drawing lines beneath his red-rimmed eyes. He looked like a man who’d drowned in his own winecup and barely crawled free. “My lord,” he began, his tone too close to amusement, “the woman somehow opened her chamber door and tried to flee.”

Baldwin rose from his chair, his shoulders stiff beneath the white linen of his shirt, unlaced at the throat.

Over it, he wore a padded gambeson, plain, but well-fitted, the sleeves quilted in slate grey, and dark woolen chausses tucked into worn boots.

A leather girdle hung at his waist, the empty hook waiting for the steel that now leaned against his chair.

“Of course she did,” he muttered, grabbing the sword and buckling the belt around his hips with practiced economy. The familiar weight of it settled him. Steel did not lie. It asked no riddles.

Roland leaned against the doorframe, brows lifted in amusement. “Found her dangling outside the chamber window, gripping the bedsheet, swaying back and forth. Just as the guard threw open the shutters, she lost her hold and tumbled in, landing in a heap upon the floor.”

Baldwin’s expression darkened. “Was she harmed?”

“Quite the opposite. Winded, aye, but her pride suffered more than her person.”

“She is mad.” His tone held no jest.

“Or clever.” Roland tipped an imaginary cup toward her.

Baldwin ignored him and moved for the door. “I will speak with her again.”

The corridors of Glenhaven were beginning to stir with morning activity.

Servants scurried past, heads bowed in deference, arms laden with kindling for the kitchen fires.

The scent of baking bread wafted up from below, mingling with the ever-present smell of damp stone and burning tallow.

Baldwin’s boots echoed against the flagstones as he descended the winding stair to the lower levels, Roland a step behind.

The guard posted outside her chamber straightened as Baldwin approached. “My lord, she’s been scratching strange markings on the wall. Runes, perhaps. Or...”

“Or witchcraft,” Roland supplied helpfully.

Baldwin silenced him with a glance. “Open it.”

The heavy bolt scraped back. Baldwin entered alone, his tall frame filling the doorway.

The chamber was small, but not uncomfortable.

He was not a cruel man, despite what some whispered.

A narrow pallet lay against one wall, its woolen blanket rumpled.

A single high window admitted a shaft of morning light, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the air.

The woman stood with her back to him, her strange dark breeches clinging to her legs in a manner that made his mouth go dry.

Her hair, the color of rich chestnuts, had escaped whatever binding she’d used and tumbled in disarray past her shoulders.

She turned at his entrance, chin lifted in defiance despite the smudge of dirt across one cheek.

Her gaze flicked past him to the surrounding stone walls. “Impressive limestone stratum in the mortar joints,” she murmured, almost involuntarily. “You’d need a pretty precise lime-to-sand ratio to get that kind of seismic stability in wet environments…”

He gaped at her, then shut his mouth with a snap.

“I suppose hanging from bedsheets is common where you come from,” he said dryly.

A flush crept up her neck. “Where I come from, we don’t lock people in medieval dungeons.”

“This is hardly a dungeon. Had I wished to imprison you properly, you would be in irons in a cell with far less light and considerably more rats.” He moved further into the room, noting the strange symbols scratched onto the stone wall.

Lines and circles arranged in patterns he did not recognize. “What manner of witchcraft is this?”

She followed his gaze and let out a sound that might have been a laugh. “It’s chemistry. Science. Not magic, and certainly not something as ridiculous as witchcraft.”

Honestly, sometimes it was so annoying explaining chemistry to someone who didn’t get it. With a deep breath, she tried again.

“I’m a chemist. I analyze molecular behavior, reaction patterns, and chemical kinetics … which... probably sounds like witchcraft to the wrong ears. Right. Sorry.” She rolled her eyes. “I study how stuff interacts. Like metals and acids. Boom or no boom.”

“Explain.” He folded his arms across his chest, the gambeson pulling taut across his shoulders.

“I was trying to figure out what happened to me.” She gestured to the markings.

“These are chemical equations. I was mixing compounds in my lab... and okay, I might not have been paying enough attention when something went wrong. There was an explosion and then...” she trailed off, looking lost. “And then I woke up here. In 1468. And somehow lost my lab coat in the process. I could have used what was in the pockets,” she muttered to herself.

Baldwin’s brow furrowed. “You persist with this tale of... time travel?”

“Because it’s the truth.” She sighed, running a hand through her tangled hair.

“Look, I know how it sounds. But I’m from the year 2025, over five hundred years from now.

I’m a high school chemistry teacher from Pennsylvania.

That’s in America, which, by the way, won’t be discovered for another few decades, 1492 to be exact. ”

“America,” he repeated flatly. The word felt foreign on his tongue.

“Yes. It’s a continent across the Atlantic Ocean. In my time, it’s a country. The United States of America.” She frowned. “Like a lot of countries have, we’re going through turbulent times, but I have to believe things will get better.”

She flashed a small smile at him as he studied her face for signs of madness or deception. Her eyes were clear, her gaze steady. Either she was the most accomplished liar he had ever encountered, or she truly believed what she was saying.

“You claim to be a... teacher? Of this ‘chemistry’?”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes. It’s the study of matter, substances, and how they interact. Like how metals react with acids, or how certain compounds can change states from solid to liquid to gas.”

Despite himself, Baldwin felt a flicker of interest. He had always been drawn to knowledge, a trait his father had considered unbecoming in a warrior. His private collection of manuscripts was among the finest outside of Oxford.

“And these markings explain how you came to be here?”

“I was attempting to retrace the conditions of the interdimensional event—” She paused, catching Baldwin’s baffled expression. “Sorry. Uh, trying to recreate the … circumstances that brought me here.”

“They’re my attempt to understand it.”

She gestured to the wall. “I was working with vinegar, acetic acid, and sodium bicarbonate, with copper sulfate as a catalyst. There was lightning, and a few drops of my blood got into the mixture.”

She touched her finger to where a small cut was visible.

“Then... blue light, electric discharge, a sense of falling... of dissolving down to my very molecules, and somehow I ended up here.”

Baldwin’s hand moved instinctively to the silver cross hanging at his throat. What she described sounded perilously like sorcery, yet there was something in her manner, earnest, frustrated, practical, that made him hesitate to name it so.

“You speak of things beyond my understanding,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Join the club,” she muttered.

“What is your name?” he asked abruptly.

She blinked, as if surprised by the question. “Beth. Elizabeth Anderson. Doctor Elizabeth Anderson, technically, but nobody calls me that except at academic conferences.”

“Doctor?” His brow arched. “You claim to be a physician as well?”

“No, not that kind of doctor. I have a PhD, a doctorate. It’s an advanced degree in my field.” She paused. “What’s your name? Everyone just calls you ‘my lord,’ which isn’t exactly helpful.”

He straightened, unaccustomed to such direct questioning from anyone, let alone a woman under his power. “I am Sir Baldwin Devereux, Lord of Glenhaven.”

“Well, Sir Baldwin,” she said, his name sounding strange with her accent, “I’m not a witch or a spy. I’m just... lost. Very, very lost.”

Something in her voice, a note of genuine despair beneath the bravado, stirred an unwelcome pang of sympathy in his chest even as he pushed it aside. Sympathy was a luxury he could ill afford, particularly with Cedric’s men watching Glenhaven’s every move and the king’s favor so precarious.

“You will remain here while I consider what is to be done with you,” he said, his tone brooking no argument.