Page 10 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

A n enormous metal dragon, belching fire as it careened toward her, shaking the ground she stood on. Terrifying. Horrific. Dreadful.

And not something that could have been created on a whim. Such a thing was beyond the reach of what was known and available and possible. In 1793.

Lili, who was seldom more than momentarily shaken by anything, was fighting panic. Every ounce of her strength had been focused on keeping that hidden from her expression as they’d walked back from the village.

Armitage unlocked the door to the lightkeepers’ quarters. The interior was warmer than the air outside, which she appreciated. Her new dress was made of thicker fabric, but it hung oddly enough on her that drafts were seeping through.

“Anything in here that’ll be helpful to you, you’re welcome to use.” Armitage held out the basket that he’d been given in the village.

“Except the sweet biscuits?” Mikhail added with a laugh.

“What sweet biscuits?” Armitage smiled at him.

Lili took the basket he still held. “ C’est pour le d?ner ?”

He nodded. “For whatever meal you want to use it for.”

“ à quelle heure —At what time will we eat tonight?” Keeping to simple questions and topics was wisest. She needed very little clarity of thought for such things.

“In two hours or so.” It was almost a question.

Time and plenty for her to decide what to cook for that night’s meal and to find some degree of calm after her encounter with the metal dragon—she could think of no better way to describe it.

Mr. Pierce stepped into the parlor from the kitchen. “Thought I heard the lot of you.”

Mikhail pulled in a sharp breath, his mouth dropping a bit open. “Mr. Pierce. An honor to meet you.”

“I’m not certain you’ll still feel that way after you realize how hard you’ll be working here.”

Mikhail shook his head. “I ain’t afraid of working hard.”

That seemed to meet with Mr. Pierce’s approval. “Armitage, take the boy to the barracks and get him settled in. I’ll meet the two of you in the lantern room.”

Though Armitage and Mikhail left the parlor, Mr. Pierce didn’t. He stood in stoic silence until the sound of the lighthouse tower door closing echoed back to them.

“I didn’t think of the train until after you’d already left,” he said.

She hadn’t the first idea what to make of that comment. “ Excusez-moi ?”

“I thought about racing after you with a warning, but I didn’t know if you’d come from long enough ago to not recognize it.” He shook his head in what appeared to be regret. “The way you was dressed, though, made me think you’re a main lot more than a quarter-century out of your time. Is it nearer to a century?”

Her pulse hammered a rhythm of warning against her ribs, reverberating through all of her in a wave of anxiety. “Out of my time?”

He watched her with a mixture of commiseration and conviction. “My grandson does not believe the legends. Most don’t. But I know they are true.”

“What legends, monsieur ?”

He took a quick breath. “I know what it looks like when somewho is brought across time. I don’t know when you’ve come from, but I know it’s not now. I also know that you would do well not to tell anyone that.”

Mr. Pierce said all these things as if he weren’t upending her world once again, as if he weren’t telling her to believe in what she knew to be impossible. And yet, she had seen proof of it herself.

“What do you mean?”

“I realize you are afraid and don’t know that you can trust me.” Kindness tugged at his expression. And there was sincere concern in his eyes. That was something she had seen less and less often in Paris. “But I am telling you with complete honesty that this is the year 1873—that the things you see that confuse you are, likely without exception, too modern for you to recognize, but they are real and not unusual for now.”

“What you are suggesting, monsieur , is impossible.”

“Yet it is true.” He made the declaration with such conviction. “I know that it is, and so long as you know that I know, you will not have to face your impossible reality alone.”

She kept herself very still. “What is it you suggest I do about my ‘impossible reality’?”

“Give yourself time to begin to believe it,” he said. “And bear in mind that those who openly declare their acceptance of such things are generally considered mad.” His expression turned worryingly somber. “I cannot imagine the asylums of your day were any better than ours.”

Asylums. She had fought so hard to save those she could in Paris. She had fled her homeland, survived being tossed into the ocean. For all of that, to end in the purgatory of an asylum felt too cruel even for the heartlessness she knew fate often displayed.

The squeaking of hinges told her the lighthouse tower door had been opened. A moment later, Armitage peeked his head into the room.

“Us is heading up to the tower,” he told his grandfather. “Thought I’d check if you’d climbed the stairs yet.”

“I’ll go up with the both of you.” Mr. Pierce gave Lili a quick glance of warning that still held a note of the concern he’d expressed before turning and leaving with his grandson.

Lili didn’t move. She wasn’t certain she could.

“This is the year 1873.” He had declared it with conviction.

And he’d known she wouldn’t be prepared to see the train. He’d guessed, if what he’d said was indeed true, that she was nearly a century out of her own time.

He knew.

And though her mind shouted that she not believe him even a little, part of her knew as well. Part of her had truly known the moment the ground had begun to shake at the train station.

1873.

Eighty years. Gone.

She wandered with unseeing steps into the kitchen. If she set herself to the task of making the evening meal, she might stave off the pandemonium swirling in her mind.

She set the basket of vegetables on the work surface. It held quite a variety of garden vegetables as well as a jar of fava beans already removed from the pods. They hadn’t obtained any meat while in the village, but she could make a vegetable cassoulet. Except cassoulet took hours and hours. Perhaps she could prepare that tomorrow. Today, she might do better to make ratatouille.

Am I truly standing here contemplating menus when reality itself has just been upturned? There was a reason people were thought to be mad if they believed in impossible things. Because it was madness.

Yet she was beginning to believe it herself.

Focus your thoughts on the meal. The distraction would help.

Except the enormity of her “impossible reality” touched even the seemingly simple assignment of cooking meals in exchange for room and board. Her repertoire was limited, entirely French, and nearly a century old. She would give herself away if she didn’t expand her skills. Perhaps Armitage had a book of recipes somewhere in his collection.

A book that, no doubt, would have a publication date that would confirm the impossible. She began unpacking the basket, setting those things she could use for that night’s meal to one side and everything else to the other. Near the top, she found the small tin that held the biscuits Armitage and Mikhail had been jesting about.

Lili had not removed even half the vegetables when her eye caught a book tucked against the side of the basket.

A book.

She pulled it out. Armitage hadn’t purchased any books while in the village. They hadn’t visited any shops that sold books. The woman who’d given them the basket must have included it.

Lili didn’t read English as well as she spoke it, but she didn’t have to work overly hard to decipher the title: Tales along the Southern Coast .

This was England’s southern coast. The book, then, was likely stories about this area of the country. That could actually be useful, depending on what type of tales it contained. Mr. Pierce had spoken of a legend connected to her current circumstances. If this book contained even a hint of that tale, it would be helpful.

Tempted as she was to stop everything and read, she knew she needed to have supper ready at the time Armitage had indicated. The dress she wore, the food she was eating, a place to lay her head was all given in exchange for meals.

See to your survival, then search for your answers.

She finished sorting the vegetables and beans. They’d need more bread the next day. She would have to find out from Armitage what the budget for food was.

It’s not that simple though.

She didn’t know how much anything cost. She wouldn’t have the first idea what could even be purchased with any given amount of money. Or what was grown in this area of the world, what was available at the grocer’s.

Frustrating, yes. But hardly insurmountable difficulties. Running from the power of the Tribunal was considered impossible by anyone’s estimation. And she’d managed that for months as she’d slipped seventy-six people past that “impossible” impediment. She was not weak or cowardly. She survived. Always.

With the focused determination she had depended on all her life, she gathered ingredients and chopped vegetables. There would be no further wavering or hand-wringing. Lili Minet had been a role in 1793 as much as it was in 1873. Then, she had changed her name, double-crossed her brother, and pretended to be a hero. Now, she would again hide her real identity, deceive the people who were giving her a place to live, and pretend to belong.

It was likely best that she not think too hard about any of that. She was proud of what she had accomplished in France the past months, but she was not overly pleased with what had been required to accomplish it.

1873. She could not keep that year from her thoughts for long. If it was true—heavens, she had truly begun to believe it was—then that would mean accepting that her friends and comrades in Paris were now dead. Even if they’d managed to live to very old ages, they were gone now.

Were the Legrands ever reunited with their children? They’d sent them to live with relatives in the countryside, fearing that Paris was too dangerous but unable to afford to leave themselves.

Had Marie-Francois and Jean-Marc ever married? Lili had jestingly insisted that when they did, she should officiate. That had always made them laugh, which had always been her aim. Life was too heavy, and all her friends were being crushed by it.

Sabine Germain had dreamed of living by the sea. Lili had offered to arrange for her to leave Paris and settle somewhere along la Manche. But Sabine had lived with her aging grandmother, who had not been strong enough for a journey. Sabine hadn’t been willing to leave her. What had become of them?

Lili hung the iron pot over the fire and stirred the contents a few times. There remained time enough for the ratatouille to cook through before the men were ready for it. She returned the other vegetables and beans to the basket, where the book still lay. She pulled it out, then sat in a chair at the worktable.

The book was not overly thick. The southern coast must not have boasted too many tales. It was a bit worn. And there was a ribbon tucked into the pages.

She opened the book to the page marked by the ribbon. It was the start of a chapter: “Sailing the Tides of Time.” Lili reread the chapter heading once more, then once again. The Tides of Time.

She read on, her relative inexperience with written English slowing her efforts.

“The waters of the Southern Coast, particularly those in and around Loftstone Island, possess a magic all their own.”

She swallowed against the thickness forming in her throat. Magic on the water. The water here, in close vicinity to this island. Magic.

She’d let herself imagine for a moment that the legends Mr. Pierce had alluded to might be included in these pages. Were they truly?

She returned her attention to the book. “That magic, centuries of tales and legends and experiences testify, holds sway over time itself.”

Time itself.

The door leading to the lighthouse tower opened, and Armitage stepped into the kitchen. He smiled when he saw her.

“Are you finished so soon?” Lili asked. “Your supper will not be ready for a bit yet.”

He shook his head. “Grandfather is doing some work with Mikhail up at the top of the tower. I wasn’t needed, so I’m going to tighten the loose handle on the front door while I have a minute and it’s on my mind.”

There wasn’t nearly as much animosity dripping off him as there’d been when she’d first arrived. That gave her more room to breathe.

“Do you read English?” He flicked his chin at the book in her hand.

“Slowly.” She tried to pretend she wasn’t deeply interested in this particular book. “I found this in the basket. Mrs. Goddard was returning it to you, I suppose.”

He eyed it. “It’s not one of mine.” He continued on toward the door.

Lili would usually have let him go—distance was safer—but this book could be important to her, and she needed to know more about it. “If I promise to ... not interrupt your work, may I talk with you?”

“Eez.” He pulled a small wooden toolbox from a high shelf on his way out of the kitchen.

Lili followed him through the parlor and to the entryway. “I do not know that word.”

He looked back as he knelt in front of the door. “I’d not realized before you arrived how odd our way of speaking is here.” He pulled a tool from his box. “ Eez is ‘yes.’”

“Will you allow me to read the book from the basket?” she asked.

He worked on the handle. “ Allow you? Why would you need my permission?”

“It must have been put there for you. I would not keep it from—I would not wish to keep it from you.”

He looked at her briefly, both confused and intrigued. “What’s the book?”

She showed it to him.

“I’ve not ever seen it. I don’t think it was put there for me.”

Then for whom? “Might it have been left for your grandfather?” He, after all, believed the tales.

Armitage shook his head as he continued his work. “Unlikely.”

It must have been placed there for him. But it would be very useful to her.

“You have many books,” she said.

He nodded. “I like to read.”

She returned her confused gaze to the mysterious book. Someone had put it in the basket. Mrs. Goddard might have, but so many people had pressed in on them as they’d passed through the village. Any of them might have slipped it inside. Armitage’s enjoyment of reading was likely known throughout the village.

An anonymous offering of a book on a topic she needed to learn more of but had only just been warned not to talk about was merely a coincidence.

Lili took a shallow breath. She’d long ago learned not to trust coincidences.

And the book had arrived marked with a ribbon at the very chapter discussing her situation. Another worrisome coincidence.

Who had put it in the basket? And why?

Armitage glanced at her again, clearly confused. “Was there something else you wanted to gab with me about?”

She needed a different topic—a different but related topic so he’d not grow suspicious. “Do any of the books in the lighthouse have recettes ?”

“To quote a Frenchwoman I know, ‘I do not know that word.’” He tightened a screw in the handle.

“ Euh ...” She had spoken more English in the past two days than she had her entire life, yet the words were not coming much easier. Still, they did come. “Recipes.”

“I don’t have any books with recipes,” he said, still focusing on his work.

Zut. “I only know a few recipes, and they are all French. You will grow weary of them. I hoped to learn to cook other things.”

“Is there a reason you have done all your cooking thus far over the fire instead of using the stove?”

Stove . What was that? She didn’t dare ask, not until she knew if this was a new invention or something she could reasonably not know of. “My home had only the fire for cooking. That is all I know how to use.”

“You haven’t seen a train or a stove, but you lived somewhere ... un isolated enough that you learned to speak English and work in a tailor shop?” The suspicion was back in his voice.

“My corner of France is complicated. Everything is a struggle.” She shrugged. “So I left.”

Armitage returned his attention to the door handle, but she didn’t think he fully believed her explanation. “Do you intend to ever go back?”

“I need to find my place here.”

“ Here ?” He didn’t seem too pleased at that idea. He wasn’t undertaking a broad deception; she knew that now. But he still didn’t seem to want her there.

She supposed that was understandable. He was not an innkeeper who was accustomed to having travelers break their journeys with him. And he was having to concoct stories to explain her presence there. Of course he would wish for her stay to be short.

“I do not mean I must find my place specifically in your house, only that I cannot go back home. But I do not know—”

What she didn’t know would take hours to recount. She had never intended to go home after leaving France. But something about knowing she couldn’t was tearing at her. And having to accept, even slowly, that she had found herself on what the book termed “the Tides of Time” was unweaving the very fabric of reality as she knew it.

“I am not accustomed to being adrift,” she said. “I have no money. No friends. No family.” She’d not intended the explanation to turn into an emotional confession. She couldn’t seem to help herself. “I have no home to return to. But mark my words, I will find solid ground again and set my feet firmly there once more.”