Lily didn’t reply. She looked from Magnus to Oskar and back again. All the fight went out of her. She was suddenly exhausted. “All right,” she muttered. “All right.”
She followed Magnus back into the barn. It was blessedly warm inside and the campfire lit the space with a warm glow. Emeric looked up from where he was stirring a pan over the fire, a curious expression on his face.
“What was all the shouting about?”
Magnus didn’t answer. He folded himself onto one of the straw mats that they’d laid by the fire. Oskar lounged by the door, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. Lily folded onto the ground on the opposite side of the fire from the three men.
“All right,” she said, lifting her chin. “Start talking. Who the hell are you people and what is going on here?”
Chapter 5
Oskar watched Lily intently from his place by the door. His shin still throbbed from where she’d kicked him but it was more than his shin that hurt. She’d lied to him. She’d lied to them all. She was a time-traveler and had tried to conceal it.
He wanted to march over there and demand answers, shake them out of her if necessary, but he’d tried that already and all it had gotten him was a sore shin. So he gritted his teeth, tamped down on the anger coursing through him, and forced himself to remain by the door whilst Magnus and Emeric did the talking.
Magnus’s huge form dominated the space but his voice was gentle as he said, “Why dinna ye tell us what happened, lass? Then we might be able to piece this together.”
Lily swallowed. She glanced up at Oskar and despite himself, his stomach did a strange little wobble. She looked frightened and vulnerable—and something in him responded to that despite his annoyance at her lies. He felt the sudden urge to go over there and tell her he was sorry for his outburst earlier. He stifled the impulse. How did he know this wasn’t just another act?
“I...um...I was working with a patient. When I left her house, there was this swirling thing in the air beneath her garden arch. I thought it was just some kind of atmospheric disturbance.But then I stepped through it and ended up miles away, at the crossroad where Oskar found me.”
“And that didnae strike ye as odd?” Magnus asked.
“Of course it did!” she replied. “But...but...” She swallowed. “Not as odd as it might have done. I’ve...um...had blackouts before. I thought it was another one of those.”
The anguish in her voice tugged at something inside Oskar. He remembered the times he’d seen her wincing in pain even though she denied anything was wrong, and now she was telling them she had blackouts?
Magnus watched her for a moment then leaned forward. “Lass, what time period do ye think this is?”
She frowned. “You’re all as bad as each other, you know that? All right, I’ll play along. It’s the twenty-first century. Happy?”
Magnus glanced over at Oskar and then at Emeric. The archer whistled under his breath. “Now that, I wasnae expecting,” he said in a low voice.
“Lass,” Magnus said, speaking softly as though she was a flighty animal that he didn’t want to risk startling. “This isnae the twenty-first century. It’s the fifteenth. 1476 to be exact. Whether ye realize it or not, ye have traveled through time.”
Lily stared at Magnus. Her mouth fell open and her jaw worked a few times but no sound came out. She glanced at Emeric, then over to Oskar, her eyes wide and frightened.
“That’s not funny,” she said in a shaky voice. “It’s really not funny.”
“I know this must be frightening,” Magnus replied softly. “But it’s the truth. Think. Has anything ye’ve seen since ye met us made sense to ye?”
“Well no,” she replied. “I mean, look at what you’re wearing! And you have a cart instead of a car, and there are no roads, or houses or anything.” She paled and put her head in her hands. “Oh God,” she moaned. “This is real isn’t it?”
Magnus reached out and put his hand on her knee. “I’m afraid so, lass.”
