Elodie thought of emails sent into the void, voicemails never returned, the endless scroll of messages that somehow left her feeling more alone than silence ever had. “Writing,” she saidfinally. “Art. Touch. Being present with someone.” She smiled ruefully. “Sometimes the best conversations happen in silence.”
Marian considered this with unexpected gravity. “My gran used to say that listening with your eyes was harder than listening with your ears. But it meant more, because you had to choose to pay attention.”
“Your grandmother sounds like she was very wise.”
“She was.” Marian’s bright brown eyes softened. “She’d have liked you, my lady. She always said the ones who talk most are the ones who’ve been heard the least.”
The observation landed somewhere tender. Elodie blinked rapidly and changed the subject. “Right. Let’s practice please and thank you. Essential for polite society in any century.”
By late afternoon, a small cluster had formed around them in the great hall. Marian, Bertram, two of the younger guardsmen, and Thomas from the stables, his freckled face scrunched in concentration as he struggled to remember the sign for horse.
Gareth watched it all from the edge of the group, his expression unreadable. But when Thomas finally managed the sign correctly—both hands mimicking the movement of ears—Elodie caught Gareth’s hands moving in response.Good. Again.
The boy beamed as if he’d been knighted on the spot.
“Do it again,” Marian urged Thomas. “And then I’ll show you, stupid horse, for when they won’t stand still for the farrier.”
“Is that a real sign?” Thomas asked, eyes wide.
Marian shot Elodie a conspiratorial look. “It is now.”
Later, as the evening light began to fade, and the students dispersed to their duties, Elodie found herself alone with Gareth once again in his solar. He’d led her here without explanation, closing the door behind them with a quiet click.
The solar was the lord’s private chamber, and it showed the same austere efficiency as the rest of Greywatch—a writing desk,two chairs by the small hearth. No decorations. No softness. Just the bare necessities of life.
Gareth crossed to the desk and retrieved something from a drawer. When he turned back to her, his hand was closed around a small object.
For you, he signed one-handed, then opened his palm.
It was a ring. Small, delicate, set with a fire opal that caught the light from the window and burned with inner flame. Orange and red and gold, shifting as she watched. It looked just like the necklace that had vanished when she’d fallen through time.
Elodie stared at it, her heart stumbling in her chest. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “But I don’t understand. Why?—”
Gareth’s hands moved slowly, carefully choosing each sign.The fire in the stone. It reminds me of you.
She looked up, startled. “Of me?”
He nodded, something almost like uncertainty crossing his features.Your spirit. Your... brightness.His hands faltered, and he made a frustrated gesture—the sign for words failing. Then he tried again.You came here afraid. Lost. But you did not break. You burned.
Elodie’s eyes stung with sudden tears. She’d spent the past fortnight feeling like a fraud—an academic playing at survival, a modern woman stumbling through a world she’d only ever studied from the safety of libraries and lecture halls. She hadn’t felt bright. She’d felt terrified.
But he’d seen something else. Something she hadn’t even known was there.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.
Then say nothing.His mouth quirked—almost a smile.I have learned the value of silence.
She laughed despite herself, the sound watery and rough. “Touché.”
She took the ring carefully, turning it in the light. The opal blazed like a tiny sun, fire dancing within its depths. It was nothing compared to the necklace—simpler, smaller, less precious by any objective measure—but the fact that he’d thought of it, that he’d noticed her spirit when she herself had felt nothing but fear...
He was a good man. Nothing like the brutal medieval lord she might have expected. Nothing like the silent, scarred monster the servants had whispered about when she first arrived.
But she couldn’t stay. Could she?
She needed her own time. Her own life. The necklace might be gone, but surely there was a way back. Surely she couldn’t just... remain here. In 1192. With him.
Could she?
