“Most,” I corrected reluctantly.
“And the rest of the time?”
I shouldn’t answer that honestly. The honest answers were already becoming dangerous.
“The rest of the time,” I said slowly, “I find it remarkable.”
“Remarkable,” Geoffrey repeated.
“The history,” I clarified quickly. “All of it. I keep catching myself thinking I’m going to write the most extraordinary academic paper in existence, and then I remember peer reviewers tend to ask difficult questions like how exactly I obtained firsthand observations from 1215.”
I stopped abruptly. I was rambling again.
Geoffrey studied me for a moment. “You’re describing my family castle as a research opportunity.”
“I realize that sounds terrible.”
“It may be the most uniquely charming thing anyone has ever said to me.” He smiled and it lit up his whole face.
Warmth threaded quietly through his voice, genuine and unguarded.
My brain stopped functioning for several deeply inconvenient seconds as I looked at him.
He was already looking at me.
And suddenly the space between us felt dangerously small.
Seven
GEOFFREY
Father William stoodin the chapel doorway looking like a man reconsidering several foundational theological positions.
“That expression rarely precedes good news,” I observed.
“It depends entirely on your feelings regarding temporal instability.”
He stepped aside without another word.
The psalter lay open on the altar, glowing. Gold leaf shimmered beneath the candlelight with a pulse that seemed almost alive, faint illumination moving beneath the vellum pages like breath beneath skin.
Harper stood several feet away from it, her arms folded tightly across herself. She looked frightened. Not the sharp immediate fear she had worn during her first days at Thames. This was quieter. Worse somehow.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It started reacting again this morning,” Harper said. “Father William came to get me.”
“I did not touch it,” Father William added immediately, sounding defensive.
“A wise precaution,” I said absently.
My attention remained fixed on Harper. She had gone pale beneath the candlelight. Her veil had slipped slightly backward, exposing dark strands of hair near her temples, and I found myself noticing absurd details. The tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers curled against her sleeves when she was unsettled. The fact that she had apparently stopped pacing only because pacing near magical manuscripts was unwise.
None of those observations felt useful. That alone should have concerned me more than it did.
“You touched it,” I said quietly.
Harper looked up sharply. “No.”
