“Ah, but you were looking for a brooch, my dear. Not a way home.”

  “Are you saying there are other ways home?” she asked.

  “There could be, but we haven’t been looking!” Walter threw up his hands. “All right. Well, I will let him know to stay away from the other realm, for now.”

  “Why did I even get the brooch in the first place?” Kes asked. “What do I have to do with Arthur Pendragon?”

  “Well,” Walter looker her over. “You are obviously not King Arthur, but you must have Pendragon blood in you.”

  “My great-great-great-aunt was a Pendridge.”

  “Ah!” Walter smiled. “Pendridge/Pendragon. Same thing.”

  Kes’ mouth fell open. “Are you telling me that my distant aunt was a Pendragon?”

  “If there is an aunt,” Walter said.

  “But why did she send the brooch to me?”

  “We do not know who wanted you to have the brooch. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the brooch is not functioning properly, hence your landing in the middle of a battlefield.”

  “So she may not return to the day she left. Or to the same century,” Nicholas pointed out. “There is no guarantee.”

  “If our friend can even procure it, but aye, that is correct,” Walter admitted.

  “That is not good enough,” Nicholas told her. “If you are going back for your father and your friends, I will not have you lost and never returned.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t like that either,” she agreed. “There’s a lot to think about.”

  “Aye,” he nodded, looking a little…relieved? “We should go.”

  She nodded and then called back to Walter when he asked her what he should tell his contact.

  “Tell him to look for other more foolproof ways to get me home.”

  Nicholas stopped and turned to her. “Kestrel.” Her name came on a deep, throaty groan.

  “Yes?” She closed her eyes, unable to stop her heart from banging and her entire body from going stiff. She knew he was going to say something that he didn’t want to say. She could see it written clearly in his storm-filled gaze, shaping his lips, shortening his breath.

  “I think Walter’s friend might just find a way to take you home and…” He shifted his body and held his hands, as if in prayer, to his nose and mouth. “…I return to duty in a little more than a sennight. I do not want to be pining over you then, so I will say farewell to you now. Walter!” He turned to the old merchant. “May she stay here?”

  Walter nodded.

  “What?” Kestrel hadn’t anticipated this. She thought he was going to tell her he was hurt that she was so desperate to go home. She would have told him she was a little less desperate than she had been the day before. But this? “That’s it, then? I don’t even get to say goodbye to Elia or any of my friends?”

  “Friends?”

  “Yes, Cook, Claire the laundress, Hilde and Caitlyn, the girls from the kitchen.” She tightened her lips. “You’re just like the others.”

  “No. I am not,” he said with an angry thread in his voice. “Am I wrong for not wanting to get to know you more, hold you more…” He paused while Walter left the room. “Kiss you more, so that I can watch you choose to leave?” He shook his head. “No. You will do well here. You are away from the king, and from me. Walter will get you home. I cannot continue on with you knowing how badly you want to leave. Understanding why you want to go does not help. I am beginning to feel too much for you. I cannot go into battle with a such a heavy heart.”

  Kes couldn’t be angry with him. He was right. She didn’t want to cry, but her eyes stung, and her vision blurred with tears.

  “I’m selfish, Nicholas. I don’t want you to go.”

  “I do not want you to go either,” he told her.

  Did she have a future with him? Would she give up her past for him?

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and closed his eyes.

  She wanted to kiss him, to feel his arms around her. She did nothing and said nothing as he left Walter’s house and her life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kes stared at the beautiful bronze vase in her hands. It was of the Pala Dynasty, eighth to twelfth century. The workmanship was exquisite. It looked brand new because when it was taken, it was. There were other treasures, like Mycenaean pottery, and anthropomorphic iron figurines from the Mesopotamian era. There was so much, she could stay here for another year or two to catalogue everything.

  This was her dream come to life. History, telling its stories of the people who lived in it. It was more than any historian or archeologist could ever hope for. She wished her father were here to see it.

  And with that, came thoughts of home, and with that, came thoughts of Nicholas.

  She thought he’d come back. It had been three days and he hadn’t returned. At first, it broke her heart. It still did. She missed him but he was doing the right thing.

  He’d been kind enough to send over her dresses so she could change clothes.

  It still shocked her that she had grown attached to him so quickly. But why not? He was there for here during a traumatic experience in her life. He was thoughtful and kind toward her. It shouldn’t surprise her that she wanted to be with him. She had to stop. They weren’t meant to be together. What did a stupid brooch know?

  According to Walter’s contact, Mr. Roldan Simeon, a traveler who, after being cursed by an old hag after he’d tried to rob her in the woods, learned to use the curse to his advantage. He flitted around time snatching this piece or that and delivering it to his traders.

  “I have many traders spread all throughout time,” Mr. Simeon told her that afternoon in Walter’s sitting room. “Your century gives me the most business.” His eyes were hooded and veiled by long, black lashes. She couldn’t tell if they were dark blue or brown in the candlelit room. He looked to be around her father’s age with long jet black hair tied into a ponytail behind his head and a black beard.

  “Time travel isn’t something natural, allowed to us by the Omnipresent One Himself. Imagine the upheaval we would cause.”

  “What about you?” Kes asked. “Don’t you change time?”

  “No. I cannot leave one place or appear in another with any living thing or any object that would alter time, like a phone…or a magic brooch.”

  She looked away. So, he couldn’t help her. But really, was she so disappointed?

  “I can carry some goods but not people or animals or plants. I steal objects. I can be in and out of a place in a moment.” He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

  Kes gasped and blinked, then turned when she heard his voice behind her chair.

  “For you.” He handed her a hammered gold cuff encrusted with a tiger’s eye scarab. “From Cleopatra. Don’t worry. She will never miss it.”

  Kestrel looked at the bracelet. You just stole this?”

  He nodded and grinned. “Easy as…what is it you more modern folks say? Cake?”

  “Pie. Take it back. I don’t want you stealing for me.”

  “Oh, but asking me to steal the brooch is different?”

  “It’s not stealing if you’re going to give it right back. Plus I signed for it so it’s technically mine.”

  “True,” Mr. Simeon agreed with a short laugh.

  “Please take the bracelet back to Cleopatra.”

  He took it back and disappeared.

  He reappeared in front of her a few moments later. “I like this view better.” He hooked his mouth into a friendly half-smile perhaps meant to lure her. She wasn’t interested. Even if she wasn’t mourning her loss of Nicholas, and even if almost all the guys she’d dated cheated, she wouldn’t be interested in Simeon because he was her father’s age and because he tried to rob an old woman. He didn’t know she was a witch or whatever she was. He did it because he was a piece of crap.

  “Mr. Simeon, what else can you tell me about me getting back home? If you’re here for any other reason, I will tell the earl and he can withdraw his payment.”

  “Eh, no.” His smile faded. “No other reason. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, your brooch. I can tell you what I know about it. ’Tis protected by the impenetrable force of Sir Gawaine and the other brothers of the table. Even if there was some way to get my hands on it, and believe me I would love to, they will know someone used it, and once they figure out it was you, well, I don’t know what they would do. Do you still wish me to learn more?”

  Kes certainly didn’t want to stay here without Nicholas in her life. He’d said he cared and then dropped her as if she had the plague.

  “Yes, and Mr. Simeon, a question please before you go.”

  “Go on,” he said, forgetting her in exchange for his fingernails.

  “Why me? What do I have to do with King Arthur? Why did the brooch come to me?”

  “That’s three questions.”

  “Should I pick one?” she said with irritation staining her voice.

  “It doesn’t matter. The answer will be the same for all. I don’t know why the brooch went to you. There may be no reason at all. But I do know the knights will find out it was you, and you will no doubt tell them it was me who stole the brooch. I will find you another way.” His smile was riddled with deceit. “I like a challenge. But there is a rule. You must go back exactly as you came. Nothing new in your hair or on your fingernails, else it will not bring you to the time you left.”

  She nodded and he left. She sat alone in the solar for a little while wishing Nicholas was here. But he wasn’t. He stayed away and she grew angrier with him each day.

  The next afternoon, Elia came for a visit, escorted by one of Nicholas’ soldiers. She brought news of Cook’s gratitude to her for a cartload filled with vegetables, spices, and some beef all the way from Scotland. All Kes’ friends were well and wished her well.

  “Nicholas has been unbearable.” Elia let her know. “Walking around growling at everyone like a wounded bear. Even the king has left him alone.”

  “It was his choice to go.”

  “Because you are choosing to go, Kes. Why should he risk his heart and his life when he must return to battle?”

  Kes lifted her hands to her mouth, but she still gasped. “Oh! He is returning to that horror.” She returned to a seat by the hearth. “I had put it out of my mind.”

  “’Tis always difficult to see him leave,” Elia agreed.

  “I can’t stay here, Elia,” Kes told her. “What would I do here?”

  The pretty head maid smiled softly. “Hopefully, raise his children. From what I have seen, ’tis a difficult endeavor.”

  Kes groaned. Oh, children. There weren’t any contraceptives back here. Nothing like morphine or whatever they give to delivering moms. “How do they do it?”

  “I do not know how they do it anywhere else, but here, all the women come together as a family and help her deliver.”

  “That sounds nice. Still painful though,” Kes sighed. “And my father—he probably thinks I’m dead or kidnapped. I’m all he had left, Elia. I don’t think he would want to go on anymore.”

  “I’m sure he is stronger than you think.”

  “He’s already lost my mother.” Kes hugged herself and stared into the flames of the hearth. “I miss him so much.”

  “Why do you not tell me about him?” Elia said and sat in the chair opposite her. “It will help you remember him.”

  “I don’t want to remember him,” Kes cried. “I want to see him.”

  “There now, I’m sure you will. He sounds like a very strong, determined man to raise a daughter on his own.”

  “He was. He is.” Kes let her know. “And patient.”

  “Ah, a most important trait to possess.”

  “Yes,” Kes agreed. She liked Elia. They got along well from the very beginning. “He is quite handsome, too, Elia. Perhaps a few years older than you.”

  Kes told Elia about her father and her roommates. She didn’t remember much of her mother, just the memories her father had built for her over the years. She had learned to love those memories as they were all she had. Many times though, Elia had made her feel like a daughter.

  “I will miss you, Elia.”

  The maid’s hazel eyes filled with tears. “And I will miss you, Kes.”

  They both smiled and wiped their eyes.

  “Now, tell me. How badly is he suffering?”

  Elia threw herself back into her chair and gave Kes an exhausted look. “He has never been this bad. I found a place for Reg and his family to live and they have been moving their things out. All the coming and going is driving him mad. He is somber and brooding all the time. The servants tell me he is awake all night walking the outer walls. I must tell you, Kes. I have never known him to be so affected by anyone.”

  “He will forget me.”

  Elia gave her a hurtful look. “I think he feels more for you than he will admit.”

  Kes left her chair and wrung her hands together. “I wish he hadn’t left. They always leave, Elia. It seems time doesn’t change anything.”

  “How is he supposed to fight and stay alive if losing you is fresh on his mind?”

  Kes’ shoulders sagged. How could she blame Nicholas for staying away, or Elia for understanding why he did?

  Well, she understood, too, and it was time she stopped acting like a selfish brat. She couldn’t have Nicholas and then be done with him when it was time to go home.

  She swallowed her tears and squared her shoulders. “I understand, Elia. Please tell him that. He’s doing the right thing. I’m being selfish.” She took her friend’s hands and swallowed back her tears. “Don’t tell him though that I miss him more than breath if I was suffocating.”

  Elia smiled at her and pulled her in for an embrace. “’Tis easy to see why he is mad over you, Kes.” She withdrew, sniffed, and looped Kes arm through hers. “Look, ’tis a beautiful day. Let us take a walk outdoors. ’Tis stuffy in here.”

  Kes nodded. She could use some air. “I will tell you what Walter’s friend told me about the brooch. And Elia,” she told her on a soft breath, “he can disappear and reappear. I’ve seen it. He left and returned a minute or two later with a gold cuff he’d just stolen from Cleopatra!” She nearly squealed her softly spoken words.

  Elia stopped and her mouth opened into an O. Then, a breath before she said, “Cleopatra? How? How can he do it?”

  Kes told her about his curse and everything he told her about Sir Gawaine and the brooch, and about the Pendridge name meaning Pendragon.

  “Do the knights think you or Nicholas is…”

  “No. They’re searching for their…” the thought of Mr. Green’s company letterhead invaded her thoughts as if to drive the truth home. ISOAP. In Search Of Arthur Pendragon. “If they thought they’d found him, they would have acted upon it. Celebrate. Something.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I was supposed to land here. I think it was a mistake and that’s why I appeared in the middle of a battlefield.

  “Unless,” Elia pointed out with a growing look of horror on her face, “the brooch is their way of eliminating an enemy and they sent you to that field to die.”

  “Elia,” Kes said calmly. “It doesn’t make any sense that Arthur’s knights would be sending people to their deaths. No. They’re looking for him. I may have Pendragon blood, so I may be a key.”

  “I hope you are correct. I would not want to fight Sir Gawaine.”

  Kes cast her a surprised look mixed with emotion. “Thank you.”

  Elia nodded.

  “But you would lose.” Kes smiled and then they both laughed.

  After that, Walter had tea made for them and brought to his gardens, where the ladies sat under the sun.

  “’Tis lovely here,” Elia said, looking around.

  “Yes, and there are even more treasures inside.” Kes knew the fruit-bearing trees and the multitude of flowers spread out around her with shy butterflies pausing above them were beautiful, but the artifacts inside were priceless to her.

  What if she didn’t go back? What if she stayed here and catalogued Walter’s pieces? She could learn to embroider, maybe have exercise classes for the girls, learn to play a new instrument, have children.

  No more father, no more roommates, or phones, or traveling, credit cards, dentists. The list went on. She leaned back in her garden chair and sighed to the sun. These things were difficult to give up.

  But why should she give up her life when Nicholas was going off to fight and could be killed?

  “How long will he fight for York?” Kes asked.

  “However long they take to win.”

  “And if they don’t win?”

  Elia’s eyes opened wide and changed from golden to green. “You know, do you not?”

  Kes nodded. Oh, she would burst if she didn’t tell someone. “Richard will be defeated by Henry Tudor.”

  For a second or two, Elia’s look of horror returned. And then it disappeared. “Mayhap ’twould be for the best,” she whispered.

  Kes wondered if Richard had any allies. Maybe Reg.

  “Elia, you have to promise not to tell Nicholas. If he does something to change what will happen, it could change the entire future. Oh, I shouldn’t have said anything—”

  “I will not tell him, Kes. You have my word.”

  They left the gardens together and then parted after finding Elia’s escort. They promised to see each other again before Kes left…if she left.

  Kes didn’t expect to see Nicholas at the door two hours later.

  Chapter Sixteen

  How was it possible that he could look better than an oasis at the end of a dry desert? There were circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days. But his eyes were alert, piercing and powerful on her when she greeted him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him, stepping outside as he dismounted.

  “Edward’s daughter, Elizabeth, arrived this morning to visit the king,” he told her, staring at her long enough to make her fidget.