Chapter 2
ELLIE
I stayed in my seat for a moment after the engine cut, staring out at Zamo?? through the window.
The old town square almost looked staged for tourists though we seemed to be the only ones here.
Renaissance facades in faded pastels, arcades neat under a heavy grey sky.
Fresh snow softened every edge and muffled every sound.
It was beautiful in that deliberate, preserved way, like someone had decided this place should stay frozen exactly as it was.
Pretty, I thought. Very pretty.
I felt nothing.
I knew I should feel something. Awe. Homesickness.
Even irritation at the cold. Instead there was only quiet.
My feelings existed somewhere out of reach, like they belonged to someone else.
The world kept being beautiful or terrible or interesting, and I kept noticing it, cataloguing it, understanding intellectually that I should react.
But I didn't.
It had been two years since Nathan rejected the mate bond and maybe eighteen months since I stopped crying. Stopped hoping. Stopped caring if I woke up the next morning.
The snow was still pretty, though. I could see that much.
"Bloody hell," Stephen said from the front seat, breath fogging the window. "Look at this place. It's like a film set."
"UNESCO World Heritage Site," Dev added, pulling his phone out. "Sixteenth century. Renaissance planned city. They call it the Pearl of—"
"If you say 'Pearl of the Renaissance' one more time, I'm throwing your phone in the snow," Stephen said, but he was grinning. "You've been reading that Wikipedia article for two hours."
"Someone should know where we are."
"We're in Poland. In January. About to get hypothermia. There. I know where we are."
They were always like this. Bickering, joking, filling silences. Three weeks of training had welded them together. I stayed on the edge, close enough to be polite, far enough that they stopped trying to include me in everything.
They were nice. I liked them.
But I couldn't make myself care.
"You alright back there, Ellie?" Stephen turned in his seat, concern creasing his forehead. "You've been quiet."
"I'm fine," I said. "Just tired."
"You're always tired," Dev said, but his tone was gentle. Not accusatory.
Because they'd noticed the way I picked at food during meals and the way I politely answered questions but never asked them. The way I smiled at the right moments but never laughed.
They thought I was stressed and overwhelmed by the mission. In all fairness, I probably would have been at any other time, but they had no idea I'd been like this long before the Council recruited me.
"Well, we're here now," Stephen said, clapping his hands together. "Time travel tomorrow! How cool is that?"
"Very cool," Dev said. "If the weather holds and the site preparation finishes on schedule. I was told the two scientists coming with us have been here for a week or so already."
"One day until we save the world." Stephen's grin was bright, almost manic. "No pressure."
They were nervous. I could hear it beneath the jokes. Dev had barely slept last night—I'd heard him pacing in the room next to mine at the London hotel. Stephen kept checking and rechecking his bag, like the contents might have changed since the last time he looked.
They were scared, but they were also excited about what we were about to do. We were going back in time when no one else ever had and possibly even meeting people from twenty five thousand years ago.
I envied them that ability to feel fear and excitement and anticipation all tangled together. Or the ability to feel anything at all.
"Come on then," Stephen said, pushing his door open. "Let's see what kind of hotel the Council's put us in."
The car door opened, letting in a rush of air that bit at my cheeks and cleared my lungs. I tugged my coat closer and stepped out after them.
My boots broke the perfect surface of snow with each step.
White clouds formed and vanished with each breath.
Church bells tolled somewhere beyond the buildings, their sound dampened by the snowfall.
Only a handful of people moved through the square—locals with shopping bags, tourists snapping pictures by the frozen fountain.
They all had purpose. Presence. Substance.
I had none of these things.
Hotel Arkadia announced itself with understated gold lettering against weathered stone. Its tall windows and classic facade promised discretion, comfort without ostentation.
Stephen was already at the boot, hauling out bags. Dev moved to help him. I stood there for a moment, just breathing the cold air, and tried to find something—anything—that felt real.
The magic.
That was the only thing. The only sensation I'd had in months that felt like something other than emptiness.
During training, they'd loaded us with power.
Borrowed magic, siphoned from dozens of volunteer Council witches, compressed and stored in our bodies, dense as lead.
All kinds of power. I could feel the heat of fire, and coolness of water, the spark of electricity all stored safe inside me.
We weren't permitted to use it, except in an emergency, but we could hold it.
Carry it. That was the whole point. The carriers.
Human vessels for the power that would fuel the temporal anchors.
Stephen had said it felt like being full of lightning. Dev said it was like pressure, like his skin was too tight.
I barely felt it.
I could sense it was there—a presence in my chest, dense and foreign, like I'd swallowed something that hadn't quite settled. But it didn't buzz or crackle or make me feel powerful. It just... existed.
Another thing wrong with me. Another place where I was supposed to feel something and didn't.
At first I'd questioned the technicians, watching their faces for concern as they checked my readings.
"Stable," they'd say, nodding with clinical satisfaction.
So I stopped asking. I carried the magic like I carried my grief—a heavy, silent thing I'd grown accustomed to hauling around until someone finally needed it.
"Ellie?" Dev was standing by the hotel entrance, my bag in his hand. "You coming?"
"Yeah," I said. "Sorry."
I crossed the snowy cobblestones and followed them inside.
The lobby was warm after the cold outside. Polished wood floors, soft lighting, furniture that looked expensive but not showy. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace. Somewhere, a piano played quietly—recorded, piped through hidden speakers. It felt elegant, but comfortable and I liked it.
"Reservation for the Council delegation," Stephen said to the receptionist, who barely glanced up as she typed on her computer.
"Third floor," she said in accented English. "Three rooms. You have a briefing in Conference Room A at eight tomorrow morning."
"Do you know if the rest of the team has arrived?" Dev asked.
"I believe the other two members of your group checked in last week."
The research team. Two of the scientists who'd been planning this mission for years.
It was them who needed to open the bridge between our time and the last ice age, who would guide us towards the source on the other side and get us back when we were done They were the real heroes, we were just the pack mules carrying their power.
Human batteries. I wondered if they were nervous too.
The receptionist handed us key cards. We took the lift to the third floor in silence. Stephen and Dev were looking at their phones, reading something. I watched the numbers light up. One. Two. Three.
The hallway was carpeted. Warm lighting. Identical doors stretching in both directions.
"I'm in 304," Stephen said. "Dev?"
"306. Ellie?"
"310," I said. "End of the hall."
"I guess one of the scientists has the room in between," Stephen said.
“Or both of them,” Dev said, trying his keycard. “I didn’t catch their names, but I heard they’re a mated pair.”
“Mated and working together? Sounds like a nightmare to me,” snorted Stephen. I managed a smile.
"Right then." Dev shifted his bag. "Should we... unpack? Get settled?"
"I'm going to sleep for twelve hours," Stephen said. "Wake me up when it's time to save humanity."
They headed to their rooms. I walked down the hallway, key card in hand, and was reaching for my door handle when I heard the voice.
Male. Familiar enough that my body locked before my mind understood why.
No.
I froze. The voice came again. Closer now. Just around the corner near the lifts.
"—should have the final projections by Friday. The home team confirmed the readings from today matches the fragments from—"
I knew that voice.
I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat. The cadence. The tone. The slight roughness at the edges that only appeared when he was tired.
Nathan.
My chest seized, breath catching hard. The bond scar. It had been quiet for months, an ember nearly cold. Now it flared up with a heat that had my breath catching in my throat.
No. He couldn't be here. He wasn't supposed to be here. The briefings had been compartmentalized—they'd told us we'd be working with a research team, but they'd never given us names, never shown us photos. I'd assumed... I'd hoped...
Footsteps. Coming closer.
I should move. Run. Lock myself in my room and pretend I hadn't heard anything.
I couldn't move.
Nathan stepped around the corner.
He saw me at the same instant I saw him.
He looked exactly the same. Dark hair, sharp features, the kind of controlled posture that came from always being watched, always being in charge.
He wore dark trousers and a grey sweater, sleeves pushed to his elbows.
Practical. Professional. Devastatingly familiar.
And behind him was Megan. She looked different. Hair shorter, styled differently but still immaculate. But her eyes were the same—sharp, assessing, and when they landed on me, something flickered across her face. Surprise. Recognition. Maybe guilt. Maybe nothing at all.