Chapter 9
Afortnight at Greywatch had taught Elodie that medieval mornings arrived without mercy.
No alarm clock, no gentle transition from sleep to wakefulness—just the abrupt crash of steel from the training yard, the clatter of servants in the corridors, and the insistent light filtering through her chamber’s narrow window.
She’d grown accustomed to the sounds, if not exactly fond of them, and this morning she found herself awake before the first clash of practice swords echoed across the bailey.
Marian appeared moments later, gap-toothed grin already in place, carrying an ewer of water and a fresh shift.
The kitchen maid had appointed herself Elodie’s unofficial lady-in-waiting within days of her arrival, and Elodie had long since stopped protesting.
The girl’s nimble fingers made quick work of the wool gown’s complicated laces—laces that had defeated Elodie entirely during her first fumbling attempts to dress herself.
“’Tis a fine morning, my lady,” Marian said, tugging the bodice into place. “Warm enough you won’t need more than your sleeves. And you’ll be wanting to hurry—you always sit by the wall for nigh on two hours watching—” She caught herself, cheeks pinking. “Watching the training.”
“Yes, well.” Elodie cleared her throat. “I find it... educational.”
Marian’s knowing look suggested she found it something else entirely.
The wool gown was rougher than anything Elodie had worn in her previous life, but it was clean and didn’t mark her as some faerie creature from the hollow hills.
Small victories. Through the narrow window, she could see the sunshine already warming the stones of the bailey, promising another pleasant spring day.
She made her way down to the great hall, where breakfast at Greywatch remained a simple affair of bread, cheese, and whatever remained from the previous night’s meal, taken standing or walking, eaten quickly, without ceremony.
The servants moved around her as they went about their duties, their glances no longer quite so fearful now that everyone had agreed she didn’t actually have wings. Progress, she supposed.
Her may day costume with the tattered wings had been laundered and was now stored in the small trunk at the end of her bed. Elodie didn’t know how time travel worked, but she wanted to have the costume she’d arrived in, just in case she needed it to get back to her own time.
Gareth was already in the lists when she arrived, his dark hair tied back, his movements fluid as he worked through forms with a practice sword.
Even after watching him train for two weeks straight, Elodie hadn’t grown immune to the sight.
The man moved like water finding its path downhill—no wasted motion, no hesitation, just an almost hypnotic flow from one position to the next.
She settled in her usual spot on a bench set into the stone wall, close enough to observe but far enough not to interfere.
The other men had stopped gawking at her days ago.
Now they simply nodded in her direction and went about their business, which felt like an enormous improvement over the crossed fingers and muttered prayers of her first morning.
“Guard your left, you witless oaf!” Miles, the captain of the guard, bellowed across the yard at a younger soldier. “My grandmother—God rest her—could have run you through twice by now!”
“Your grandmother was meaner than any Scotsman, sir!” the young man shouted back, parrying clumsily.
“Aye, and she’d have won her spurs before you at this rate!”
The men roared with laughter. Elodie found herself grinning despite herself.
The easy camaraderie of the training yard had surprised her at first—she’d expected grim, silent warriors, all dour expressions and brutal efficiency.
Instead, she’d found men who insulted each other with creative enthusiasm and laughed at their own failures.
“’Tis a womanly preoccupation, watching the men train,” a voice said beside her.
Elodie turned to find Bertram, the elderly steward, leaning against the wall with a grunt. His white hair caught the morning light, and his sharp eyes—eyes that missed nothing—crinkled with amusement.
“I’m studying medieval combat techniques,” she said primly. “Academic interest.”
“Ah.” Bertram nodded sagely. “And does your academic interest explain why you only appear when Lord Gareth is in the lists?”
Elodie felt heat climb her cheeks. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
The old man chuckled. “Of course, my lady. Of course.”
In the yard, Gareth disarmed his opponent with a twist of his wrist that shouldn’t have been possible. The practice sword went spinning through the air, landing point-first in the mud. The defeated soldier—Thomas’s older brother, Elodie had learned—raised both hands in surrender.
“’Tis not fair, my lord!” he called out, though he was grinning. “You’ve got the devil’s own luck with a blade!”
Gareth inclined his head in acknowledgment, something almost like amusement flickering across his features. Then his eyes found Elodie across the yard.
She raised her hand in a small wave.
He nodded once—just once—but she’d learned to read volumes in his silences. That nod meant I see you. I know you’re there. Good.
“He asked about you, you know,” Bertram said quietly. “After that first night when he made me put questions to you while you were still half-mad with shock.”
Elodie winced at the memory. Those first days remained blurry—a jumble of terror and confusion, of babbling explanations that made no sense even to her own ears.
She’d told them... what? That she was a scholar who’d been traveling and had somehow become separated from her party.
She didn’t know how she’d come to be in the forest alone, dressed in gossamer and flowers.
Lies, mostly. But lies wrapped around a kernel of truth. She was lost, frightened, and had nowhere else to go.
“But that wasn’t enough for him, was it?” she asked.
Bertram’s eyebrows rose. “You noticed.”
“Hard not to.” She’d felt Gareth’s gaze on her constantly those first days—watchful, assessing.
And then the questions had begun. Not through Bertram, but directly, in their early sign lessons.
Where is your family? Why do you travel alone?
Where is your husband? What lord claims your allegiance?
Each one delivered with that unreadable expression, his grey eyes tracking her face for any flicker of deception.
He’d tested her in other ways too. Leaving a purse of coins visible in the solar, watching to see if she’d touch it. Mentioning Alaric’s name casually to see if she flinched with recognition. Having Miles follow her when she walked the castle grounds.
“He could have turned me out,” she said.
“Aye, he could have.” Bertram’s gaze drifted to where Gareth was directing his men through another set of exercises.
“Another lord might have. A strange woman appearing from nowhere, dressed like the faerie queen herself, speaking in an accent no one’s ever heard?
With a story full of holes you could drive a cart through? ”
He shook his head. “But Lord Gareth... he’s watched you for a fortnight now.
Watched you teach the servants. Watched you panic when you think no one sees, then pull yourself together again.
And watched you be kind to Thomas and patient with Father Aldric and honest even when a lie would serve you better. ”
Elodie’s throat tightened. She hadn’t realised how closely she’d been observed. Or how much it mattered.
“He knows something of being lost,” Bertram continued quietly. “Of finding yourself somewhere you never expected to be. And I think... I think he’s decided you’re not a threat. Just a woman who’s been through something terrible and can’t quite bring herself to speak of it.”
Which was, Elodie reflected, closer to the truth than any story she could have invented.
“He’s a good man,” she said softly.
Bertram smiled. “Aye, my lady. He is.”
The afternoon found them in the solar, as had become their custom. After the chaos of the morning—the training, the castle’s daily business, the endless small crises that demanded the lord’s attention—Gareth retreated here. And increasingly, Elodie retreated with him.
Ready? she signed, settling into the chair across from his.
He nodded, his large hands already lifting in response. Ready.
They fell into their routine without discussion.
Elodie would introduce new signs, working through them slowly, demonstrating each one multiple times until Gareth’s hands shaped the movements correctly.
He was a quick study—quicker than she’d expected, given that he’d probably never encountered anything like sign language before.
But he approached the lessons with the same intensity he brought to sword work, practicing each sign until his execution was flawless.
She’d noticed over the past se’nnight that his questions had changed.
In the beginning, he’d used their lessons to probe—slipping pointed queries between vocabulary words.
Your family, where? He’d signed after learning the word for home.
Your lord, who? After she’d taught him allegiance.
Always watching her face, reading her reactions with the same careful attention he brought to everything.
But lately, the interrogation had softened. He still watched her—would probably always watch her, a man that thoroughly betrayed—but the wariness had begun to shade into something else. Curiosity, perhaps. Or the first fragile shoots of trust.
Today she started with emotions. Happy, she signed, her hands moving in a small circle near her chest. Sad. A downward motion along her cheeks, like tears falling. Angry. Fists clenched, moving outward in sharp jerks.
Gareth mimicked each sign with precision, but something flickered across his face when she demonstrated afraid. A tightening around his eyes, quickly suppressed.