Chapter 17 Magellan
Magellan
Magellan set down the pages Rhys had sent up to her room, certain she had lost her mind.
The ring on her finger winked back at her, as if confirming Gwynedd’s words were true.
Except that was impossible. Her Garesh could not be the Garesh in this story.
That would make him over a thousand years old.
They shared the same name. That was all.
And perhaps they looked the same. But that was all too.
Wasn’t it?
Magellan stared at the ring’s symbols. The same symbols Merlin had carved on the standing stone in the center of the labyrinth.
Know the way.
Garesh had said the ring was old and had been in his family for generations. He could not have been alive in the 500s—just as she should not be here in 1829.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she let them fall. She didn’t understand what was happening to her or what was real anymore.
She was alone in her room and had been all day.
After her accident on the horse, the village doctor had come, an elderly man who had given her medicinal tea and prescribed a week of bedrest. A week!
After the man left, she had argued to the countess and Polly that was ridiculous.
All she needed was an ice pack and two Advil, though she didn’t tell them that.
She had found the pages with Rhys’s translation tucked under her dinner tray that evening. He had sent them along as promised. She read them over several times and then fell asleep mentally exhausted, unable to consider what it would mean if her Garesh and Gwynedd’s Garesh were one and the same.
The next morning when Polly came, Magellan pleaded to let her get dressed.
She had to read more of the diary, but first she desperately needed to play the piano.
“Please? I can sneak into the conservatory. No one needs to know.” She grabbed Polly’s hands, not above begging. “You don’t understand. I have to play!”
“All right, miss. Don’t upset yourself so. Let me see what I can do.” Polly left, and minutes later Rhys was barging into her room looking indignant with Polly skirting behind him.
“Polly says you’re trying to get out of bed?” he demanded and then stopped, taking in her appearance. She was in her nightgown with her hair down. The white gown was high-necked and as modest as a grandmother’s robe, but it still seemed to make him blush beet red.
“Yes. I need to play the piano and then go to the library.”
“You almost died from a fall off a horse, and you want to play a piano?” His voice rose in disbelief.
“I did not almost die. I was barely hurt.”
“You were hurt and you could have died. Do you know how terrifying it was to watch?” Running a hand through his hair, he expelled a breath and turned away to go to the window. Momentarily distracted by the labyrinth, he murmured, “You really can see it clearly from here.”
“I know. That’s what I said. And I am going downstairs with or without your permission.”
He turned to her again with an unfathomable look. “Then I will escort you. In your delicate condition you might slip and tumble down the stairs.”
“Tumble down the . . . ?” She put her fingers to her temples, trying not to scream.
Rhys strode to the door. “Polly, inform me when Miss Brighton is dressed,” he said imperiously and left.
Polly giggled. “I do believe the earl is sweet on you.”
Which was the last thing she needed. She shouldn’t even be in this century. “Then it’s a shame I don’t remember who I am.”
“Your memories will come back to you, miss. Not to worry.” Polly helped her into one of Vivianne’s day dresses. Another frilly gown in pale yellow. With a sigh, Magellan sat in front of the vanity while Polly did her hair in a simple twist.
Rhys reappeared at the door and offered her his arm.
He assisted her down the stairs, walking in front of her and practically backward, clearly believing she might fall.
She’d lived her whole life afraid of so many things, trapped in a different kind of corset, held back by anxiety and her insecurities.
Now Rhys’s incessant coddling was showing her how much she didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
She wanted to be strong. She was being treated like a helpless female in 1829, and she wasn’t helpless at all.
“Rhys, I’m fine. Truly. When I’m done playing, I’ll come to the library.”
Although part of her didn’t want to read anymore or see Garesh’s name again.
The possible ramifications were too much to consider.
Suddenly she was looking back on her life with an entirely different lens.
Garesh had taught her so much about the power of music and how it connected the world.
Had his lessons been orchestrated for this reason?
Because she had to find a song hidden in time?
When they reached the conservatory, she sat down at the piano bench like it was a lifeboat. Rhys hovered next to her and asked, “May I stay and watch you play?”
She stared up at him. If he stayed, she wouldn’t be able to lose herself fully in the music. “I’d rather be alone.”
A shutter came over his face. He was taking her rejection personally.
She tried to soften it. “It’s just that—”
“No, of course I would only intrude.” He stopped her, sounding stiff and formal, and marched off, shutting the door before she could say anything more.
She stared at the empty room. The conservatory felt colder, or maybe he’d taken the warmth with him.
Somehow in the short amount of time she’d been here, the connection between them was becoming undeniable.
He was translating a diary that seemed to have been written for her—a diary with instructions of how to save the world.
She wasn’t ready to read yet how she was supposed to accomplish such a feat.
She was just one person, not a hero or a superhero.
She wasn’t even courageous. She was just a woman, full of anxiety about life and how to live it.
Trying hard to shut off her thoughts, she laid her hands on the keys.