Chapter 5
LILY
Pain woke me first. A dull, throbbing ache that pulsed through my skull in time with my heartbeat. I kept my eyes closed, trying to orient myself through the fog in my head. A soft mattress beneath me. Heavy blankets tucked around my body. The scent of mint and something else—coal smoke?
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
My flat didn't smell like mint. I didn't own blankets this heavy. And that ache in my head—when had I hit my head?
Memory crashed back in fragments. Gran's flat. The necklace. Shattering glass and impossible light. Trees and darkness and. . . the men with guns. Swords.
My eyes snapped open.
For one disorienting heartbeat, I saw them. Luminous threads stretching across the ceiling like gossamer spiderwebs, pulsing with faint golden light. They twisted, forming geometries that hurt to comprehend, patterns that shouldn't exist.
I blinked.
Gone.
My breath came shallow and quick as I stared at the empty ceiling.
Those threads, I’d seen them before. In the forest, shimmering in the air around that little girl with the starlight eyes.
I'd thought it was fear, adrenaline, the surreal terror of being chased by men with weapons.
But now, lying in a strange bed with my head pounding. . . I was seeing them again.
What the hell was happening to me?
I turned my head slowly, fighting the wave of nausea that accompanied the movement, and took in the room.
Wallpaper. Actual floral wallpaper in shades of rose and cream.
A wardrobe made of dark wood that looked like it belonged in a museum.
A washstand with a porcelain basin and pitcher.
Heavy curtains drawn across tall windows, allowing only thin slices of daylight to penetrate the gloom.
This wasn't my flat. This wasn't anywhere I recognized.
I sat up too quickly. The room tilted, and I had to grip the edge of the mattress to keep from falling. My head pounded in protest, and when I lifted a hand to my temple, bandages. Someone had bandaged my head.
I looked down at myself. Still wearing my jeans and sweater, though someone had removed my boots. My Apple Watch was still there, the screen dark. I tapped it, and it flickered to life. The battery symbol glowed red. And the time and date in familiar glowing numbers.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025. 11:47 AM.
But that couldn't be right. Because the room around me looked like something out of a Victorian period drama, and the last thing I remembered.
The forest. The little girl. Men on horseback with weapons that belonged in the nineteenth century. Running, falling, hitting my head.
And him.
The man on the horse. Hazel eyes and a face too handsome for the circumstances. The way he'd looked at me, not with recognition but with. . . something else. Curiosity or suspicion.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, fighting another wave of dizziness. My socks touched cold floorboards—actual floorboards, not laminate or carpet. I forced myself to stand. The room swayed, but I managed to stay upright.
Where was I? And more importantly—when was I?
The thought was insane. Completely insane. But Gran's necklace had shattered, and there'd been that light, and suddenly I'd been in a forest being hunted by men who looked like they'd stepped out of the late 1800s.
Time travel. The word formed in my mind, and I tried to dismiss it at once. It wasn’t possible. It was the stuff of novels and films.
But I’d spent three years researching people erased from history, patterns of disappearance that made no sense. And Gran had looked at me with such intensity, had told me to trust my instincts even when logic insisted otherwise.
Especially then.
I moved toward the window on unsteady legs, pulling back the heavy curtain just enough to peer outside.
The view stole my breath.
Stone buildings with peaked roofs and narrow chimneys. Cobblestone streets. A horse-drawn carriage passing below, the driver in a long coat and top hat. Women in long skirts, their hair pinned up beneath hats. Men in waistcoats and pocket watches glinting in the weak sunlight.
The gas lamps were wrong. Not wrong as in broken—wrong as in early. The Welsbach mantle wasn't widely adopted until 1892, which meant. . . God. I wasn't just in the past. I was in a very specific past.
Not a car in sight. Not a streetlight. Not a single piece of the world I knew.
Only the watch on my wrist—my last anchor to a time that might not exist anymore.
“Oh god,” I whispered, my breath fogging the glass. “Oh god, this isn't happening.”
But it was happening. Somehow, impossibly, I wasn't in my Oxford anymore. The buildings looked similar enough, the layout familiar—but this was an Oxford from over a century ago.
The necklace. It had to be the necklace. Gran had tried to tell me something last night, but I'd been too focused on my research to understand.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway outside.
I dropped the curtain and spun toward the door, my heart hammering. Footsteps, growing closer. Heavy, deliberate.
The door handle turned.
I looked around frantically for something—anything—I could use as a weapon. The porcelain pitcher on the washstand was the closest option. I grabbed it, the weight of it solid and reassuring in my hands and pressed myself against the wall beside the door.
The door opened slowly.
A woman entered, older, perhaps in her fifties, wearing a black dress with a white apron. A housekeeper, my brain supplied automatically. She carried a tray with a teapot and cup, her movements efficient and practiced.
She saw the empty bed and stopped. “Oh! Miss, you shouldn't be—”
Then she saw me, pitcher raised, back against the wall, and her eyes went wide.
“Please don't be alarmed,” she said quickly, setting the tray down on a side table. “You're safe here. Mr. Hawthorne brought you in—you'd been injured.”
“Where am I?” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “What is this place?”
“Mr. Hawthorne's residence, miss. In Oxford. You've been unconscious for several hours. We were quite worried.”
The word tasted wrong. Dressed in the same letters, but nothing else fit. “Oxford,” I repeated. Because this wasn’t Oxford. Not the one I knew. Not the one with coffee shops and university students, not the one where I'd lived and worked.
“What year is it?”
The question seemed to confuse her. “I beg your pardon?”
“What year?” I repeated, my grip tightening on the pitcher. “Please. I need to know what year this is.”
She exchanged a glance with someone in the hallway. Then, carefully, as if speaking to someone fevered: “It's 1892, miss. October.”
The pitcher nearly slipped from my hands.
1892. Over a century before I was born. Before my parents. Before Gran. Before everything I'd ever known existed.
“I think you'd better sit down, miss,” the housekeeper said gently. “You've had quite a shock, and that wound on your head—“
“I need to leave.” The words tumbled out. “I have to get back.”
“Back where, miss?”
Home. To my time. To my world. But I didn't know how. Didn't know if it was even possible.
A figure appeared in the doorway, and my breath caught.
Him. The man from the forest. The one who'd been sitting on the horse, watching while his men hunted us. Up close, in daylight filtering through the windows, he was even more striking—tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired, with hazel eyes that seemed to see too much.
He wore different clothes now. A white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, a waistcoat unbuttoned, trousers and boots. Less formal than what I remembered from the forest, but still distinctly Victorian.
“Mrs. Hartley,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “Perhaps you should give us a moment.”
“Sir, I don't think—”
“It's alright.” His eyes never left mine. “I'll call if I need you.”
The housekeeper—Mrs. Hartley—hesitated, then nodded. She left, closing the door behind her, and suddenly I was alone with the man who'd captured me in the forest.
I raised the pitcher higher. “Stay back.”
He lifted both hands, palms out. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“You hunted me. You and your men—you were hunting us.”
“I was hunting Weavers.” He took a careful step into the room, moving slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal. “My name is August Hawthorne. You're in my home.”
“I'll hurt you if you come any closer.”
“No, you won't.” His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “You're injured, disoriented, and you've never thrown a pitcher at anyone in your life. I can see it in the way you're holding it.”
Damn him for being right. I adjusted my grip anyway, trying to look more threatening.
“You're going to answer some questions for me,” he said, taking a careful step into the room.
“Or what?”
“Or I deliver you to the Unraveler, who will be far less patient than I'm being.” He moved slowly, deliberately closer, blocking my exit. “Now. Let's start with something simple. What's your name?”
I hesitated. Every word I gave him was a weapon he could use against me. But what choice did I have? “Lily. Lily Whitmore.”
“Lily Whitmore.” He said it slowly, as if testing the sound. “And where are you from, Miss Whitmore?”
“Oxford.”
“Don't lie to me.” His tone sharpened. “I know every family in Oxford, every street, every face. You are not from here. So, I'll ask again. Where are you from?”
My hands trembled on the pitcher. “I told you. Oxford. Just. . . not this Oxford.”
“Explain.”
“I can't—you won't believe me.”
“Try me.” He crossed his arms, leaning back against the door. “I've seen things most people wouldn't believe. Weavers who can twist fate with a thought. Illusions that make grown men see monsters that aren't there. So, tell me Miss Whitmore. Are you a Weaver?”
“A what?” I blinked. “Like. . . people who make fabric?”
“Don't play ignorant.” His eyes narrowed. “The girl you were with in the forest. She created those illusions along with the others. Made my men see things that weren't real. Are you working with her?”