Taking casual notice of the thick leather gloves he wore, Ciaran struggled to get out of Eoin’s grasp as his cousin dragged him down the cold greystone corridor of the druids’ stronghold. The vastness of it made him fear for Nadia. Such power and wealth seldom treated its servants well.

“You didna have to do that,” he told his cousin. “You could have given me a few moments with the lass. Certies even you could see she was pining after me the way I pine for her.” English sounded so odd coming out of his mouth. To him, he was speaking Gaelic. The same magic that had brought him to the future was translating his speech.

The larger man held Ciaran fast. “I didna have to bring ye along, and I have half a mind to return you straight away to our time and let you help Baltair keep the farmer and his family away from the wood. Ainly I ken your hearts wouldna be in it. Nay like the way Baltair’s is while he is protecting ye.”

Ciaran quit struggling. “What if I just shout out now, eh? Wake up the druids and bring them doon upon us?”

Eoin laughed. “I am their servant. Usually, that’s a burden, but in this case? ‘Tis you they would find fault with, especially and I dinna vouch for you. Nay, you will help me do what I came to do, and then we will leave this time.”

Ciaran let those words reverberate through his mind while he slowly quit resisting and allowed Eoin to lead him through the greystone hallways lined with dark arrow-slit windows. As his resistance lessened, his wonder increased. “There are na flames inside the lamps.”

Eoin answered with arrogant stoicism, not even turning to face Ciaran as he entered a corner tower and turned to go up three flights of greystone stairs. “Lamps here burn with electricity, the same force as lightning, ainly harvested and mostly harmless.”

Ciaran wanted more details but could tell they would not be forthcoming, so he contented himself with gawking at the elaborate large lamp on the ceiling of the stairway tower.

When Eoin spoke again, his tone was hushed. "We’re close to what I’m after. It would be better if you were quiet from now on."

They had reached the top of the tower, and Ciaran put his hand on the doorknob, only to find it locked. "How—"

Grinning like a seven-year-old, Eoin produced a key out of his sporran and fitted it into the lock, opening it with a click. Putting his gloved finger over his lips and signaling Ciaran to stand back in the shadows, he opened the door slowly, peering out into the dark room beyond.

When it was Ciaran's turn to go through the small door at the top of the tower, he gasped. It was dark, but there was a free flow to the air that let him know the room was vast. And it was full of shelves. On the shelves were all manner of things, but he couldn't quite make them out. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness.

Eoin grabbed Ciaran’s wrist and pulled him down one aisle and then another, plainly knowing exactly what he was looking for and where he would find it.

Ciaran's eyes were adjusting, but that didn't really help him. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, no organization to the way things were stored in here. Weapons shared shelves with jewelry, dishes, and musical instruments.

A ring caught Ciaran’s eye, and he reached for it.

Eoin snatched Ciaran away before he could touch it, shaking his head at him with fire in his eyes.

Ciaran raised his other hand up in surrender, but he shot Eoin a look that said there would be questions later.

At long last, Eoin stopped and pulled an old halberd up off a shelf where it lay next to a gardening spade and a shepherd’s crook. The halberd was undecorated and plain.

Ciaran raised his eyebrows at his cousin as if to say really? This is what we went to all this trouble for?

But Eoin just tugged Ciaran by the wrist back toward the door, which he closed and locked. Back down the spiral staircase of the tower. Back down the gray hallway past the room where Nadia had been toward the narrow greystone street where they had left the wagon.

When they passed the door, Ciaran couldn't help but notice no light came from under it. She must have finally taken his advice and gone to bed, fie upon it all. He should have a chance to talk to her. “I will stay here and protect Nadia,” he told his cousin. “That druid child, Tahra, may be after her. You and Baltair can make do without me awhile. I ken you will be back here before long, aye? Take me back with you then.”

Eoin tsked, took ahold of Ciaran’s wrist again, and tugged him to the wagon. “You will do no such thing. What would Baltair and I tell Searc? We wouldna be able to explain your absence. Nay, you are coming with me.”

They had reached the wagon, and Eoin pushed Ciaran up onto the seat before putting the halberd on the floorboards and then climbing up, himself.

Nadia had to get up and move around. She'd been sitting at this computer desk for hours, and that wasn’t healthy.

She moved out into the hallway, and then, to the music that played through her earbuds, she danced the routine they were working on right now in dance class. She really liked it. Full of sways and long reaches, it did a lot to fill her imagination. The music was good too, a great modern Celtic ballad.

While she worked out the tension that had built up in the backs of her thighs from sitting so long, she kept an eye out. The far door down the hall had clicked shut when she entered the hallway. That door went up the corner tower to what she'd always thought of as a dead-end, because the door up there was locked. Apparently, the druids gave some people keys, because the guys had been gone at least twenty minutes and there was no other way out of the building. Eoin and Ciaran would have to come back through this hallway on their way out.

The music reached its crescendo, and she had to breathe deliberately in order to have enough air to do this part of the dance. Normally, she would sing through it and stretch her lungs as well, but something made her not sing this time.

If she was honest, that something was Eoin. The man disapproved of just about everything, and she didn't need his negativity when it came to her singing. Her deepest self came out in her song, more so even than when she danced. There was no way she was going to subject the true inner core of herself to Eoin's negativity.

Maybe there was time to get Ellie here with her before Eoin came back through. She stopped the song and texted her friend. "Eoin and Ciaran are here in the history building, upstairs for now. Back down any minute. Get over here."

She would have texted Sarah too, but just a few days ago, Sarah had moved to 1706 to be with Meehall. Nadia and Ellie were now the only two Americans in the secretarial pool at Celtic University.

It was stuffy in here. She needed to get some air. Out of habit, she turned off the lights as she exited the front door of the building, then looked outside and saw the apple wagon.

It looked both out of place and like it belonged here. It was from a different time, but it matched the architecture and the ancient feel of Celtic. She walked all around it, taking in the crates full of apples, the raised seat and running board where the driver would sit, and the pair of horses hitched up to it, patiently waiting with their tails swishing prettily.

"Couple o’ kilted highlanders arrived in it, saying they had just bought it from a farmer," said a familiar voice she couldn't match with a name or face, an older man who belonged here on campus, but who for the life of her she couldn't place into a position, faculty or staff, student or parent.

She didn't really care, either. The only two kilted warriors nearby were Eoin and Ciaran. Now all she had to do was get rid of the old man so she could sneak into the wagon and go with them.

She turned to him, and when she saw him, he looked just like she expected him to. But she still had no idea who he was. No matter. She gave him a concerned look. "Really? They were just inside the history building a little while ago. They went upstairs and never came back down. I hope they don't disturb anything."

The old man's eyes turned a wee bit angry as he contemplated the history building. "Ye dinna say." He made his way up to the front door. He had to exert himself slightly to get it open, but open it he did. When he went inside, he didn’t turn the light on.

Nadia didn’t care why. She made her move. Looking all around to make sure no one could see her, she climbed into the back of Ciaran and Eoin’s apple wagon and hid under a plaid blanket between two of the crates. The plaid didn’t match either of their kilts, and it was lodged down so far between the crates, she doubted they were even aware of it.

Her phone vibrated.

There was a text from Ellie. "Are they still there? I'm in bed, but I can get dressed and head over!"

"No! I'm hidden in the back of their wagon," Nadia texted back to Ellie as fast as her thumbs would fly. "They'll be here any minute. I don't want Eoin knowing I'm here. I don't know how you would get in the wagon with me without him seeing you. Sorry."

"Whoa. I won't ruin it for you. Send Baltair back for me, okay?"

Nadia had to stifle a laugh, and she sent Ellie ten different laughing emojis before she texted, "Okay."

"I'm so jealous,” Ellie texted. “This time, you're with people who’ll know what's going on when you get there!"

"I'm so sorry. I wish you were here.”

“Me too. You have to let Eoin know you’re there, you know.”

“I know, but I want to have something historical to write about first.”

“Ha! You mean you want to wait and see if you can get Ciaran alone first.”

Nadia sent Ellie an innocent angel emoji.

Ellie sent back a finger pointing at Nadia.

“I hear them coming!” Nadia texted as fast as she could. “Take care."

"You too. Bye."

"Bye."

The wagon lurched twice as the two beefy warriors got aboard.

Ciaran was beseeching Eoin. “You have the right of it. I dinna ken what you could tell Searc. But Nadia’s in danger. I couldna bear it if anything were to happen to her.”

Nadia's heart softened toward Ciaran even more, and she just had to peek up at the driver’s seat from under her plaid blanket to see her protector.

Eoin put an arm over Ciaran’s shoulder and patted his back, more in a way that kept Ciaran in the seat than made him feel reassured. “Look aboot you. This is a fortress. One druid child isna going to march in here uncontested. Although you mayhap should have told the lass to stay on campus and not wander off into toon.”

Before the horses even took one step, the world was spinning around the wagon as if it were the agitator in an old top-loading washing machine, causing nausea, dizziness, and elation.

Nadia remembered this feeling well. It meant they were traveling through time.