She glanced at her cousin. “How do you do it?” she asked softly.
Charlie turned to look at her. “How do I do what?”
“Um. Get home. How do you travel between times?”
“Oh,” Charlie said softly. “That. There’s a door,” she said carefully. “In Edinburgh. In the twenty-first century, it’s in a bookshop, tucked down a side street. In this time, it’s not a bookshop but a hidden door in a townhouse. But if you know where to look—and how to open it—it leads home.”
Ruby blinked. “Just like that? You just walk through a door and poof! You can step through time?”
Charlie reached out and squeezed Ruby’s arm. “Yes, just like that. I don’t think it would work for just anyone, though. But if Irene MacAskill brought you here, I’m sure it would work for you too, as it’s Fae magic that makes it work. Ruby, thereisa way home—if you want to take it.”
The words hung between them, heavy with implication. There was a way home. To her parents. Her friends. Her job. Her apartment. A way back to everything she knew.
She pictured her favorite café on the corner, the hum of traffic, the glow of streetlights at dusk. She pictured her apartment. Her phone. Her music apps.
But when she tried to imagine stepping through that door and leaving this place behind—
Evan’s face flashed into her mind.
The way he looked at her, like nobody else existed. The way he made her feel seen in a way she never had before.
“I thought I’d feel relieved,” she said quietly. “But I don’t. I don’t knowhowI feel.”
Charlie squeezed her hand. “That’s allowed.”
They stood there a moment longer before turning back toward the house. When they reached the courtyard, they found Flora standing in the doorway, hands on her hips.
“Dinner in an hour,” she announced briskly. “And if ye are late, ye’ll be eating cold stew.”
“Yes, Flora,” Charlie and Ruby chorused in unison, as though answering a stern headmistress.
Once inside, Ruby excused herself and headed upstairs to think, her thoughts a tangled knot. She sat on the edge of her bed and leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. There was a way home. She tried to picture walking away from this place.
From Charlie. From...him.
And she just couldn’t do it.
