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“They’re going to find us here,” Sebastian told the older man. “Do you know who they are? They will kill every—” He looked round and his voice faded.
Noelle finally realized it, too. There was no one inside. Not one body was in the store. Where were they?
“Who are those riders?” Lancaster asked. “Do you know?”
The glass around the store begin to shake, almost pulse with power. Mr. Lancaster held out his arm and stopped Sebastian when he tried to get closer to the waves in the glass. The two riders were coming closer. This was some kind of magic. Noelle’s mind didn’t want to admit it. But what other explanation could there be? She would find out. She pulled out her phone to record the phenomenon. It was dead. She remembered recording Sebastian. She hadn’t turned it off. She ground her jaw and fixed her gaze on the quiet man she had interviewed about his missing daughter. He appeared taller, stronger. Was he the one causing the glass to warble? Was he some kind of magician? Where were the customers? The baristas? Why did he think they were safe on the other side of quaking glass windows and doors?
Blinding light shone through the windows for a moment and then she could see them out there. Their horses were enormous, arrayed in trappings of blue and gold. They looked like knights. The kind you read about in Arthurian tales. Just as Sebastian had told her. But weren’t Arthur’s knights the good guys?
She noted that Lancaster was watching intently, holding out one arm, as if keeping everything in place—including the content of their bellies.
When another few minutes passed—along with the riders, Lancaster let down his arm. The pulsing walls and windows stopped, proving him responsible.
“What’s going on?” Sebastian demanded before she could. “Who are you?”
“Which of you are they after?” Lancaster asked instead of answering.
“Me,” Sebastian told him, stepping in front of her.
“Why? What have you done?”
Noelle wanted to know as well. If all this was real, and she was beginning to believe it was, that meant Sebastian might not be crazy. He might be telling the truth. And if he was, then these guys were after him because he stole their brooch. And if they were the good guys, then he was the bad one.
The other possibility was thatshewas crazy.
“No,” Sebastian argued. “First you tell me who you are and what you just did to keep those men out of here.”
“Those things are not for you to know. Look,” Lancaster said, keeping his distance, which was just fine with Noelle, “whatever you did to piss them off. Undo it.”
“Mr. Lancaster,” Noelle finally spoke. “Did those men have something to do with the disappearance of your daughter?”
His eyes on her blazed with a power she hadn’t seen in them before. “Miss Upton,” he said slowly. “My daughter has nothing to do with any of this, I assure you.”
He was lying.
“And I trust you will not produce anymore stories on these men—or me, else we might all be in great danger.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“That’s all I can tell you, Miss Upton.” He turned away. “Don’t make me regret saving both your lives tonight.”
This was insane! She settled her gaze on Sebastian. He looked just as frustrated as she was.
“What is your involvement in this?” Sebastian asked him, not willing to give up.
“I would ask the same of you,” Lancaster said, turning back. “How do you possibly know them? I won’t tell you another thing unless you answer me. Who are you? What was it that passed between us?”
“All right,” Sebastian said, and glanced at her. “First, I took their brooch and used it to come here from the past. Seventeen twenty-four. I’m Lord Sebastian Alexander, Baron of Surrey, and I also want to know what passed between us.”
Mr. Lancaster backed into a chair and fell into it.
Noelle found it fascinating that he believed Sebastian. No questions asked.
“Seventeen twenty-four…” he echoed. “Did you know Detective Michael Pendridge?”
Sebastian nodded. “’Twas from him I stole the brooch. Though he didn’t want to return. He married my friend, Charlotte.”
The friend whose life he saved, Noelle thought and felt her insides soften on him.
