The return to the manor was a procession of ghosts. The men-at-arms and the laborers were shells of themselves, their spirits dampened by the relentless rain and the haunting intensity of the night's work. Thomas rode at the rear, his hand pressed against the fabric of his tunic. He could still feel the warmth of the phone where it rested against his ribs, a digital heart beating in a world of cold stone and iron.
He didn't look at it again. He couldn't. The message from his mother was a jagged shard of glass lodged in his mind. It proved that the tether existed, but it also proved the distance was infinite. He was a man shouting across a canyon so wide that his voice would take a thousand years to reach the other side, even if the signal was instantaneous.
Victoria rode beside him, her eyes scanning the dark treeline. She had not asked again about the glass, but the way she watched him had changed. There was a new layer of vigilance in her gaze, a protective edge that hadn't been there before. She recognized that her husband—or the man who wore his skin—had suffered a blow that no sword could inflict.
When they reached the manor, Brother Hamo was waiting under the dry arch of the gatehouse. He looked remarkably untouched by the storm, his habit straight and his blue eyes clear.
"A successful night, Lord Thomas?" Hamo asked, his voice a smooth contrast to the ragged breathing of the exhausted men. "The crypt is sealed, then?"
"It is," Thomas said, dismounting with a stiff, heavy motion. "The foundation is secure. The water will not trouble the count's altar now."
Hamo stepped closer, his gaze drifting to the mud-stained leather of Thomas's tunic. "You look as though you have been fighting a war, rather than building a shrine. Perhaps the earth is more resistant to your changes than you anticipated."
"The earth is indifferent, Brother," Thomas replied. "It is only men who find it difficult."
He walked past the monk without waiting for a reply, heading straight for the keep. He needed to be alone. He needed to find a way to reconcile the two realities that were now fighting for space in his head.
In the solar, the fire had been banked, leaving the room in a dim, flickering orange light. Thomas sat by the window, listening to the rain tap against the stone. He pulled the device out and laid it on the wooden table. It looked so alien there—a slab of perfect, black glass resting on a surface scarred by knives and spilled ale.
He tapped the screen. The message from his mother was still there. He opened the browser, his fingers moving with a frantic, desperate energy. He began to search for his own name. He searched for news of his disappearance.
There were no articles. No police reports. To the modern world, he had only been gone for a few days. He was likely just a missing person file on a detective's desk, or a source of worry for a mother who thought her son was neglecting his calls.
He looked at the battery. Still one hundred percent. The "magic" that kept the phone alive was the same magic that had dragged him here. It was a cruel paradox; he had the most advanced tool in the history of the world, but he was using it to figure out how to keep lead vapors from killing his blacksmith.
Victoria entered the room, carrying a tray with a flagon of wine and a loaf of dark bread. She set it on the table, her eyes lingering on the glowing device.
"Is she there?" Victoria asked, her voice a soft murmur. "The woman who sent the words?"
Thomas looked up at her. "Yes. She's there. She's worried about me."
"Can you tell her where you are?"
"I could tell her the words," Thomas said, a bitter laugh escaping his throat. "But she wouldn't understand. To her, this place is a story in a book. To her, I am... I am already dead, she just doesn't know it yet."
Victoria sat across from him. She didn't offer empty comforts. She knew the weight of exile. She had been sold into this marriage to a man she didn't know, in a valley that was a world away from the home of her youth.
"Then do not tell her," Victoria said. "If the words only bring pain, let the glass be silent. You are here now, Thomas. You are building something that the people of her time will walk upon. Perhaps that is how you speak to her. Not with the glass, but with the stones."
Thomas looked at her, the sharp clarity of her mind cutting through his grief. She was right. He couldn't go back, and he couldn't explain the impossible. All he could do was ensure that the world he left behind for her descendants was better than the one he had found.
"You're right," Thomas said, his voice regaining its strength.
He swiped away from the messaging app. He opened his project folder for the mining operation. "The storm has bought us time. Hamo thinks the pit is flooded and the work is stalled. We'll let him believe that for a week. In the meantime, we move the smelting operation to the cellar of the chapel itself."
Victoria's eyes narrowed. "In the chapel? Under the nose of an inquisitor?"
"Exactly," Thomas said. "He wants to oversee the altar. He wants to spend his days praying over the foundation. If the furnace is directly beneath him, hidden by the very stones he thinks are holy, he will never suspect a thing. The smoke can be piped through the hollow pillars and out of the ornamental vents at the top of the spires. It will look like incense or the breath of the spirits."
Victoria leaned forward, the glow of the phone reflecting in her eyes. "It is madness. If he catches us, there is no lie that can save us. He will call it a desecration."
"Then we make sure he doesn't catch us," Thomas said. "We use the silver to build the first school. We use it to buy the equipment for the clinic I want to start in the village. If we show the people the results, they will protect the secret for us."
He looked at the phone again. He saw a news headline about a breakthrough in renewable energy. He felt a surge of defiant energy. He wasn't just a ghost. He was an infiltrator from the future, and he was going to turn this dark, muddy valley into the spark that lit a new age.
"I need to talk to Wat," Thomas said, standing up. "We need to design a ventilation system that can handle the lead fumes without leaving a trace. We have work to do, Victoria."
Victoria stood as well, her hand resting on the hilt of the small dagger at her waist. "Then we begin. But Thomas... keep the glass hidden. Hamo is not the only one with eyes in this house."
As Thomas walked toward the door, he felt a strange sense of peace. The grief was still there, a dull ache in the back of his mind, but it was no longer a weight. It was a fuel. He reached into his pocket and felt the device vibrate one more time—another notification, another piece of a world he would never see again.
He didn't check it. He kept his eyes on the dark corridor ahead.
He was the architect of a new world, and he had a foundation to lay.