Rose closed her eyes. “Tomorrow night, just past dusk, at the Japanese Tea Garden. That should work.”
She opened her eyes again and took Eleisha’s hand as if anxious to be off now that they had completed her desired task. Eleisha allowed herself to be led down the stairs—beginning to understand the depth of Rose’s resolution. But she still felt shaken by her own outburst.
As they neared the last step, she asked, “How old is he?”
Rose hesitated before answering quietly. “I don’t know for certain, but I know he was a man-at-arms for Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.”
“Earl of . . . ?”
Although she was of Welsh heritage, like all those from the Commonwealth, Eleisha knew basic English history—at least the major players. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, had later become the third Duke of Norfolk. He was Anne Boleyn’s uncle and had served in the court of Henry VIII.
That would make Robert nearly five hundred years old.
Wade’s tongue felt thick inside his mouth.
He could hear voices on the edge of his awareness.
“The door is broken!” someone said in alarm. “Seamus, how did this happen?”
He felt soft fingers on his forearm. “Can you hear me?”
Forcing his eyelids to open, he saw the blurred image of Eleisha leaning over him. “Leisha?”
He was lying on a settee. How had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was eating dinner in the kitchen. She helped him to sit up. He saw an open wooden box lying at his feet . . . with a leather sheath lying beside it.
“Who broke the door?” she asked.
“Philip did.” A hollow voice with a Scottish accent came from nowhere. Seamus appeared behind Eleisha, his expression angry. “He came back and found the door locked, so he kicked it in.”
Eleisha crouched down on the floor. “Oh . . . I’m sorry. Where is he now?”
“Out looking for you.”
She got up, went over, and opened a window, closing her eyes. “I’ll try to reach him. I don’t think he would go far with Wade still in the apartment and the door broken.”
Wade was still confused. How had he ended up on the couch, and when had Philip come back? He didn’t remember anything.
Less than five minutes later, he heard the sound of booted feet running down the hallway, and Philip nearly fell through the broken door, carrying a machete.
“Eleisha!”
His eyes looked half-crazy, and Rose drew away from him, closer to her bedroom door. Seamus hissed. Wade stood up, but he was dizzy. What was going on?
Eleisha ran from the window to intercept Philip. “It’s all right,” she was saying. “Everything’s all right. I’m sorry we missed each other. Where did you get that? Put it down.”
Wade was trying to follow too many things at once.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Philip ordered, and he pointed at Rose with his free hand. “She drugged Wade, didn’t she? Where have you been?”
Drugged Wade?
His head was beginning to clear a little, and he remembered bits and pieces: eating eggs, drinking tea, growing tired . . .
“I can’t explain it with words,” Eleisha rushed to say. “I need to show you.” She took Philip’s outstretched hand. “Come and sit. Just let me show you. Wade, can you make it over here?”
Philip still looked enraged and manic, but he let her pull him to a clear area of the room. “What?” he demanded. “Show me what?”
Wade stumbled over, still trying to gain his wits. Eleisha had dust smeared on her face and her tank top.
“Sit down,” she said. “Let me in.”
Sitting, Wade closed his eyes, and the shock of Eleisha’s rapid mental entry almost made him fall backward. To see her memories clearly, he had to reach back, make the connection.
Then he was in the kitchen drinking tea earlier that night, seeing himself through Eleisha’s eyes. He was Eleisha. She took him forward from there, and he forgot himself.
Wade did not know how much time has passed when Eleisha pulled out of his mind. His head felt clearer, but he gasped several times, reeling from everything she had just shown him. He’d felt it all, exactly as she had. Her doubts, her fear, the fierce use of her gift . . . her strength. Her realization of the depth of Rose’s single-minded determination.
And Robert Brighton, a soldier from the sixteenth century.
Reality was still sinking in.
“No!” Philip shouted almost immediately, breaking the revelations of the moment. “An elder?” His French accent was so thick, the words