Chapter 37: Dawn's Dangerous Discovery
The world came back in pieces. First, the weight of Eris’s arm around her waist, heavy and warm. Then, the soft, grey light of pre-dawn seeping around the edges of the lace curtains. The deep, resonant quiet of the woods.
A crash shattered it.
Not from the nursery—the runes held, the silence there was absolute—but from downstairs. A sound of breaking glass, followed by a hissed argument.
Lilly was already moving, her body jerking awake before her mind. She slipped from under his arm and was at the nursery door in three silent strides, easing it open. Eris was on his feet, a hunting knife manifesting in his hand from a pocket of shadow.
She peered in, then looked back at him, her face pale but relieved. She shook her head once. Both babies slept, Ella sprawled, Rowan curled. Unharmed. Unaware.
The voices drifted up again. Young. Bickering.
“—totally got us to the cabin!” A girl’s voice, bright with defensive triumph.
A deeper, hushed reply, threaded with exasperation. “Yes, you did. But if you haven’t noticed, the walls are not painted. So you time-traveled again. And dragged me with you.”
Eris met Lilly’s eyes. A silent communication passed between them. Stay. Guard them. He gestured with his chin for her to hold her position by the nursery door. She nodded, pressing her back against the wall, her gaze fixed on the sleeping forms inside. She wouldn’t go more than fifteen feet from them.
He moved down the narrow staircase alone, each step deliberate and silent. The old wood didn’t creak under his weight. He was a shadow descending into the golden haze of the kitchen, where the first rays of sun hit the mason jars on the open shelves.
There they were.
A girl, maybe thirteen, stood near the butcher’s block island. Copper hair, the exact shade of his own, tied in a loose, messy ponytail. She was wearing strange, dark blue trousers and a soft grey tunic. She was staring at the unpainted log wall with a look of dawning horror.
“Ya know, now that you—shit.”
She turned. And locked eyes with him.
Her eyes were Lilly’s blue. Wide, expressive, currently filled with pure, unadulterated panic.
A boy stood a few feet away, his back to Eris. He had golden, curling hair and tanned skin. He was taller, his shoulders beginning to broaden. He spun at the girl’s curse.
The boy’s face—a masculine, sharper echo of Lilly’s sweetness, but with Eris’s same calculating green eyes—went utterly still. He processed the scene in a heartbeat: the unfamiliar cabin, the man holding a knife, the early morning light.
He moved.
Four swift, sure steps. He grabbed the copper-haired girl by her arm, yanking her behind him with a force that was pure instinct. He put his body squarely between her and Eris, his posture radiating a protective ferocity that was eerily, intimately familiar. He glared, not with teenage petulance, but with a cold, assessing threat. A challenge.
The girl peeked over her brother’s shoulder. Her panicked gaze shot from Eris’s face to the staircase behind him.
Lilly had crept down a few steps, unable to stay fully away. She stood frozen, one hand on the banister, wearing only the thin, torn nightgown from hours before. Her hair was a wild tumble, her face bare.
The girl’s eyes widened further. She swallowed visibly.
“Hi,” the girl squeaked, her voice small. “Um. Please tell me you guys are, like, married? Or at least really like each other already?” She winced, a gesture that was all Lilly. “Or else this is gonna be a really, really long explanation.”
The boy—Rowan—didn’t relax his stance. His eyes, those familiar green eyes, were drilling into Eris, analyzing the knife, his posture, the subtle shift of his weight. He was waiting for a threat to solidify. He was fourteen years in the future, protecting his sister in a past he shouldn’t be in.
Eris slowly lowered the hand holding the knife, letting it hang at his side. He didn’t put it away. The potential for threat remained, a silent question. His gaze swept over them, these two young strangers who were carved from pieces of him and Lilly. The girl’s desperate hope. The boy’s fierce, silent guard.
He looked past them, to Lilly on the stairs. Her hand was over her mouth, her eyes swimming with a torrent of emotion—shock, awe, a fierce, sudden love for these taller, older versions of her children.
Eris looked back at the boy shielding his sister. He saw himself in that unwavering glare. He saw Lilly in the girl’s pleading blue eyes.
He finally spoke, his voice a low, careful rumble in the sunlit kitchen.
“The explanation,” Eris said, his gaze cutting to the girl, Ella, “starts with you.” He tilted his head just slightly, a lord hearing a report. “Now.”
Rowan didn’t move. His eyes tracked from Eris’s face to the knife held loosely at his side, then up to Lilly on the stairs. His voice was flat, a teenager’s attempt at a commander’s calm. “I’d feel better if you told her what year this is first.”
Ella huffed, trying to shove at his solid back. “Ro, we’re fine. Look at them.”
He glanced over his shoulder, his green eyes sharp. “Ella.”
She huffed again, a sound of pure frustration, then looked back at Eris and shrugged. The motion was so like her mother it made his chest tighten. “Brothers, am I right?” she said, offering a wincing, apologetic smile. “Anyway, the year would actually be very, very helping in the explaining-the-situation-to-you department.”
Lilly moved then. She walked the rest of the way down the stairs, her bare feet silent on the wood. She passed Eris, her shoulder brushing his arm—a point of contact, a reassurance. She didn’t look at the future versions of her children with shock or awe now, but with a practical, calming focus.
She went straight to the butcher’s block island, to the block of kitchen knives near the stove. She picked up the one with the longest blade, her movements unhurried. She carried it past them all, walked to the base of the stairs, and placed it carefully on the highest step, well out of immediate reach.
Then she turned, folding her arms over her chest. The morning light gilded her tangled hair. “I’ll help,” she said, her voice soft but clear. “My guess is you two are Rowan and Ella. Who are currently sleeping upstairs in your crib.” She paused, her blue eyes holding the girl’s. “You’re six months old there.”
Rowan processed it. His shoulders, held in a rigid line, dropped a fraction. A slow, controlled exhale escaped him. The immediate, defensive tension bled away, replaced by a wary comprehension. He was still guarding, but the unknown had just been named.
Ella took that as her cue to take center stage. She sidestepped her brother, clasping her hands in front of her. “Okay. So. Fun fact about me,” she began, wiggling her fingers as if introducing a party trick. “I kind of have an ability to time travel? Don’t worry, though! It just happened, like, last week.”
She flashed a grin that was all innocent charm. “I was practicing winnowing with Rowan—who’s great at it, by the way, great teacher—and I just sort of… veered.”
Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you to go six feet,” he muttered, his voice dripping with long-suffering familiarity. “Not sixty miles. And fourteen years.”
“I know, I know!” Ella bit her lip, a habit she’d undoubtedly inherited from Lilly. Her eyes darted between her parents’ stunned faces. “Just to be super clear, I didn’t mean to do this. I just… missed the cabin. And I thought I could pop here really quick in, you know, our time, and then come right back. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.
The snap echoed in the quiet kitchen. Sunlight illuminated the dust still hanging in the air from their chaotic arrival. A piece of broken glass from a fallen jar twinkled on the floor by the sink.
Eris finally let the hunting knife in his hand dissolve into shadow. He leaned back against the doorframe, studying them. The strategic part of his mind was already whirring, assessing the implications, the dangers, the monumental breach of natural law. The other part, the newer, quieter part, was caught on the details.
The way Ella’s nose scrunched when she was nervous. How Rowan’s alertness mirrored his own, a constant, low-grade scan of the environment. They were real. They were here.
“You missed the cabin,” Eris repeated, his dry tone giving nothing away.
“You missed the cabin,” Eris repeated, his dry tone giving nothing away.
Ella tilted her head, then looked around the sunlit kitchen with its unpainted walls and sparse shelves. Her expression shifted from panic to a confident, familiar appraisal. “Nah, this is it,” she declared, gesturing vaguely at the air. “We come here every summer. Trust me, I know the cabin.”
Rowan muttered something under his breath about her current commentary not being helpful.
She rolled her eyes, a spectacular, practiced motion. “Relax, Ro. He’s just processing. And trying to figure out if we’re a threat or something.” She glanced back at Eris as if she’d diagnosed him perfectly.
Rowan gave her a look only a brother could give his sister—a mix of profound exhaustion and unwavering solidarity. “You broke into their kitchen,” he stated flatly, pointing to the shattered jar by the sink. “Through time.”
She huffed, crossing her arms. “Again, it was an accident! I didn’t do any of this on purpose. Can we all just calm down?” She then looked directly at Eris, her hands coming up in a placating gesture. “I promise we are not here to commit any crimes or get into more trouble. Just a fae girl, magical practice oopsie.”
Lilly bit her lip, looking down at the floorboards to hold back the grin she could no longer suppress. Her shoulders shook once, silently.
Ella cleared her throat, clasping her hands again in a picture of forced contrition. “So. That’s my explanation. Please do not ground us for the rest of our lives.”
Rowan huffed, then looked at Eris with a stark, teenage honesty. “In my defense, I was being a nice brother and got roped into this.” He jerked a thumb at Ella. “I’m more of a hostage.”
Ella turned and stared at him, her mouth agape. “What happened to you being all on-guard two seconds ago?”
He shrugged, his green eyes so much like his father’s meeting Eris’s across the room. “I’m just being honest.”
A beat of silence passed, filled only with the distant call of a morning bird outside. The sunlight had climbed higher, now glinting off the shards of glass on the floor. Eris pushed off the doorframe and walked to the sink. He picked up the hand broom and dustpan hanging from a nail.
He didn’t look at them as he began to sweep up the mess with methodical precision. The gritty scrape of glass on tin was loud in the quiet.
“A hostage,” Eris said, not a question.
“Technically,” Rowan affirmed, watching him.
“And an oopsie,” Eris continued, his voice still flat.
Ella winced. “A pretty big one, yeah.”
He dumped the glass fragments into a small metal pail under the sink. The clatter was final. He turned, leaning back against the counter, and crossed his arms. His gaze swept over them both, this impossible proof of a future. His eyes lingered on the stubborn set of Rowan’s jaw, the hopeful anxiety in Ella’s blue eyes.
Lilly moved then, drawn into the orbit of the moment. She walked to the ancient cast-iron stove and lit the burner with a strike of a match. The sound was a sharp punctuation. She filled a kettle from the pump at the sink and set it on the flame.
“Tea,” she said, as if that solved everything. “Then you’ll tell us how to send you back. Without breaking anything else.”
The kettle began a low, rattling whistle on the stove. Ella watched the steam curl, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t know how I did it exactly,” she admitted, her earlier bravado thinning. “This is kind of the furthest I’ve traveled before. Time-wise.”
Rowan reached out and hit her shoulder. It wasn’t a shove. It was a firm, comforting pat, his hand lingering for a second. You’ll figure it out. He then leaned over, his eyes scanning the floorboards. He spotted a last, missed sliver of glass glittering near the leg of the table. He picked it up carefully between his thumb and forefinger and placed it on the counter.
Lilly turned back from the stove, the whistling ceasing as she moved the kettle. “Well, we can help you figure it out,” she said, her voice effortlessly warm. “So that’s not a problem at all.” She then looked at Rowan, a soft, knowing smile touching her lips. “It was nice of you to help your sister learn to winnow.”
He nodded, a simple, acknowledging dip of his chin. He didn’t elaborate.
Ella smirked, elbowing him lightly. “Rowan can do the fire thing,” she said, as if listing his features. “And telekinesis. And lift, like, big boulders. It’s pretty cool.” She was trying to shift the focus, to lighten the dreadful strangeness of the room.
Rowan looked at her, a flat stare.
She shrugged, grinning. “What? I’m trying to share the spotlight.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned his head toward the piece of glass he’d just placed on the counter. He flicked a finger. The shard lifted, rotating lazily in a beam of sunlight. It floated, perfectly controlled, across the three feet to the metal trash pail. The lid lifted simultaneously as if pulled by an invisible string. The glass dropped in with a faint tink. The lid closed.
He nodded once, facing them again. “There. I showed off.”
Ella rolled her eyes so hard her head tilted back. “He’s acting tough because he wants to impress you by being calm, cool, and collected.” She said the words in a sing-song, mocking tone.
Rowan rolled his own eyes right back at her. He reached behind him without looking, his fingers finding a bowl of apples on the counter. He grabbed one, brought it to his mouth, and took a loud, crunching bite. He spoke around it. “It’s not acting if it comes natural.”
The casual display of power hung in the air, more revealing than any weapon. Eris had not moved from his lean against the counter. He watched the apple in his son’s hand. He had seen the effortless, precise control. The fire thing. Telekinesis. This was not simple inheritance. This was something else.
Lilly poured boiling water into two chipped mugs, the steam blooming around her face. “How big are the boulders?” she asked, her tone the same as if she’d asked about his favorite color.
Rowan swallowed. “Size of a small cart,” he said, and took another bite.
“Show-off,” Ella muttered, but she was smiling. She wandered over to the kitchen table and slid into a chair, propping her chin in her hands. “So. The sending-us-back plan. I’m all ears.”
Eris finally pushed off the counter. He walked to the table and pulled out the chair opposite Ella. He sat down slowly, the old wood groaning under his weight. He rested his forearms on the table, his fingers lacing together. He looked at his daughter, then at his son who remained standing by the counter, eating his apple with a studied nonchalance.
“The plan,” Eris said, his voice low and measured, “requires understanding the mechanism. You thought of a place. This cabin. You intended to move through space.” He paused, his green eyes intent on Ella. “What did you feel, right before you… veered?”
Ella’s playful demeanor faded. She looked down at the whorls in the wooden table. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like… winnowing feels like stepping through a cold curtain. This was different. The curtain got really long. And I could feel… layers. Like pages in a book brushing past my skin.” She glanced up, her blue eyes earnest. “I just wanted to get to the last page. To here.”
“You pulled the thread of place,” Eris stated, more to himself than to her. “But you pulled it through the weave of time.”
Rowan tossed the apple core into the trash pail from across the room. It landed with a soft thud. “So how does she reverse it? Do we just stand here and have her concentrate on our time really hard?”
“Perhaps.” Eris’s gaze didn’t waver from Ella. “But threading a needle you cannot see is a recipe for another accident. You could land in the middle of a war. Or a mountain.” He leaned back in his chair. “You need an anchor. A tangible link to your own time.”
Lilly brought the two mugs of tea to the table, setting one in front of Eris and keeping the other. She didn’t sit. She stood behind Ella’s chair, her hands resting on her daughter’s shoulders. Ella instinctively leaned back into the touch.
“What could work as an anchor?” Lilly asked, her fingers giving a gentle squeeze.
Ella chewed on her lower lip, her eyes darting around the familiar-yet-unfinished kitchen. The morning light felt different here, thinner. She glanced at Rowan, who was reaching for another apple from the bowl on the counter. A slow smirk spread across her face.
“Ro,” she said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
He froze, his fingers an inch from the fruit. He pulled his hand back as if burned, then turned his head to look at her. His expression flattened into pure, preemptive exhaustion. He groaned, a deep, heartfelt sound. “Here we go.”
He abandoned the apple and leaned his hips against the counter, crossing his arms. It was a looser posture, more teenager than guarded soldier.
Ella huffed, leaning forward on the table. “I’m telling you, that would be it. It’s perfect.”
Rowan pushed off the counter. He walked over and pulled out the chair beside Eris, sitting down as if joining a casual business meeting. He looked at the confused faces of his parents—Lilly’s intrigued head tilt, Eris’s impassive scrutiny.
He nodded once, a translator arriving. “Ah. I see you aren’t fluent in Ella yet.” He flicked a hand toward his sister. “Ella likes to assume that everyone’s brain is moving at the same speed as hers. We are, in fact, not. Curse of being a genius with a questionable attention span.”
Ella raised a single eyebrow. “Rude.”
He huffed. “Name the last, least profitable trade good the Autumn Court had from the five years before we were born.”
“You are killing my story energy,” Ella shot back, throwing her hands up. Then she looked directly at Eris, her face going utterly serious. “Dyed gull feathers from the western coast. A two-season fashion fad that crashed when the shipments started mildewing. Net loss of three hundred gold marks.”
She answered without hesitation, her recitation flawless. Eris didn’t move, but something shifted in his eyes—a calculation, a reassessment of this clever, chaotic girl.
“Like I was saying,” Ella continued, seamlessly snapping back to her previous train of thought as if the economic interlude never happened. “Thankful I have an anchor I could use. And a plan for a way home.” She winced, offering a sheepish grin to Eris. “I know for a fact—oh, and sorry to call you out on this—but on the first night you brought us here, when we were six months old? When everyone was asleep, you woke up.”
She paused for dramatic effect. Lilly’s fingers stilled on her shoulders.
Ella’s voice softened, tinged with fond awe. “You got… dare I say sentimental. And you marked all of our initials under this very table.” She patted the worn pine surface. “You’ve added a mark every year since. I know this because I caught you doing it when I was three. You let me do mine that year. And then I brought Ro with me the next time.” She looked at Lilly, her expression turning genuinely apologetic. “Really, Mom is the only one who didn’t know about this.”
The silence that followed was profound. The cabin itself seemed to hold its breath. Lilly’s hands slowly lifted from Ella’s shoulders. She looked at Eris, who was staring at a knot in the wood grain of the table as if it held the secrets of the universe.
He didn’t deny it.
He didn’t speak at all.
The confession hung there, more intimate than anything that had happened against the wall hours before. This was a quiet, sustained ritual. A secret history carved in secret.
Lilly’s lips parted. “You…” she began, but no other words came. Her gaze was a mixture of stunned wonder and soft accusation.
Eris finally lifted his eyes. He didn’t look at Lilly. He looked at Ella. “You remember that? From being three?”
“I remember the candlelight,” Ella said simply. “And your hand over mine on the knife. You said, ‘Slow, even pressure. It’s a record, not a wound.’” She mimicked his low, precise tone perfectly.
Rowan was watching his father, his earlier sarcasm gone. He just observed, waiting.
Eris held Ella’s gaze for a long moment. Then, with a fluid motion that broke the spell, he pushed his chair back. The legs scraped against the floor. He stood up, went to the drawer by the sink, and pulled out a short, sharp utility knife. He walked back to the table.
He didn’t explain. He just got down on one knee, then onto his back, and slid underneath the heavy table. They heard the scratch of blade on wood, methodical and sure.
Lilly slowly sank into the chair Ella had vacated. She looked under the table. From her angle, she could see the side of his face, intent and focused in the shadow. The rhythmic scraping continued.
After a minute, he slid out. He placed the knife on the table and stood, brushing a stray wood curl from his shirt. He looked at Ella, then jerked his chin toward the space he’d vacated.
“Show me,” he said.
Ella scrambled from her chair and disappeared underneath. A soft, reverent “Whoa” floated up. Then, a moment later, her voice, muffled by wood. “It’s all here. E.V. plus L.L. That’s you guys. And then R.V. and E.V. for us. And… yeah. A little slash mark for each year. One. Two. Three…” She counted quietly up to fourteen.
She wriggled out, her copper hair tousled, her eyes shining. “The last one is fresh. Like, a few weeks old fresh. From our time.” She looked at Eris, all her cockiness replaced by sheer, open understanding. “It’s a fixed point. A record through time, literally in the foundation. I can tie my thread to the newest mark. It should pull us right back to when it was made.”
Lilly finally found her voice, quiet and thick. “You carved our initials under the table.”
Eris met her gaze then. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look away. He simply gave one slow, acknowledging nod. The confession was in the motion, in the unvarnished truth of the knife left lying on the table between them.
“It seemed a prudent record,” he said, his voice rough.
Lilly reached across the table and picked up the knife. Her fingers curled around the handle he’d just held. She looked at it, then at him, her blue eyes swimming. “Prudent,” she repeated softly, the word blooming with new meaning in the sunlit room.
Rowan cleared his throat. “So. The anchor is here. The plan is… Ella focuses on the newest cut and does the long-curtain thing backwards?” He looked to his father for confirmation, the strategic mind seeking validation.
Eris nodded. “In theory. The thread is now physical. She can follow it back to its point of origin.”