Prologue
“Mum, for the fourth time, I have eaten. I had a roast chicken bap the size of an absolute hubcap not twenty minutes ago. My arteries are singing.”
Selena wedged the phone between her ear and her shoulder, grimacing as she shoved another rusty iron tent-peg into the sodden grass with the heel of her boot. The boot—a theatrical rental of vaguely historical persuasion—responded by letting in an icy squirt of brown water straight through the worn welt of the sole.
“Don't you mum me miss, you sounded positively thin on Sunday, Selena,” her mother’s voice crackled through the speaker, competing valiantly against the gusting gale tearing across the meadow. “And don’t give me that dismissive hum. Drama school has turned you into a sparrow. You live on black coffee and that dreadful rolled-oats porridge in the microwave. It isn’t proper fuel for a girl standing out in an open field in Sussex.”
“I am not standing in an open field; I am an artiste bringing living history to the masses. And the coffee here is artisanal, which means it tastes like burnt kindling and costs five pounds fifty. Meaning I don't get to have any, so quite frankly, I’m thriving.”
“You’re shivering. I can hear your jaw rattling through the receiver.”
“That is merely the artistic vibration of my soul,” Selena muttered, tucking a stray curl of damp honey-blonde hair behind her ear. It promptly escaped, sticking to her lip gloss. “Look, I’ve got to go. Nigel is glaring at me from the cider tent, and if I don’t finish staking out the Queen’s Court before the afternoon procession, he’s going to reassign me to the stocks. Last year they threw actual rotten turnips at the poor buggers in the stocks.”
“Alright, but wear your poncho, darling. The weather report said there’s a proper squall blowing up from the Channel.”
“I’m in a full French Renaissance court gown, Mum—corseted within an inch of my mortal life. How women ever managed to overthrow monarchies in clothes like this is an absolute mystery to me. If I put the yellow poncho over this, I’ll look like an Elizabethan bumblebee.” Before her well-meaning mother could muster another dire domestic warning, Selena quickly cut in, “Right, got to dash before Nigel has an apoplexy. Love you, bye!”
Selena jabbed the screen with a muddy thumb and shoved the phone deep into the hidden slit of her voluminous skirts, letting out a breath that bloomed white in the sudden, unnatural chill.
The Midsummer Living History & Arts Festival had begun with high ambitions and bright bunting, but by four in the afternoon, the English summer had abandoned all pretence of gentility. The sky had curdled into a foul, bruised shade of aubergine, the clouds hanging so low they seemed to snag on the ancient oaks bordering the estate. A spiteful wind whipped through the craft stalls, turning canvas awnings into snapping sails and carrying off wicker baskets into the woods.
Selena gathered her heavy, damp skirts in both hands and began the treacherous trek back toward the main pavilion.
She was twenty-one, thoroughly exhausted, and nursing the lingering professional humiliation of the morning performance. As a first-year student at the conservatoire, she had imagined her summer gig would involve delicate sonnet recitations or demonstrating courtly dances. Instead, Nigel—a frustrated am-dram martinet with a megaphone—had cast her as an attendant in the Queen’s procession with strict instructions to “look ornamental and stay out of the light.”
She hadn’t stayed out of the light. She had tripped over her own trailing hem directly in front of the local Member of Parliament, sending a painted wooden broadsword cartwheeling into his lap and knocking an entire tray of elderflower cordial down his trousers.
“Spatial awareness, Scott!” Nigel had bellowed, loud enough to frighten the shire horses. “You have the physical coordination of a newborn giraffe on roller skates!”
It was an uncharitable assessment, but not an entirely inaccurate one. Selina’s limbs had a distressing habit of operating on an independent schedule whenever her nerves flared.
A sharp, violent rip of thunder tore through the sky, so immediate that the ground shuddered beneath her boots.
The rain didn’t start with a polite English drizzle; it fell out of the clouds in a solid, blinding wall. Within seconds, the wood chip paths dissolved into soup. Screams echoed across the field as day-trippers bolted for the beer tents, flimsy plastic ponchos flapping wildly.
Wiping a sheet of water from her eyes, Selena looked around frantically for cover. The main pavilion was hopelessly jammed—a sea of dripping brollies and jostling elbows. Her gaze darted toward the tree line, where a solitary, crooked wagon stood half-hidden beneath the canopy of an ancient yew.
It hadn’t been there that morning—or if it had, Selena certainly hadn’t noticed it.
It was built of dark, heavy timbers, painted with faded vermilion and gilt scroll-work that looked genuinely old. A single iron lantern hung from the curved roof, burning not with the pale flicker of a candle, but with an intense, steady amber glow that seemed entirely unbothered by the horizontal deluge.
“Any port in a storm,” Selena gasped, hitching her skirts up and sprinting through the mud.
She threw herself up the wooden steps, bursting past the heavy velvet drop-cloth that served as an entrance.
“Excuse me—so sorry—frightful weather!” she panted, stumbling inside and shaking water from her sleeves like a wet spaniel.
The roar of the squall vanished the moment the heavy curtain fell shut behind her.
The interior was remarkably dry, smelling richly of dried lavender, warm beeswax, bitter wormwood, and an odd, metallic tang that raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck—like the charged air directly after a lightning strike.
Two other refugees were already huddled near the counter.
One was a young woman with sharp, analytical features, dark hair pulled back into a severe knot, and thick black-rimmed glasses, clutching a waterproof tablet sleeve against her chest with the defensive posture of someone protecting state secrets. She wore cargo trousers and a festival lanyard marking her as part of the logistics and tabletop gaming pavilion.
The other was a taller girl, strikingly graceful even while drenched, wearing black dance leggings, trainers, and a sodden crew fleece. Her warm tanned skin was flushed from running, her dark eyes scanning the wagon’s interior with quiet, alert intelligence.
“Crowded out there,” the dancer said softly, offering Selena a brief, sympathetic half-smile.
“Understatement of the century,” the girl with the glasses muttered, adjusting her frames with a push of her knuckle. “The drainage system on the south lawn just completely failed. The whole tournament ring is currently an open estuary.”
“I think I saw an inflatable bouncy castle take flight near the car park,” Selena offered, shuddering as an icy drop trickled down her spine. “I’m Selena, by the way.”
The other two quickly introduced themselves. The serious, practical-minded one with the tablet was Chloe; the dancer with the immaculate posture introduced herself as Sonia.
“Fools rush in.”
The low, dry rasp cut through the quiet like a rusted blade.
Selena jumped, spinning around toward the counter.
Sitting on a high, velvet-cushioned stool behind a low table of dark, polished mahogany was the oldest woman Selina had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was a spiderweb of deep creases, her hair a dense, untidy knot of spun iron, and her eyes—pale, milky grey—were sharp enough to pin a beetle to a board. She wore a shawl of faded green wool pinned with an unpolished silver brooch shaped like a serpent eating its own tail.
“Sorry,” Selena squeaked, reverting instantly to her default state of polite panic. “The canvas blew out on the lower meadow, and we just needed to—”
“I did not ask for a weather report, girl,” the old woman murmured, her voice like river stones grinding together. She did not look up; her gnarled fingers, heavily stained with ink and metal polish, were busy working an oily rag over a strange mechanism.
On the table before her sat the most astonishing piece of clockwork Selena had ever seen.It was an intricate, interlocking astronomical piece, perhaps eighteen inches across, crafted from mismatched metals—tarnished bronze, cold blackened iron, and bright, mirror-finished silver. Concentric rings nested within one another, etched with microscopic celestial charts, Latin script, and angular runes that caught the lantern light in strange, undulating waves. Set into the three primary rings were three uncut gemstones: a deep, velvety sapphire, an ice-pale aquamarine, and a smouldering crimson garnet.
The device was ticking. Not with the rhythmic, comforting click of a mantel clock, but with an irregular, syncopated cadence, like an erratic heartbeat.
“Incredible,” Chloe whispered, taking an instinctive step forward, her gaze locked on the gears. “The differential gearing on that... is that an Antikythera reproduction? The ratios look entirely non-standard.”
“Do not touch,” the old woman said, the command dropping like a lead weight into deep water. Her grey eyes flicked up, pinning the three of them in turn. “It is not an amusement. It is not for the eyes of sheep. And it is most certainly not for hire or sale.”
“Right,” Selena said quickly, taking a hasty, placating step backward. “Understood. Absolutely. Looking with our eyes, not with our hands. Very museum-appropriate.”
She took another step back to give the terrifying elder a wide berth.
Her sodden, oversized leather heel found the loose, looped hemp of a heavy guy-rope anchored to the floorboards.
“Oh, no—” Selena gasped.
Her foot caught. Her center of gravity vanished entirely.
In a frantic bid to remain upright, Selina’s arms windmilled through the air. Her hip clipped the corner of a freestanding wooden display stand; the stand rocked, clipped her shoulder, and pitched her bodily forward into the low mahogany table.
“Selena, look out!” Sonia shouted, darting forward to catch her.
It was too late. Selina’s elbow struck the corner of the velvet cloth.
The mechanism slid.
The old woman’s head snapped up, her eyes widening not in fear, but in profound, incandescent fury. “You blundering little—”
The astrolabe hit the heavy iron brazier resting in the center of the floorboards.
It did not merely break. The moment the bronze struck the iron, there was a deafening CRACK that sounded like the oak timbers of a warship splintering under broadside fire.
The air didn’t just flash; it shattered.
Rings of violent, searing light—blinding sapphire, pale sea-green, and deep, blood-red—tore outward in an expanding sphere. The wooden walls of the wagon simply ceased to exist, stripped away into an endless, rushing vortex of cold, screaming void. The floorboards dissolved beneath their feet.
Falling through an abyss of tearing wind and howling pressure, Selena saw the mechanism flying apart into three distinct, blazing shards.
She didn’t think. Driven by pure, panicked reflex, she reached out into the blinding glare. Her fingers closed around a heavy, jagged arc of cool bronze, the glowing blue sapphire biting hard into the meat of her palm.
Across the screaming light, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the other two: Sonia lunging desperately through the air to catch the crimson ring; Chloe clutching the pale blue core against her chest.
And above the roar of tearing centuries, falling backward through the spinning stars, the very last thing Selina heard was the ancient woman’s voice, ringing out with monumental, tea-ruined exasperation:
“Oh, bloody hell. Not again!”
Here Goes another Time Travel Trilogy. This one focuses a lot on humour and grit. Unconventional heroines and alpha heroes. Another romp through time French Regency spy theme, High Sea Pirate adventure and Highland Gypsy fun. Please Review, vote and comment. I hope you enjoy them all. Happy Reading!!
