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I was sitting on the ground with my back to a tombstone when they arrived.

I was cold, but it didn’t matter. Filthy and covered with blood, but it didn’t matter. In pain, but it didn’t matter.

I was frozen. Not literally, not yet, but emotionally. A distant part of my brain kept telling me to get up, but I had run out of the energy to care. I had run out of everything.

Or so I thought until the sound of voices penetrated the haze in my brain. People, I thought. And I was a danger to them. I’d suddenly discovered something that mattered.

I used the tombstone to haul myself up, gasping at the pain in my side. Yes, those ribs must have broken when Roche kicked me.

It was Mr. Dunworthy. Of course. Of course.

He had a boy with him, and I called out to them both, warning them to stay well away, that I was contaminated, but they kept approaching. Dunworthy assured me they’d been inoculated although he looked unwell.

The boy, Colin, was anxious to be off. He didn’t understand why I wanted, why I needed, to ring the bell for Roche, but Dunworthy, bless him, set off at once to take care of it.

I wished I hadn’t asked when I saw what ringing the bell had done to him. I knew from painful experience that tugging on the bell-rope required effort, and he’d done the full nine strokes. It had left him dizzy and near to collapsing. I was furious, because I was sure then that he’d lied to me about not having the plague, and it terrified me. Roche’s death had been devastating. The prospect of losing Dunworthy, too, seemed unbearable.

He took some aspirin and rested before helping me mount the horse, a painful experience for both of us. Colin got Dunworthy on Roche’s donkey and then swung up behind me. I didn’t look back at the village as we left. Twisting around for a final look would have been too painful on multiple levels, and I knew I’d never need help remembering Ashencote.

Colin chattered away as we rode through the gathering dusk, telling me all about the influenza epidemic in Oxford. He made it sound like an adventure, but I could hear the pain in his voice as he described the day he’d learned his Great-aunt Mary had died. Dunworthy had been too ill to understand Colin when he told him and he’d feared for Dunworthy’s life as well.

I fell silent, trying to take in the news that death had come to my Oxford. Gilchrist, who’d approved my drop, was dead, as was Dr. Ahrens, who’d always been so kind to me. Mr. Latimer, my tutor, was insensate and likely to remain so. In a way, it was worse than thinking about Ashencote because I’d thought of my Oxford as a place of safety and peace, even if was beyond my reach. To learn that Mary Ahrens had been dying while I was thinking that… I mentally shook myself, and resolved to pay closer attention to Colin. Now was not the time to travel down dark roads of useless speculation.

After he’d told me about the epidemic and staying with Mr. Dunworthy and the bell ringers and Mrs. Gaddson and Finch and his mother (plus assorted live-ins), Colin pestered me to teach him how to become an historian because he was determined to become a medievalist. By that time, we’d reached the drop and Mr. Dunworthy seemed alert but was scarcely speaking. I was worried about him.

I told Colin he wasn’t old enough to go on a drop, that it was very dangerous, that it wouldn’t be anything like he expected. I told him all of the things Dunworthy had once told me, and Colin didn’t give them any more weight than I had. I felt a sudden pang of responsibility for this clever and heedless child, and wondered if that was how Dunworthy had been feeling all the years he’d been teaching me. Perhaps he still felt that way.

I told Dunworthy that I’d got everything on the corder. He needed to know that his tutoring hadn’t been in vain, that I’d done an historian’s job, even if it wasn’t the one I’d set out to do.

I could hear a distant bell ringing, but it wasn’t tolling the passing of a lost soul. The ringing came from my Oxford, calling us home as the net began to open.

I’ve done it, I thought. I’ve survived a nightmare and now I’ll go home. The idea left me weak in the knees. So many days and nights I’d spent lurching from one demand to the next, not thinking of the future, no longer believing there would be a future.

Don’t think too far ahead, I told myself as I felt the tears start to come. See to Dunworthy. Have a wash. See a doctor. Eat. Sleep. Don’t think beyond that. Don’t think.

“Apocalyptic!” Colin exclaimed, looking at the dazzling light display of the net opening in the damp, frigid air. I realized I’d forgotten to assign Colin a place on my list. From what he’d told me, that wasn’t a novel experience. And Colin, I added. Make sure that Colin’s taken care of.

I looked at Dunworthy, expecting to see relief in his face, but his expression was bleak. Surely he wasn’t thinking he’d failed me somehow? I took his hand and said, “I knew you’d come,” doing my best to project the depth of my faith in him, and he smiled faintly.

I winced at the bright lights of the lab as we came though. “I’m all right,” I said as a nurse in protective garb hurried to my side. “Just a few ribs that are either cracked or broken. It happened several hours ago. It’s painful, but I’m not having difficulty breathing. See to Dunworthy. He’s having a relapse. I should get decontaminated.”

The nurse’s name was Penelope and she ignored what I’d said. She carefully removed the muffler Colin had used to wrap my ribs and quickly checked me. Behind her, I could hear Badri phoning someone and speaking in low, urgent tones. I was shocked by his appearance. He looked half-dead and decades older than the last time I’d seen him.

“All right, then,” she said, finishing her examination. “It would be better if you got cleaned up here, but I’m sending those two to hospital straight away. How is Colin?”

“Unhurt,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was strictly true. “Apocalyptic.”

Colin beamed at me and I gestured to him. “Come along.” I led him to one of the doors on the far side of the room labeled “Decontamination” and watched the sign set in the door just above the handle flip from “clean” to “dirty” as I turned the handle.

“What is this?” Colin said, as we entered a small, barren room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in white tile. A built-in bench lined one wall, with two shelves mounted on the opposite wall. The upper shelf, at waist height, held waterproof pens, blunt-nosed scissors in two sizes, and a laminated list of instructions. The shelf below it held plastic bags in varying sizes. A second door, opposite the one we’d entered, led to the shower room beyond.

“Your aunt’s idea, actually,” I said, taking a large plastic bag from the lower shelf. “What’s your last name?”

“Templer,” he said, and spelled it for me. “Great-aunt Mary designed this?”

I nodded. “Several years ago, according to Dunworthy. We bag up everything,” I explained, handing him a smaller bag. “Empty your pockets into this.”

“So, what are you writing?” he asked while rummaging through his pockets.

“Your name, the date here, the date we returned from, known or suspected hazards. In this case, the plague.” I finished writing and capped the pen. “This is the changing room. After I leave, I want you to put everything in this large bag—the small bag you’ve just filled, your costume, shoes, underclothes, the lot. Nothing on your person leaves this room. Once you’ve done that, seal the bag—see this peel-off strip here?—it’s sticky underneath, so remove the strip and fold over the top of the bag once you’ve got everything inside. If you realize you’ve forgotten something or it doesn’t seal properly, get a second bag and label it like this one. With me so far?”

“Yes.”

“Leave the bag here, on the bench. The shower room’s through that door. There are detailed interactive instructions on the decontamination process. Follow them, step by step.”

“Decontamination?” he asked, looking worried.

“You’ve been close enough to me to have picked up lice and fleas. Basically, there’s a waterproof handheld with a program telling you exactly how you should go about washing up and combing your hair afterwards. Once you’ve finished with the shower, walk through to the next room. It looks very much like this one, but you’ll find towels, clean clothes, and slippers on the shelves. The extra-small scrubs fit me, so a small should do you.”

“And what happens after that?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Wait, if they’ll let you, and we can go to hospital together after I’m clean. If they take you to hospital without me, tell them where we’ve been, that you’ve been inoculated, and that you’ve done a decontam here. Likely, they’ll comb through your hair, looking for vermin. If they find any, I expect one of the nurses will scrub you down.”

“Necrotic,” he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

I left him to it, and went to the other decontam suite next door. Labeling my bag was no problem, but a wave of weariness overtook me as soon as I sat down to undress. The smock I was wearing was obviously contaminated, but it was an authentic example of medieval clothing. How was I going to get the bloody thing off without cutting it? I tried pulling it off with the arm on my uninjured side, but as I’d expected, the twisting motion made me gasp with pain.

Damn. I was struggling to get up to fetch scissors when someone knocked. “Come in,” I said, sinking back onto the bench.

Penelope stuck her head in the door. “Mr. Dunworthy and Badri have been taken away. Do you need help cleaning up?”

“Yes, please,” I answered, sagging with relief. “Can you get these off without cutting them? They’re irreplaceable examples of medieval clothing. I’ll want to study them after they’ve been cleaned.”

“Historians,” she said to herself with a smile, but she did manage to get the smock off without damaging it. I let her take charge, guiding me into the shower room and helping me wash, and oh, the hot water was pure bliss. I hadn’t been truly warm since leaving Oxford. She wrapped my ribs and my burned hand once I was dry and helped me dress.

“There you are,” Colin said, as we emerged from the decontam suite. “You look loads better.”

I smiled at the artless directness of children and thought that I also felt much better, even though my side still hurt. There was an ambulance waiting for us and I was too tired to object, so I got on the trolley. When had I last slept? I still hadn’t worked that out by the time we arrived at hospital.

Someone had already smoothed the way for us, so the staff knew all about my drop and retrieval. I was taken away for X-rays and lost sight of Colin. He was gone by the time I returned, and all anyone could tell me was that he’d been evaluated and released. To my surprise, I was released after having my ribs (one broken, two cracked, and several others badly bruised) wrapped yet again.

I was instructed to follow up with my doctor in a few days. Since Mary Ahrens was my doctor, I had no idea what I was going to do, but that was a challenge for another day. At the moment, I had no coat, no money, no energy, and my flatmate was out of town. Who should I call?

“There you are,” Colin said. “I’ve been looking everywhere. I managed to hunt down William and borrow money for a taxi. You shouldn’t be walking about in this cold without a coat. Are you ready?”

I supposed I was. I found myself quietly amused but secretly grateful for the role reversal and let Colin handle the taxi. When we got to my flat, he insisted on staying with me until I’d got the spare key from my next-door neighbor. I thanked him multiple times and promised to see him the following day. It was only after he’d gone that I discovered there wasn’t much to eat. I ordered in a curry and decided to struggle into my own clothes while waiting for it. Otherwise, I likely would have been been asleep when the delivery girl arrived.

I ate half the curry and put the rest away when I realized I was nodding off at the kitchen table. My ride in the ambulance had convinced me I wouldn’t be comfortable lying in bed, so I fetched the blankets and pillows from my bed. After consideration, I took the pillows from John’s bed as well, and made myself a nest on the sofa, sitting as upright as possible.

A feeling of dread crept over me. I didn’t understand it at first. I was safe, and well-fed, and warm. Then I realized the problem: I was thawing.

Looking back over the past several days, I remembered moments of pleading and rage and naked anguish, but I’d always been distracted soon after by some task demanding my immediate attention. There’d been no time to fully give in to my feelings, and after Roche’s death, there hadn’t been much point in feeling anything.

Until now.

Everything that had happened came rushing back with fresh awfulness, from the sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized it was plague to the final humiliation of being unable to bury Roche. I wept, great tearing sobs that did my ribs no favors but I couldn’t seem to stop. Intellectually, I knew I’d been through a terrible experience and it was normal to grieve, but that did nothing to ease my misery.

I cried until the flesh around my eyes felt puckered and raw. By then, the painful sobbing had finished, but tears still slid helplessly down my cheeks. Was I going to be like this after every bad drop? If so, did I still have a future as an historian? Did I want one?

The familiar thumps and squeals of my neighbor’s plumbing woke me not long after sunrise. I was creakingly sore but mercifully less wretched than the night before. My eyes were still puffy and tender and my head felt thick. I was disinclined to leave my warm nest, but I’d promised to meet Colin at Balliol for breakfast and wanted to check on Mr. Dunworthy afterwards.

Colin didn’t remark openly on my reddened eyes but I knew he’d noticed them because he gave me a sympathetic look and said, “All right then, Kivrin?”

“In time,” I said, which he accepted with a nod as we sat down to eat. I made a casual remark about his impending return to London and saw a shadow cross his face. Apparently, he wasn’t eager to leave Oxford.

I wondered why he’d followed Dunworthy through the net. Initially, I’d assumed he was just in it for the adventure and hadn’t understood the risk, which would be typical for a twelve-year-old. Later, I assumed he was just being protective of Dunworthy. Now, I found myself wondering whether he’d wanted to rescue an abandoned historian because he himself felt abandoned by his mother. I was struggling to understand why she hadn’t come when she’d learned her aunt was dead and Colin was among strangers in the midst of a deadly epidemic.

My musings were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Gaddson. She stopped at our table to ask Colin whether he’d seen the ever-elusive William and eyed me with disapproval. No doubt I looked a fright, with my hair still unevenly chopped and assorted small scrapes and bruises on my face and hands, let alone the bandage covering the burn I’d got when I'd fallen asleep tending the fire.

She said, “You must be the the one all the fuss was about. If they looked after the students here properly, you’d never have been allowed to go in the first place. I’d say what happened to you was a judgment.”

“I don’t recall having solicited your opinion on the subject,” I said with chilly dislike, looking at Mrs. Gaddson as if she were beneath my notice. Considering everything that had happened, she was. “Perhaps you could acquaint me with your credentials as an historian?”

“It’s not about credentials,” she said dismissively. “It’s about common sense. No one in their right mind would go to the Black Death.”

“No one in their right mind would waste time arguing with someone who’s not in their right mind,” Colin said, sotto voce, but Mrs. Gaddson caught it.

“Someone really should take you in hand,” she told him.

“Mrs. Gaddson, your son’s name is William, not Colin,” I interjected before Colin could respond. “Kindly piss off.”

She took herself off in a huff while Colin’s eyes sparkled with glee.

“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

“If Dunworthy gets flakked about it, tell him you said it to keep me from saying it.”

I sniggered. “I’m not sure that will help either one of us,” I told him, then asked about his boarding school.

Colin had only just finished doing a slanderous and highly entertaining impression of his headmaster when Finch approached our table.

“Miss Engle,” he said. “I was hoping to find you here. Mr. Basingame would like to see you in his office as soon as possible.”

“Righteous indignation must travel at the speed of light,” I remarked, which drew a blank look from him. Damn. I’d been hoping it was merely a telling-off about annoying visitors. Basingame must want to talk to me about the drop.

“I’ll come with you,” Colin offered.

“No. Go and visit Mr. Dunworthy. I’ll meet you there afterwards.”

He’s the Head, he’s the Head, his opinion matters, I chanted to myself on the way to Basingame’s office. I’d surprised myself, telling off Mrs. Gaddson like that. Not that the words I’d said were alien to me, but I usually did a better job of not saying what I was thinking. I didn’t want to make a similar slip in front of Basingame, who had it in his power to damage my career. I knew full well that Gilchrist had taken advantage of Basingame’s absence to authorize my drop and wondered how angry he was about that. With Gilchrist and Latimer beyond his reach, would Basingame take his revenge on me?

Two sentences into our meeting, I realized there’d been no need to worry about Basingame, whose mindset seemed firmly stuck in the late Nineteenth Century. He didn’t actually have a walrus mustache to harrumph through, but I had no difficulty imagining one. He asked about my drop and I gave him a four-sentence overview of what had taken place, fully expecting to be questioned further for particulars. Instead, he said, “Terrible business, terrible. I think it best that you avoid the press. Oxford doesn’t need the notoriety.”

“Neither do I, sir,” I said with deliberate meekness. The press? With everything that had happened, his primary concern was publicity?

“Very good. Least said, soonest mended, eh? Bad enough that we’re getting stick for that virus from Montoya’s dig. Off you go, then. And give a thought to selecting a new tutor. Best to get back on the horse as soon as possible and put this all behind you, what?”

I left his office and took a walk, feeling frustrated and empty. I’d heard stories about Basingame’s capacity for oblivious behavior, but had put them down as the sort of nonsense students exaggerate for entertainment value. I’d braced myself for smothering pity or even scalding anger, but I hadn’t expected bureaucratic indifference. I’d endured a harrowing experience and brought back first-hand observations of the plague’s effect on a small village and all he’d cared about was keeping it out of the dailies.

Abruptly, I realized I’d been consoling myself with the belief that my drop meant the people of Ashencote would be remembered in perpetuity. As awful as my experience had been, it would give new life to a village that had disappeared during the Black Death. But how could I accomplish that if everyone else were as disinterested as Basingame? And did it even matter to the dead?

I thought back to an Aspects of Practical History lecture I’d attended my first term at Oxford. “It is hubris for an historian to imagine he understands an era better than the people who have been immersed in it all their lives,” the don had said. “Our role is not to enlighten the ignorant, nor rescue the imperiled, however tempting that might be. We are observers. I’m sure that some of you are thinking, ‘Ah, but I know better because I have the advantage of seeing the long-term consequences of their choices.’ That’s true. It’s also true that you are thoroughly ignorant of the long-term consequences of your own choice to interfere. We go on drops to learn, not to teach. Our part is only to bury them and honor the past by reporting it faithfully.”

“Our part is only to bury them.” I’d failed to do even that little.

I’d have to go back to finish the job.

Dunworthy was sleeping peacefully when I reached his hospital room. He looked alarmingly frail.

“It’s all right,” Colin said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “He always looks awful when he’s asleep. He’s actually been much worse than this. How was Basingame?”

“Necrotic,” I answered.

He must have sensed I didn’t want to talk about it, because he didn’t press me for details. Instead, he said, “You told me Great-aunt Mary designed the decontam rooms we used yesterday. What did they have before that?”

Dunworthy chuckled, which startled me. “Sorry to have woken you, sir.”

“Don’t be,” he said. Animated by the force of his personality, he did look much better awake. He turned to Colin and said, “In the earliest days of time travel, all we had was a portable shower set up in a corner of the lab, behind a screen. More often than not, there was no hot water. We weren’t aiming for decontamination so much as trying to cut down on historians tracking muck through the building. That, and costumes were in such short supply that they wanted us to strip off in the lab so Wardrobe could be sure of getting their costume back.”

“So when did things change?” Colin asked.

“A few years after Mary and I became friends. Did she ever tell you how we met?”

“No,” Colin said, clearly eager to hear a story about his great-aunt.

“She’d only been in Oxford for a few weeks. I was an experienced time-traveler by then, or so I thought. I’d gone on enough drops to become careless. I went on a drop to the Blitz and didn’t go to a shelter when the sirens went. Silly fool. I was too near a building when it took a hit and came back to Oxford full of glass shards and splinters, including some in places best not mentioned in polite company.”

Colin snorted. Dunworthy cocked an eyebrow and said, “It would appear the present company is less than polite. In any case, she treated my wounds, which took some time, so we started a conversation that never really stopped.”

Dunworthy didn’t seem to have any trouble reminiscing about Dr. Ahrens. I thought about the nature of grief and wondered if it were different for Mr. Dunworthy because he was older. Over the years, had it become a deep but familiar ache instead of a shocking thing full of sharp corners? Perhaps to him, grief was merely an unwelcome visitor, like Mrs. Gaddson?

I saw his expression shift and realized I’d been wrong: his grief was no less painful for being less obvious. Perhaps bitter experience had taught him he would survive the pain and that made it easier to withstand. I was tempted to ask him, but was afraid I’d only start crying again, and I’d done enough of that for now.

At Colin’s urging, Dunworthy had gone on to tell us about the two-year battle he and Mary had fought with the University over installing proper decontamination rooms, when a nurse came by to check on Dunworthy and promptly chucked Colin out.

“Mr. Dunworthy, surely you’re aware that children are not allowed,” she said reprovingly. Behind her, Colin was mouthing “I’ll be back” at me.

“You must forgive me; I’m blind as a a bat without my spectacles,” Dunworthy said, sounding so innocent that I nearly believed him. The nurse handed him his spectacles with an annoyed look.

“Clearly not one of William’s conquests,” I remarked after the nurse had gone.

“You know about William?” Dunworthy said, looking oddly concerned.

“I think everyone in Oxford knows about William, except his mother. What’s she doing here?”

“She came to complain about how carelessly we treat him,” he explained. “She told me his heath is fragile.”

“She told me someone needs to take Colin in hand.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell her that someone needs to take William in hand.”

“I believe several women are queuing for that dubious privilege.”

Dunworthy suddenly had a bad bout of coughing. When he finally recovered, he said, “Colin tells me you were summoned to the Head’s office. What did Basingame say?”

“He told me to get back on the horse.”

An expression of intense annoyance crossed Dunworthy’s face. “I hope you informed him that mounting a horse with broken ribs is a painful proposition.”

“Painful. Not impossible,” I countered.

Dunworthy looked at me over his spectacles. “Kivrin. You will get there. But it doesn’t have to happen immediately.”

He must have seen the determination in my face, because he sighed and said, “Very well, then. How do you propose to re-mount the horse?”

“First, capture your horse.” I eyed him closely and said, “I’ll need a new tutor.”

He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “You have one.”

One down. “Colin needs you, as well.”

“I’m not Mary. I’ve never even spoken to his mother,” Dunworthy protested. “I can’t just ask for him.”

“Of course you can. Tell her he’s taken an interest in History and he’s welcome to stay in Oxford for his next school holiday. See how it goes. From everything Colin’s said, she’s not likely to object.”

Dunworthy looked down at his lap with a troubled expression. I wasn’t surprised. He’d spent more time with Colin than I had. No doubt he’d noticed the hints of neglect. He glanced up at me with a challenging expression. “And will you be helping me teach him?”

I brushed a thumb lightly against the corder still buried in my wrist. You are here in place of the friends I love. I would never let go of Ashencote. All of its inhabitants were a part of me now, even spiteful, shrewish Imeyne. But I had a future as well as a past, and others who were precious to me.

I couldn’t do anything for poor Rosemund, but there was another twelve-year-old I could nurture and cherish. And, from what I’d witnessed of Colin thus far, Mr. Dunworthy was going to need all the help he could get.

“Yes,” I said, “when I’m not prepping for my next drop.” Someday, when my ribs had healed, when my heart had healed, I’d go back to bury Roche. But this was time travel: years could pass and I’d still be able to return to the day we left Ashencote.

“Ah, there you are,” Mr. Basingame said, as he entered the room. “Did I hear aright, Miss Engle? You’ve already chosen a new tutor?”

“She has just agreed to become my student and assistant,” Dunworthy said, giving me a fond smile.

I suppressed a snicker. Assistant? With Colin, “lion-tamer” seemed a more plausible job description.

“So you’ve decided to switch eras. Good, good,” Basingame said. “Probably for the best.”

I gave Mr. Dunworthy a startled glance. Had he assumed I was asking to go Twentieth Century?

I needn’t have worried. “Miss Engle is a medievalist and shall remain one,” Dunworthy said in his crispest tone. I’d learned not to argue with him when he was in that mood. Apparently, Basingame had yet to receive an education on that score.

“But surely—” he began.

“I have tutored outside my present area of focus on previous occasions, with notable success,” Dunworthy said. “Miss Engle has already demonstrated considerable aptitude in the field. She is, of course, welcome to change her era but I can think of no reason to insist upon it.”

I couldn’t tell whether Basingame was confused or affronted, or both.

“But you argued against that drop for months!” he said. “Half the department wants my blood for letting Gilchrist go behind my back.”

“I objected to the drop because I felt inadequate measures had been taken to prepare Miss Engle. You can rest assured that I will be less cavalier about signing off on drops than Mr. Gilchrist. Miss Engle’s experience has reminded us that the Fourteenth Century is perilous, yet worthy of study. We may be overdue for a reassessment of the threat ratings for various eras.”

“Not while I’m Head,” Basingame declared hotly.

Dunworthy gave him a long, level look, then said, “Quite true.” Although his voice was quiet, it held an edge of determination verging on menace.

I saw Basingame deflate as he realized what Dunworthy was threatening. As a student, I’d only heard tantalizing titbits of department gossip, but even I knew that Dunworthy was held in high esteem by his colleagues. He meant to displace Basingame for my sake.

Basingame’s face turned pale and his lips thinned. He turned without a word and stalked from the room.

So Basingame believed Dunworthy could oust him as Head of History. But what would that cost Dunworthy, even if he succeeded? “Sir, it’s not necessary—”

Dunworthy turned his glare on me, and the words died in my throat. I saw him make a conscious attempt to soften his expression and his tone. “Miss Engle,” he said gently, “You will go. You will return. And you will be magnificent.”