MatchUp

DIANA GABALDON IS A FORMER scientist with four degrees, including a PhD in behavioral ecology. In the 1980s she had a story churning in the back of her head. A tale about a mid-18th century Scotsman and a feisty Englishwoman. To really liven things up, she decided to add the element of time travel. The end result became the novel Outlander, which went on to be a massive bestseller with twenty-seven million copies in print across the globe. To date, there have been seven more installments in the adventures of James Fraser and Claire Randall. Now there’s even a television series that has brought the characters to life for a whole new audience.

Diana’s world thrives in the past, which made her the perfect partner for Steve Berry, who writes modern-day thrillers that rely heavily on something unique from the past. Steve’s character, Cotton Malone, has starred in twelve novels. He’s a retired Justice Department agent, living in Copenhagen, who runs an old bookshop. And much to his chagrin, his former profession keeps finding him.

As with Sandra Brown, Steve is also short story challenged. He can write them, but they take great effort. Likewise, as with C. J. Box, Diana is proficient. So, together she and Steve plotted the story, then Diana produced a first draft. Steve then edited and rewrote. Interestingly, this is the only story written for this anthology in the first person.

And present tense, no less.

But these two intrepid writers faced a complicated dilemma. How do they seamlessly meld the 18th-century world of Diana Gabaldon (including time travel), with Steve’s modern-day hero Cotton Malone?

Their solution is masterful.

Fans of both writers are going to love—

Past Prologue.

PAST PROLOGUE

I LOVE SCOTLAND.

Always have.

Something about its collage of gray and green enchants me. I especially love its castles, and through the car window I study Ardsmuir, which looms out of the northern Scottish moor like something God himself hacked from the ancient rock. I have to admit, a less-welcoming pile I have never seen but, after all, centuries ago it had once been a prison. I’ve been driven straight from the Inverness airport and climb out of the car into a bone-chilling combination of driving rain and bitter north wind.

“Mr. Malone,” comes a shout faintly over the roar of the storm.

I turn to see a man hurrying toward me across the flagged-stone courtyard, a red golf umbrella precariously clutched in one hand, a flashlight, or an electric torch as they would say here, in the other. I hustle toward the shelter of the umbrella, but not before retrieving my travel bag from the driver and leaving five pounds for a tip.

“So pleased you made it, Mr. Malone.” The man with the umbrella shoves the flashlight under one arm in order to free up a hand for shaking. “I’m John MacRae.”

“Call me Cotton.” I duck under the umbrella. “And for God’s sake, let’s get out of this mess. Reminds me of south Georgia and the storms we get there.”

Inside, the walls are more of the forbidding granite from outside, only here they serve as a matte for clusters of swords, shields, and stags’ heads that dot the entrance hall. Thankfully, the roar of the wind and rain is gone. I set down my travel bag. MacRae hurries to take my overcoat, which I surrender, reluctantly, not accustomed to a manservant.

“The gentlemen—and lady,” MacRae adds with a smile, “are all in the drawing room with Mr. Chubb. Let me show you the way, and I’ll have your bag sent up to your room. There’s a fire waiting.”

I follow MacRae and enter the drawing room, a large comfortable space with dark-stained overhead beams and heavy furniture. More animal heads stare down from the walls. An unusual globe with a hollow interior catches my trained eye, its open ribs marking latitude and longitude. As advertised, a robust, crackling blaze, one suitable for roasting an ox, burns in the stone hearth. I make for it, barely pausing to shake hands with my host for the evening, Malcolm Chubb. I’ve crossed paths with Chubb before at various book auctions in London, Paris, and Edinburgh. During those times the Scot had been wearing a stylish Savile Row suit. Now he looks like a Christmas tree, ablaze in red-and-green tartan from waist to knees, and sporting a drape of the same fabric over one shoulder held in place with a striking bronze brooch.

“Wretched evening,” my host says in apology, before thrusting a glass of single malt into my hand. “We didn’t think you’d make it, but we’re so pleased that you did.”

I’m not much of a drinker, barely touching the stuff. But I know how the Scots feel about their malt. So I hold the glass up against the light and admire its golden murkiness. Then I allow the bitter liquid to lay a comfortable burn down my gullet, which thaws me enough to take stock of the room. A dozen or so booksellers and collectors loiter about, drinking more whisky, nibbling morsels from trays servants pass around, chatting to each other. A couple of them—a man named Arkwright that I know, and a woman I don’t—doubtless “the lady” MacRae had mentioned earlier—are standing in front of a cloth-draped table at the far side, admiring the dozen or so books displayed within their velvet nests.

Strangers always raise my radar, and I keep a watchful eye on the lady, while saying to Chubb, “I wouldn’t have missed it.” I eye my host’s tartan. “Clan McChubb?”

“Would that it was. No, the Scots blood is on my mother’s side. Clan Farquarson. Isn’t it dreadful?” Chubb flicks a hand at his blazing kilt, setting the tassels on his hairy sporran swinging. At a closer glance, I realized it’s a dead badger, for God’s sake. “You’ll be relieved to know that we’ve set aside something a bit more subdued for you.”

Was I hearing right? “For me?”

“Absolutely,” Chubb says. “This is quite an occasion. We’re expecting the media, though given the weather, it may only amount to a junior reporter from the Inverness Courier. But everyone, and I do mean everyone, including photographers, will be here for the book auction tomorrow. There will be plenty of time for an inspection of the wares later, but d’you want a quick look, before you go up to dress for dinner?”

“I think I would like that.”

I finish off the rest of my malt and Chubb relieves me of the empty glass, passing it to a hovering waiter, then beckoning me toward the display table. Approaching close, an odd vibration shoots through me, one only a committed bibliophile could understand. I love books. And though my profession had been first a naval officer, then a lawyer, and finally an American intelligence operative, books have finally sunk their claws deep into me. Now retired from the Magellan Billet, a covert unit within the United States Justice Department, I own an old bookshop in Copenhagen, which has acquired a reputation for being able to find what collectors seek. And though my former profession as a spy has an annoying habit of revisiting me from time to time, books are most definitely my life now.

I step to the trestle table, catching the dry smell of old bindings, and admire some of what will be auctioned tomorrow.

A Book of Deer, straight from the 10th century a small information card notes. I know the volume. An Irish gospel text, one of the oldest-surviving manuscripts ever produced in Scotland. The Book of the Dean of Lismore, a compilation of 15th-century poetry, is a real treasure. Only a few editions exist. Its poems supposedly taken from the strolling bards themselves. A few of the other Celtic tomes are likewise rare. But second from the end is the book that really interests me. With luck, I’ll even take it back to Denmark as I already have a buyer for it. The other offerings are all prime specimens, immensely valuable in their own right, but this is an incunabulum—which means it had been printed before 1501, in the days of movable type. It is also, so far as anyone knows, the only copy ever made of this particular book.

A grimoire. A book of sorcery.

That includes spells, alchemy, and what would certainly have been considered outright witchcraft in the 15th century. The label comes from the French word grammaire, which at first referred to all books written in Latin. Eventually, it came to be associated only with books of magic. I dare not touch it, though I want to. Per the usual practice at auctions such as this, it will be carefully displayed, page by page, during a detailed inspection right before the bidding, its pages turned by means of a swabbed stick held by gloved hands. For now, it is open to a page showing an exquisite wood-block print of a winged lion being either attacked or embraced by a wingless lion. The text in Latin on the opposite page, headed by a beautiful illuminated O, is twined with fruiting vines and serpents. To my surprise, this isn’t the only grimoire on display, though it is by far the best. There are two others, one from the late 17th and another from the mid-18th century.

“These are all from a collection belonging to the last owner of this castle,” Chubb says, from behind my shoulder, a pair of bifocals perched on the tip of the Scot’s nose. “We think the one from the 15th century is a copy of a much older volume. Perhaps hand penned by Saint-Germain himself. Le grimoire du Le Compte Saint-Germain.”

There’s a name. More legend than fact. At once a courtier, adventurer, inventor, pianist, and alchemist. Credited with near godlike powers and immortality. But nobody knows if he’d ever been real.

“That’s quite a claim,” I say. “Is there anything to support the idea?”

“Only hope, my good man,” Chubb says. “Simply hope. The former owner of that grimoire had quite a taste for strange things. Both natural history and the odder branches of the occult. He owned many books on magic, though most of those aren’t anything special. Not like this beauty.”

“What was his name?” I ask, moving down the table to examine a spectacular double-folio edition of Albertus Seba’s Das NaturalienKabinett, open to a pair of pages featuring an array of delicately drawn puffer fish, all looking surprised and annoyed.

“Appleton,” Chubb says. “An Englishman. Strange man, I gather. He vanished quite suddenly one day without a word. The estate had to wait seven years to have him declared dead. That’s why these”—he nods at the books—“had not come on the market before.”

“He just vanished? Foul play?”

Chubb shrugs. “No sign of anything amiss, either physically or in terms of his affairs. The police investigated thoroughly. But you know, the cliffs are quite near. You could hear the sea now, if it wasn’t raining so hard. And if he’d gone walking and fallen there, the currents are treacherous. The body would be swept out.”

One of the servants approaches, bows, then murmurs something to Chubb, who nods and turns back.

“Dinner in twenty minutes. You’d best go up and dress. Nigel will show you the way.”

Malcolm Chubb hadn’t been joking.

Waiting for me, laid out on the poster bed, is a kilt, complete with sporran, hose, oddly laced shoes, and a short jacket. The tartan is a subdued gray with a faint blue check, everything crafted of fine wool. A low fire burns in the grate of the bedroom, casting a golden glow. It might technically be spring on the calendar, but it feels like winter, or at least late fall, outside. I’m actually not all that fond of the harsh Scottish weather.

But it’s part of the charm.

The good with the bad, as the saying goes.

I undress and hesitate a moment over the question of underwear, but then shrug and don the kilt without it.

What the hell.

When in Scotland—

Back downstairs, Chubb introduces me to the other guests, all of them are wearing Highland dress too. Even the lone woman, who wears a full-length bodiced dress, a becoming muted tartan in shades of lavender and blue.

“Madam LeBlanc.” Chubb pauses and bows, gesturing. “Allow me to present a valued friend, Mr. Harold Earl ‘Cotton’ Malone.”

She’s tall, with blond hair not her own as a trace of light brown can be seen at the roots. The color, though, suits her swarthy skin. Her smile reveals curious marks of fun that surround twinkling hazel eyes. I draw the conclusion that she’s of money, accustomed to the finer things. She holds out a hand, and before I can decide whether I’m supposed to kiss it, she grabs mine and gives me a pleasantly firm clasp.

“Enchanted, Mr. Malone,” she says. “Call me Eleanor, if you like.”

I catch a faint French accent, but her direct manner is straight American business.

“Call me Cotton.”

“Such a name. I bet there’s a story there.”

I grin. “Quite a long one.”

I’d like to speak to her more, but Chubb is ushering me onto the next of the kilted guests. My eidetic memory, a gift at birth from my mother’s side of the family, catalogs them all. There is John Simons, a London bookseller, short and spectacled, sporting a black kilt with a tartan tie. Wilhelm Fenstermacher, from Berlin, whom I met once long ago, of the Deutsches Historisches Museum. Nigel Soames from Edinburgh, a private collector, who I see now and then at Sotheby’s. And Alexsandr Kuznyetsov, a saturnine sort whose predétente steel teeth clash with his Black Watch kilt. Most likely a private shopper for an oligarch, the people now with the real money in Russia. But who am I to judge. I too am here on behalf of others.

At dinner, I find myself seated next to Eleanor LeBlanc. She’s adroitly dividing her attention between me on one side and Fenstermacher on the other, the effort made even more impressive as she is conversing in both English and German. Languages come easy to me, another benefit of my unusual memory. I’m fluent in several, so I catch all of her conversation with Fenstermacher. Finally, I ask whether she has a particular interest at the auction, as it’s always good to know the competition.

“Most definitely,” she says, tossing me a slight smile. “The same as yours, I believe. The incunabulum grimoire.”

I had not been trying to disguise my interest, but I’m a little surprised that she’d been watching close enough to notice.

Her smile deepens, as she sees the question on my face.

“I have a personal interest in that book,” she explains. “It was in my own family for generations. An impoverished ancestor sold it in the late 18th century, and it wandered, as you might say, for some time, owner to owner. I was excited to see it in the catalog here.”

“So if you get it, you plan to keep it? Expensive bit of sentimentality.”

She lifts one shoulder in a graceful shrug and twinkles at me. “Or perhaps I mean to use it. I’m told there are a great many interesting spells in that book.”

I chuckle at her dismissal of my questions.

Conversation thereafter becomes more general, a genial dinner, but one at which the undercurrents of calculation are clear, everyone sizing up everyone else, deciding just how deep a given pocket might be. I love private auctions. They come with all the intrigue of my former profession without the risk of dying.

By the time the dessert plates are cleared a tiredness has crept over me, and I’m glad when the meal ends. Some of the guests ask for another brief look at the books on display in the drawing room, but I pass, leaving Madame LeBlanc to the others with a gallant kiss of her hand.

I SLEEP LONG AND HARD, surely the aftereffects of the whisky, the dinner, and exhaustion from yesterday’s travel from Denmark. I awake early, feeling fresh as the day outside. A bright sun shines through the slit in the drapes and, when I open them, the moor stretches out before me in a brilliant, rolling green under a cloudy sky.

A mass of crumpled shirts and creased slacks confront me when I open my travel bag. I’d been too tired last night to hang anything up. I glance again out the window and, shrugging, find the least-wrinkled shirt and an Arran sweater from the bag, pairing them with my kilt, sporran, and hose from the night before. Might as well stay in the mood.

A shower and shave refreshes me even more.

Downstairs, breakfast is full Scottish, meaning full English, with a choice of eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, muffins, fried tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, and a disemboweled haggis. A discreet notice advises the availability of porridge, which I think is probably the only thing saving the Scots from epidemic constipation. I help myself liberally from the groaning sideboard and place a request for the porridge, then make my way across to a table at which Madame LeBlanc has just sat down.

“May I join you?” I ask.

“By all means.”

She’s chosen a light breakfast of sliced melon with raspberries—obviously a special order from the kitchen as I’ve seen none of that on the buffet—with a tiny medallion of steak and a dab of baked beans.

She leans toward me. “Have you heard?”

“All I heard this morning was a lot of seagulls screaming on the roof.”

She laughs. “I caught those too.”

I butter my toast, add a few slices of bacon, a fried egg, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, then another slice of buttered toast and create my own Scottish Egg McMuffin. She observes me with an indulgent smile, but one that doesn’t quite erase the deep line of concern between her brows.

“It appears that one of the books for the auction has gone missing,” she tells me, glancing sideways to be sure she isn’t being overheard. But the dining room is sparsely filled. Most of the guests appear to be sleeping in.

A thump of adrenaline forms in the pit of my stomach, one that has always primed me for action in my former occupation. But I also know the value of a poker face. So I keep my attention on the sandwich and ask, “I take it you don’t mean mislaid? Missing as in gone?”

Her mouth twitches with mischief, but her eyes are serious. “Malcolm didn’t want to raise an alarm. Not yet. He hasn’t made an announcement, but I couldn’t sleep last night, and when I came down about two o’clock, all of the lights were on. The servants were everywhere, quite plainly making a thorough search. Malcolm saw me on the landing and told me what had happened.”

I listen as she explains that the books had all been locked inside their glass cases following the cocktail hour. Malcolm and his factor, John MacRae, had come into the drawing room at midnight to see that all was in order for the detailed inspection to be held at eleven this morning. All had seemed to be as it should, but something had tingled Malcolm’s antiquarian sense and he returned for a second look.

“It was the incunabulum. The little grimoire,” she says. “There was a book in the case of the same size and also with a rough leather cover. But it had been put there so only the back cover showed. When turned over, it was revealed to be a first edition of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler. Certainly valuable, but nothing compared to the 15th-century grimoire.”

My porridge arrives, fresh and steaming, along with a silver cream jug and a dish of sugar lumps.

“Oh, that looks good,” Eleanor says, sniffing the heady steam that rises from the bowl.

“I tell you what. You have this one. I have to make a phone call. I’ll order another when I come back.”

I stand and place the bowl ceremoniously in front of her with a bow.

Then leave the breakfast room.

I’m concerned about the gun in my travel bag.

I flew in on a private charter that Malcolm Chubb arranged. In my former profession I went nowhere without a weapon, but in those days I carried an official United States Justice Department badge that granted me security exceptions. I still carry a badge, though unofficially, given to me by my former boss, Stephanie Nelle, since I often work for her as contract help. My display of it had satisfied Scottish customs. But the people in this house are another matter. Its presence will raise a lot of questions.

The first thing that occurred to me when Eleanor noted that the servants were searching the castle is that they’d certainly search the guests’ rooms too. Most likely discreetly, after the occupants come down for breakfast. And, sure enough, I watch as one of the maids lightly raps at a door near the end of the hallway in which my own room is located, a stack of fresh towels in her arms by way of an excuse for her presence. I hang back behind a Victorian stand until the woman, receiving no answer to her knock, lays the towels aside and steps quietly inside. I quickly open my own door, find the Beretta, and tuck it into the kilt’s internal waistband, concealing its presence with the baggy Arran sweater.

I descend the narrow zigzag stairway, one hand on the slick banister, back to ground level. More people are now around and I feel a suppressed air of consternation in the scraps of muted conversation I manage to hear. I don’t think it will come to a physical search of the guests. Not yet, anyway. But I don’t want to explain why I’m carrying a gun inside a remote Scottish castle. So I find the foot of the stairs and stride purposefully through the entrance hall, straight for the front door.

A young servant is on duty there.

Or maybe on guard?

“Off for a morning walk, are you, sir?”

I nod. “I thought I’d take advantage of the nice morning.”

“Best move fast, then,” the young man says. “Weather here changes every quarter of an hour. If you’re going to walk along the cliffs, be sure to keep to the marked footpath. There’s no missing it—some of the other guests went that way not ten minutes since.”

I toss the guy a cheery wave. “I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

Outside, another servant at the front gate, this one wearing a Barbour jacket and flat cap with his kilt, evidently doesn’t trust the weather any further than his pal inside. The young man adds the suggestion that if I mean to traverse the moor, I should stick to the road.

“It looks flat, but it’s not,” the young man says. “Up and down, it is. Lose sight o’ the castle and ye won’t know where ye are.”

I assure him I will take care and set off up the paved road. The warning is a good one, though. I can feel the grade rise, then gently subside in the deceptively rolling terrain. I’m not afraid of getting lost, I just want to kill some time and give things back at the castle a chance to cool down. Once my room is searched and nothing found, I can replace the Beretta in my bag. Malcolm Chubb has to be in a panic. The missing grimoire is worth tens of thousands of pounds.

I walk for nearly an hour until I spot, in a hollow, a small cluster of pale boulders barely visible from the road. It’s the first thing I’ve seen definite enough in the moor to make for a landmark, and I leave the pavement for a closer look. The going is rough, as stretches of spongy peat moss give way under my feet and soak my shoes and socks. Growths of scratchy heather and all kinds of other prickly plants grab at my hose and the hem of the kilt. Nothing that looks like a path leads to the stones, and it takes me a half hour to reach them. Why I feel the need to get closer to them baffles me.

It’s just that I need to.

I stop for a moment and gather myself. A quick look back and I see that my passage through the brush has left no visible track, the moor so wild that it immediately swallows every trace of my presence. I’m also now out of sight of the castle, which had disappeared some time ago, along with the road.

I scramble down to the clearing, among the stones.

They might have once made a circle, but now they lie hither and yon, as the Scots would say, like teeth in a long neglected mouth, the remnants thick with lichens. Stonehenge, it isn’t, but there is one that sticks up proud, like a hitchhiking thumb, and I make my way toward it. It has a faint mark chiseled into it, so faint I can’t be sure what it is. Maybe a half circle with a cross of some kind above it? I spot a flowering plant on a slight mound at the base, its blue petals obvious among the muted heather. Then I notice that the heather is broken, several stems cracked and hanging loose. Fresh, too. None of the leaves have wilted. I squat and catch a glimpse of something that isn’t a plant. A rock, maybe? No, not that either. I reach into a cavity that someone has dug under the heather and find a small rectangular package, tightly wrapped in clear, thick plastic.

A book.

About five by seven inches.

“Put that back where you found it,” a voice says from behind me.

Which is startling, considering all I’ve heard for the past hour has been the wind gusting across the moor, tugging at my clothes. I stand and slowly turn, still holding the package in my left hand. The man who faces me is the Russian, Kuznyetsov, attired much like me, in a kilt and outdoor jacket, holding a gun, pointed my way.

I stay cool and assess the situation.

Obviously, this man has been here all along able to see my approach. Luckily, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve faced down many guns.

“This yours?” I ask, motioning with the wrapped book.

“I told you to put it back.”

I decide to see how much nerve this guy really possesses. “If you still want it, here.”

And I feign tossing the book across the ten feet of air that separates us. At the same time I dive behind the sole standing stone, reach for my Beretta, and fire past the edge of the rock. A shot comes in return, which ricochets off the stone.

Chips and dust spew in my face.

I grab the stone to steady myself, bracing for another shot.

Everything turns inside out.

The rock, the heather, the sky, even me. It all flies apart in a strange, rapid disintegration. Like a jigsaw puzzle disassembling. I’m aware for a split second of being there, behind the stone, then in the next I fight to keep myself physically together. A blinding light sears across my eyes and I’m overwhelmed by an incredible force.

One I have never felt before.

And cannot fight.

I WAKE.

Lying on the ground in a patch of wet peat moss, cold water wells up between my legs through the kilt. I roll over and push up onto my hands and knees. My head pounds and feels too heavy to lift and my thoughts make little sense. I see the wrapped book lying on the ground where I apparently dropped it. Then I realize that the gun is still in my hand, my fingers numb from gripping it.

I glance up at the sky.

More clouds have arrived, but the sun is still there, at about the same height. So not much time has passed. Things are coming back to me and, with a jolt of adrenaline, I remember Kuznyetsov.

I spring to my feet and look around. But no Kuznyetsov. I glance down at the gun and see shreds of blackened, melted plastic clinging to my fingers where the butt had once been. The gun itself is destroyed. The hammer fused tight, its form misshapen.

What the hell?

I shake away the plastic, as if it’s an unwanted insect.

I bend down and lift the wrapped book. Through the clear wrappings I see that it’s Chubb’s missing 15th-century grimoire. How long have I been out? I glance at my watch. Magellan Billet standard issue with a GPS tracker. But the bezel has cracked with a hole the size of a fingertip, the watch face beneath showing a similar hole, black at the edges.

Then I notice something odd.

The edges of the hole in the watch face curl outward, as if something inside has exploded. Is this the cause of my confusion? Is that what knocked me out?

I unstrap the watch and toss it away, along with the useless gun.

My mind seems a blur of questions and I shake my head to rid a light-headed sensation. I need to think, but what I really need to do is get back to the castle. Kuznyetsov is gone. Either he’d been hit but is still mobile and heading back to the castle for medical help, or he hadn’t been hit and is heading back to get his story heard first. More than likely, though, the Russian took a bullet. Otherwise, why hadn’t he hung around to recover the book?

I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should rehide the grimoire, but decide against it. My bringing the prize back will count in my favor and, luckily, I haven’t freed the book from its wrappings. That means my fingerprints won’t be there and, with any luck, Kuznyetsov’s will.

I tuck the wrapped book inside the kilt’s waistband at the small of my back. Then leave the stones and head through the moor, back from where I came, brushing scabs of heather off my sweater as I walk. I reach the road, which is different. Not paved. Dirt. Is this the same route? I’d been warned that it was easy to get turned around in the moor.

I set off at a jog, the wet kilt flapping against my legs. I maintain a good pace for a half hour with no sign of Kuznyetsov. Could the man have been hit seriously enough that he’d staggered off and collapsed? I’ll find out soon enough, and increase my speed, wiping sweat from my eyes.

Castle Ardsmuir appears ahead.

But its hulk looks different. The big torches by the gate are gone and so is the paved drive. The castle itself appears damaged, strewn with debris of broken masonry, with gaping holes in the walls and one tower collapsed. No such disrepair had been there last night.

The castle gates swing open.

Instinct tells me to flee the dirt track and crouch behind a prickly gorse bush where I can observe out of sight. Creaking and clopping noises are at first faint, then louder as a horse-drawn wagon emerges, followed by a knot of ragged-looking men in filthy shirts and breeches.

Most wear manacles.

Prisoners.

Then three red-coated soldiers appear, each carrying bayoneted muskets angled on their shoulders. The soldiers are nearly as ragged and filthy as the prisoners. The scarlet uniforms all dirty, faded and patched. The day’s breeze stiffens and the wind brings the repulsive stink of men who live in their clothes, never bathe, and lack even a rag to wipe their asses. All sense of time seems distorted, and I stare at the spectacle in numb fascination. A thought occurs that this is some sort of reenactment, but I quickly dismiss the idea, as another more outlandish conclusion is rapidly taking its place.

The wagon clanks away and the group marches down the road, passing close enough that I can hear snatches of talk among the prisoners. It isn’t English, or any other language with which I’m familiar. The objective commentator in the back of my brain, which is already on high alert, a voice I’ve learned to trust, tells me that it might be Gaelic.

One of the prisoners staggers, stumbles, then falls flat in the dirt.

A tall, redheaded man in irons, built like an oak tree, runs toward the fallen man. All the other prisoners start to converge too, and the soldiers glance warily at each other then take a fresh grip on their muskets. Another work party—if that’s what this is—shambles out of the castle gate. It looks as bad, if not worse, than the first one.

The big redheaded prisoner stands, crosses himself, and shouts toward the soldiers. “This man is dead.”

In Scottish-accented English.

The soldiers relax into irritability, like this is a nuisance they’ve encountered many times before. One of them trudges over to have a look, poking the body gingerly with a booted foot, kicking it once or twice to make sure, then steps back.

“Get ’im off t’road.”

Big Red seems not to like the order. He stands a foot taller than the runty soldier and draws himself up close to the redcoat, who makes a hasty retreat, then stops and points his rifle. No, it isn’t a rifle.

His musket.

“We’ll put him in the wagon,” Big Red says in an even voice. “And bury him on the moor.”

The soldier glances involuntarily over his shoulder and the oldest of the infantrymen shrugs, frowns, and nods.

Crisis averted.

The prisoners are already lifting the dead man, handling him with reverence. I hear clanking from inside the wagon as tools are moved aside in order to lay the corpse in the bed.

What is this?

All I know for certain is that Castle Ardsmuir may no longer be a place of safety. I knew that once, long ago, it had been a prison.

Was that now?

In the distance comes the boom of surf signaling the sea. Soldiers and prisoners alike seem preoccupied. So I seize the chance and, staying crouched, I duckwalk backward away from the road. Finally, I stand and run for it, bounding through the moor, then cutting back to the dirt road so as to move faster.

I hear shouts behind.

And the distinctive pfoom of a black-powder weapon.

I STOP.

The shot hadn’t come my way, but I decide not to wait around to see if my presence had been noticed. I keep running. I’m in good shape for a guy staring down fifty. Finally, I realize no wolves are in pursuit, so I stop to rest, wondering what the hell to do next. I’ve known from the instant I awoke by the stones that something is not right, and it’s getting worse by the minute. My sense of logic keeps insisting that I’m just seeing things wrong, that I’ve made a mistake, taken a wrong turn somewhere, drawn the wrong conclusion. But my analytical brain tells me that I’m not in Kansas anymore. I recall that the village of Clebost is a half hour or so by car from Castle Ardsmuir, and the road I’m on leads there.

So the smart play is to head for the village and see what I can learn.

But after two hours of walking the only other signs of life I see are seagulls and a fox that crosses the road. The landscape casts a somber, eerie quality, tranquil but ominous. Then a pair of horses approach and I decide to flag the riders down.

A man and a woman.

The man is older and plainly not well, hunched in the saddle, half falling. The woman is tall, slender waisted, and buxom. Her complexion is a creamy blond with hair to match, done up in a loose coiffure, half hidden under a lacy blue cap. Her eyes are a deep shade of green and I catch a glint of interest within them as she looks me over. They are both dressed nothing like someone from the 21st century, their odd clothes as jaded as my nerves.

I decide to use some southern charm. “I beg your pardon. I wonder if you could tell me how far it is to Clebost?”

“Who are you?” the woman asks. Her long-lashed, slightly slanted eyes add a troubling, mysterious quality to her.

“My name is Harold Earl Malone,” I say, deciding that “Cotton” might be hard to explain. “And you are?”

“Melisande Robicheaux,” she says, with a one-sided curl of her mouth that makes me realize that is definitely not her name. “That’s Duncan Kerr,” she adds, with an offhanded nod toward her companion.

The old man slides off his horse with a moan, making a croaking, gargling sound, like speech, but inarticulate. He staggers into the bracken where he throws up and collapses.

“I told him not to risk the jellied eels,” she says. “But do men ever listen? Where did ye come from, then?”

“Castle Ardsmuir. I drove there last night. From Strathpeffer.”

“Did ye indeed?” she says, looking at me intently. “Ye drove, was it?”

I catch an instant of recognition in her question and my self-imposed restraint breaks down. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Aye, maybe.” Her lids are half lowered in thought. “If ye’re staying at the castle, what is it ye’re seeking in Clebost, though?”

I catch her evasion of my inquiry, but decide to go where she’s leading. “I came out for a walk across the moor after breakfast and didn’t pay attention to where I was going. I’m lost.” I gesture at the vast expanse of undulating green. “If I can get to the village, I can make arrangements for someone to take me back to the castle.”

I choose my words with great care, but I still have the impression that she understands what I mean by “drove.” She slides off her horse in a flounce of petticoats, shakes herself into order, and steps close. I can’t help but stare at the creamy skin that shows at the neck of her dress. She seems supremely aware of her femininity and notices my interest. The corners of her mouth turn up.

“I have a proposition for you, Mr. Harold Earl Malone. I find myself in urgent need of a man.”

The hell you say, I think.

This woman radiates a sexual vibe I can almost touch.

But I’m not about to try.

Her expression looms easy and calm, but her eyes are intent on me, studying, judging. Her face shimmers in soft peach and vanilla tones and she tosses me a smile that shows her teeth but not her thoughts.

Then she gently touches my arm.

“Duncan’s not able today,” she says, with a careless wave at the other man, curled up in a heap amid the bracken. “And my errand’s urgent. If you’ll help me, I’ll see you safe on your road home.”

“What kind of errand?” I ask cautiously, and she motions toward the west, where I again hear the faint rush of an unseen ocean.

“I need a man to row me out to one of the bittie wee isles just off the coast. It’s not far, but the current’s tricky and it takes a strong back. It’ll not take long,” she adds, seeing my curious look. “I’ll have ye back on dry land and on your way home before sunset.”

Every radar synapse in my brain rings an alarm. I try to let my emotions subside, my mind to stop questioning the fantastical. A sense honed from my years as a Magellan Billet field agent tells me she’s trouble, but what choice do I have? My options are severely limited. And experience has taught me that in every operation there comes only one course—blind risk—where trust has to be placed in something that might otherwise be senseless and all you can do is hope for the best.

Like now.

So I tell her yes, hoping she’s not spotted any of my skepticism.

Pleased, she offers me the other horse, leaving her former companion lying in the bracken. We ride, with her in the lead, across the moor to the cliff edge and down a precipitous rocky path to a small settlement that huddles at the bottom. There she bargains with a fisherman in rapid Gaelic, paying him with coins. The man counts them carefully, nods, and gestures toward a small boat lying upturned on the rocky shore just above the tide line. She removes a saddlebag from her horse and, with a jerk of the head, leads me toward the sea.

“We’ll take that one,” she says. “The red-and-yellow one. It’s painted that way to ward off the bad spirits and coax a good catch from the sea, aye?”

“You sound like an expert.”

She shakes her head. “No but what I’ve heard.”

The small wooden boat has no oarlocks, but I develop enough rhythm to propel us through the surf and out into open water. She sits on the gunwale, one hand shading her eyes. I glance back over my shoulder and spot at least six tiny islands ranging from a knob covered with birds to a couple big enough that it would take half an hour to traverse. Overhead the sky rolls with clouds bound to storm. Not here, maybe, but somewhere.

“Which one do you want?” I ask, and almost drop an oar when a wayward current slams into the stern and whirls us around.

She lets out a hoot of laughter at my mistake and points over my left shoulder. “That one. The silkies’ isle.”

I know a silkie is a seal. And I have already heard their hoarse barking, coming in snatches on the wind. A quick look, taking care to hold on to the oars and be mindful of the swells, and I see the island—a dark, rounded hump with flat ledges, packed with the sausage shapes of slick-wet seals. After fifteen minutes of fighting the current, I ask her why she just didn’t pay the fisherman to row her out.

“Because he lives here,” she says. “I don’t want him to know where I’m going, nor what I do when I get there. You”—she smiles, as though to herself—“will be gone, away to your own place by nightfall.”

The currents are murder, and a chilly breeze stirs the water to a froth. I’m relieved when we finally reach the island. I skirt the shore, searching for a landing place, fending off a few of the curious residents who pop up alongside the boat. Finally, I spot a small notch wide enough for the boat to pass through and nestle against a rocky ledge. A narrow, slitlike crevice eats up into the cliff face and winds a path to its top.

“Stay here,” she says, hopping out. “Take care the boat doesn’t get loose. It gets damned cold on these isles at night. Hand me the bag there, aye?”

She likes to give orders. But I actually like strong women. And even in this strange place, I still seem to attract them. So I hand her the saddlebag. She digs around inside for a few seconds before removing a wooden box, about a foot long and half that wide. It rattles and clinks with the unmistakable sound of coins. I glance up at her, but she says nothing, nor does she even look at me. She merely hands the saddlebag back, then hikes up her skirts and scrambles up the rock without a backward glance. I watch until she disappears from sight, then I wrap the rope of the painter around a thumb-shaped chunk of rock. My shoulders are tired and I hope to hell the tide will be going in when we head back.

A loud wark to my left makes me jump.

A big seal has decided to investigate the newcomer, the black-olive eyes intent with suspicion. I pick up one of the oars, ready just in case, but the silkie only offers some menacing head waving and more barking, backed up by a chorus from his nearby harem. After a cloudy exhale of fish-scented steam, the seal disappears beneath the water.

I sit for a few minutes.

The solid coldness of stone, sea, and wind leach the heat of rowing from my muscles. I blow warm breath into my palms. I’m growing hungry. Another half hour and I succumb to temptation, grabbing the saddlebag for a look inside.

And find food.

Flat oatcakes, like cardboard. A packet of strong-smelling dried fish. And a knob of rock-hard white cheese. I break off a chunk and eat the cheese with one of the oatcakes. Not the tastiest treat in the world, but filling.

The bag also contains a number of small corked bottles, each wrapped in rough cloth with Latin labels. I open one and sniff, catching a tangy, herbal scent from the dark liquid inside. A small wooden box with a sliding lid is full of dried seaweed, with a strong iodine smell. And another holds what looks like dead bugs. At the bottom I see something especially interesting. A small, square package, done up with paper and a layer of oiled silk beneath. I glance across the landscape of rock and seals, but there is no sign of Melisande. So I unwrap the bundle and find myself holding a book. I reach around and claw at my waist. Malcolm Chubb’s grimoire is still there, safe inside its plastic cocoon.

The cover of the new book I hold is limp with no boards, made of a fine-grained leather. I gently stroke it. Unborn lamb, perhaps. Its pages are handwritten in French, but an archaic version, one I don’t recognize, the book lavishly illustrated with drawn images, beautifully detailed, traces of the original gilding and color still clinging to many of them.

I catch their meaning.

Alchemy.

I scan more of the thin parchment pages, each in wonderful condition despite their obvious age. My brows go up seeing a remarkably explicit—though beautifully rendered—drawing of a woman having her way with a four-horned goat. I’ve risked enough exposure to the elements for this treasure, so I close the old book. As I do, I catch a glimpse of the title page.

Le grimoire du Le Compte Saint-Germain.

I free the other book from my kilt’s waist band and compare the size and thickness. About the same. Nearly identical, in fact. What did Chubb say about the 15th-century grimoire? We think it’s a copy of a much older volume. One perhaps by Saint-Germain himself. Is this the original manuscript from which the book I hold had been printed?

Suddenly I’m yanked from my thoughts.

By a scream.

I STAND IN THE BOAT and listen, but catch nothing other than the shriek of gulls. Perhaps I mistook one of their cries for something more human.

I carefully rewrap Melisande’s book and replace it into the bag. I notice something else inside, bulky at the bottom. I dig down through the bottles and boxes and discover a flintlock pistol, loaded and primed, protected by a holster. Etched into the leather is a name.

Geillis.

I wonder.

Is that relevant to this woman?

Hard to say, but the flintlock is a fine specimen. Quite deadly from short range. Its presence raises a ton of questions about my benefactor, several of which I’ve already asked myself. So I decide to not take any chances. I withdraw the weapon and shake the cartridge and wad out into my hand. I stuff both into the sporran at my waist, then replace the weapon, now useless, in the bag.

An explosion of seal hysterics warns that someone is coming and I see Melisande pick her way down the rocks, now minus the coin box. Her movements are quick with a nervous vitality, and her shoulders rise and fall in concert with her rapid breathing.

“Let’s be away,” she says, stepping into the boat. “The tide’s just on the turn.”

I nod, not bothering with conversation. I’m as anxious to get back to the mainland as she is—possibly more so. The afternoon looms pale and without warmth and she’s right. This is no place to be stranded. She’s also right about the tide. It is turning, and the currents remain bizarre, pulsating and lifting us with each swell.

I keep my rowing in time with the shallow, jerking pitch.

Eventually we come to land and, with a final surge, the tide shoves us onto a pebbled shore. Close to the black cliff small thatched cottages stand, built of the same dark stone, smoke curling from holes in the thatch and the flicker of firelight just visible from a narrow window here and there. She bends to retrieve her bag as I scramble ashore to secure the boat to a barnacle-crusted iron ring sunk into the rocks. I just finish tying the rope when I hear a click behind me and the immediate pop of a flash in the pan, signaling the firing of a primed gun with no load. I turn around to see Melisande, holding the weapon, aiming at me. Her expression bears a mix of anger, contempt, and surprise.

Luckily, my suspicions proved correct.

“I’m not that stupid,” I say to her.

Then I spot a package, wrapped in clear plastic, in the shadows under the slats of one of the seats.

Damn.

I dropped Chubb’s grimoire.

She leaps over the gunwale and I catch the glint of a knife in her hand. She brings it toward me in a wide, flailing arc. I grab her wrist, but she’s strong, twisting like a snake. Her knee slams into my thigh and twists me sideways. She jabs with the blade and I dodge her attacks. I grapple with her for a few moments then decide enough of being a gentleman and smash the back of my hand across her jawline. Her head flies up in a cascade of hair that snaps her teeth together with a loud smack and makes her totter backward. Her eyes go wide, then she moans and collapses onto the beach, skirts blooming around her.

“Hoy!”

Shouts reach me from the water, and I stare out to see three boats with men standing up, waving their arms. The doors to the nearby cottages open and more burly men flood out. Melisande suddenly rises to her knees. Blood seeps from a gash in her lip.

“Help me. He’s a murderer,” she screams.

Rage fills her eyes.

This apparently is not going according to her plan.

No time to snatch up the lost book. So I retreat and make for the trail, bounding upward in a wild scramble, scree sliding under my feet. I reach the top winded and sweat drenched. A quick look below shows me that Melisande is no longer lying on the beach and that a couple of the fishermen and several of the other men are making their way up the trail. I run off across the moor, with no idea where I’m going. I jog and walk alternately, as fast as I can, my lungs pumping like bellows. After a while I slow, fairly certain that nobody is following. God knows what that woman is telling her saviors, or what she would have told them if she’d succeeded in killing me.

I’ll have you on your way home by sunset.

Home, all right. Dead, more likely.

And now I know exactly why she didn’t hire the local fisherman. She preferred a corpse nobody either knew or would miss.

I regret losing the grimoire, but there is no way to double back and retrieve it. Too many people around. I have to keep moving. I’m way past tired, my senses growing dull, my thoughts fragmented, the only constant the whine of the wind in my ears. Daylight gradually fades and I finally stop, overcome as much by confusion as by weariness. No amount of training could prepare anyone for this experience. Whatever this experience actually is. All sense of past and future seems gone.

Only the present matters.

I decide not to keep going any farther as darkness grows around me.

So I find a bit of high ground with no standing water, huddle up in the shelter of a clump of broom, and fall headlong into a dreamless sleep.

I COME AWAKE TO A morning rain across the trackless, rough, uneven moor, the night’s chill deep in my bones. The past few hours of impossibility flow with a calm finality through my mind. No visible sun aids my sense of direction, so all I can do is walk away from the faint sound of the distant sea and hope to find someone who might prove helpful. In the uneasy realms of sleep my mind seems to have accepted the insane notion that I have been displaced in time. Also it’s clear that the ragged little group of stones has something to do with my dilemma. So that’s what I need to find. The stones. And see what, if anything, might happen if I touch them again.

I walk for several hours, growing wetter by the minute. The few structures I pass seem as weathered and worn as the pitted road. I read once that the thick wool of a kilt and sweater traps body heat like a diver’s wetsuit. I’m pleased to discover that the observation proves at least partially correct. I’m not comfortable, but I’m not freezing, either.

Just wet.

And hungry.

I should have eaten more of what I found in Melisande’s saddlebag. Thinking of her, I spare a brief thought for Duncan Kerr. What on earth had led the old man to keep company with such a murderous bitch? Did she go back after him? Or had she just left him in the heather? I push aside those thoughts and trudge on.

Ahead, I hear faint voices.

I speed up, but skirt the side of the road, out of sight, and soon come upon another gang of prisoners cutting peat. Bricklike chunks of moss, decayed into a black, fudgy substance, are being hacked from the ground by poles with angled blades at the end. Their presence offers me hope. I could just wait and follow the work detail back to the castle, which was where they came from yesterday. Though not necessarily a place of safety, I don’t want to risk spending another night on the moors. No red-coated guards are in sight. But I spot a small canvas shelter pitched away from the prisoners, a blue plume of smoke rising from a fire inside. Evidently the guards are keeping out of the wet.

I approach the work group cautiously, not sure whether to speak to one of the prisoners or one of the soldiers. Either could be friend or foe. Coming closer, I see that it is the same group from yesterday, and I spot the same tall redheaded man, wearing fetters, climbing up out of a wide dark scar of a pit in the green of the moor. Big Red sees me too and heads straight for me with a hasty stride. A clink of iron accompanies each step.

“How is it ye wear tartan, a charaidh?” the man says, giving me a narrow-eyed look. His voice is husky, with a slightly hollow tone to it.

I stand my ground. “It’s Scotland, isn’t it? Doesn’t everyone?”

The man throws out a short, humorless laugh. “No one these ten years past, man. Ye risk being shot on sight, should the soldiers see ye in it. Or maybe only arrested and hanged later, if they’re too lazy to shoot ye.”

Big Red glances at the canvas lean-to and so do I. Voices raise from an argument inside.

“Come,” the Scot says, grabbing me by the arm, hurrying me to the pit. “Get ye into the moss-hag. And keep still.”

The Scot moves away and I follow the order, hopping down and pressing my back against the black wall of crumbling peat. I hear rapid Gaelic being spoken above and murmurs from the other prisoners. Distant laughter and the talk of the guards grows in intensity. Then the English voices recede and Big Red drops down into the pit beside me.

“Who are ye, man? Ye’re no a Scot nor yet a German or an Irishman, and that’s no a tartan from any Highland regiment I ken.”

“My name’s Cotton Malone. And yours?”

“I’m Jamie Fraser.”

I TAKE STOCK OF THE man standing before me.

Fraser is tall, over six feet, and though he’s as thin as the rest, his chest is that of a lumberjack, the forearms grooved with muscle. He has high cheekbones, a long, knife-edged nose, a strong jaw, and his long red hair is tied back in a tail that hangs below his shoulder blades. His eyes cast a dark blue gaze, open at first glance, disconcertingly wary at a second.

“Where are ye from?” he asks me.

I rub a hand across my stubbled face. There’s no good answer to that question, so I decide to come to the point, “I’ve been lost on the moor for a couple of days. I’m looking for a group of stones. In a circle. Five or six, with a tall one standing high. It’s got a thing carved into it that looks like a ring with a cross through it. Have you seen something like that?”

Puzzlement in the Scot’s blue eyes is replaced by understanding. Fraser is soaked to the skin, the rags of his shirt clinging to him like cellophane, rivulets of water running down the side of his stout neck and off his broad shoulders. Suddenly his big hand shoots out and grips me by the shoulder.

The impassive mask crumples.

“Do you know of the year 1948?” he asks.

What an odd question in so ancient a setting. But it grabs my attention. At least I’m not the only one going nuts around here. His hard eyes stay fixed on me for a long time and I wonder if this man came from another time too. Then I decide to be more cautious in my reply.

“I know that year.”

The Scot regards me with a look of astonishment and something that seems almost like excitement. “Then, aye. I ken those stones.”

Excitement grows warm in my veins. But I have to know something. “What year is this?”

“1755.”

Underlying my shock is a thread of awe. I am 262 years in the past. Unfrigging believable. With only one way out. “Can you tell me how to find the stones?”

“I can tell ye how to go.”

I swallow the saliva of anticipation as we climb from the pit and he points out landmarks in the moor, invisible until I am shown them, by which to steer my course. “The clouds are shreddin’. Ye’ll have the sun for another two hours and the moon’s already risen. Keep it over your right shoulder as ye go.”

Maybe, just maybe, the world might make sense again. I clasp his hand. It is deeply calloused and hard as wood. “Thank you.”

He returns the shake, then steps back, suddenly ginger in his manner, as though he would rather not have made contact. But one thing is clear. This man understands my problem.

“If”—the Scot begins, then smothers his question behind compressed lips.

“Tell me. I’ll do what I can for you.”

“If when ye find your own place again. If ye should happen on a woman called Claire—” He swallows, then shakes his head. “No. Never mind.” A sadness touches his face as he glances away.

“Speak your mind.”

I allow my tone to take on the tinge of an order.

Fraser glances back at me, taking his time, but makes up his mind. He draws himself up to his full height, which is considerable, and speaks formally.

“Aye. Should ye meet with a woman called Claire Fraser—no, she’d be Claire Randall then—” A dark shadow crosses his face at the words, but he shakes it off. “A healer. Tell her that James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, the Laird of Lallybroch, blesses her and wishes her and her child both health and joy.” His gaze goes far away for a moment, and he swallows again, before adding in a low voice, “Tell her that her husband misses her.”

I should probe that statement more, but there is no time. So I simply say, “I will.”

“Have ye a woman? There, I mean?”

I nod. “Her name is Cassiopeia.”

Just saying her name makes me smile. She would have loved this adventure. He stares sharply at me, as though suspecting a joke, but seeing that it isn’t, he nods soberly. “Think of her, when ye come to the stones. Go wi’ God, and may Michael and Bride protect ye.”

“Thank you,” I say again, which feels wholly inadequate.

I turn to leave and my eye falls on the canvas shelter, from which a muffled, drunken song is now issuing. “Does anybody ever try to escape? Surely it wouldn’t be that hard?”

He stares out across the endless moor, with eyes that seem incapable of illusion. “Where should we go? All that we knew is gone, and all that we have is each other.”

DARKNESS HAS FALLEN WHEN I find the stones, but a three-quarter moon, high on the scudding clouds, showers down a surreal ivory glow. I catch the quick, silent streak of a falling star across the southern curve of the heavens. A sign of good luck? Hopefully. But an owl hoots a sinister warning.

I stand for a minute, staring, afraid to look away for fear I am imagining them and the stones might disappear if I blink. A chilling air of pathos rises from the ruins. I have gone well past the point of feeling hungry, now more dizzy with tiredness than from a lack of food. I have no idea what I’ll say, if it works and I am sent back to my own time. How will I explain Kuznyetsov? The lost grimoire? Where I’ve been, and all that happened? As a Magellan Billet agent I’ve been involved with some incredible things. But the past two days has climbed to the top of that amazing list.

I walk around the stones and begin to be aware of a low buzzing noise, like a hive of bumblebees. I didn’t notice that before. Am I to utter some magic words? I smile at the thought. Then recall what Jamie Fraser said.

Think of her, when ye come to the stones.

The Scotsman had obviously been thinking about someone special. Claire. His wife. The memory almost painful.

I decide to take the man’s advice.

Placing one hand on the tallest stone, I whisper, “Cassiopeia.”

MY EYES ARE CLOSED, BUT scattered recollections flicker though my mind, fading, then growing stronger. There’s not as much motion or force in the journey like the first time—or maybe it’s just that I know what to expect—more like a silent process of shifting lights and shapes.

My lips quiver.

A shiver of panic tries to free itself from my brain. Familiar faces I had almost forgotten swim in and out, blur, and disappear.

Then everything goes quiet.

I open my eyes to a dazzling radiance, bright to the point of burning my pupils. Shadowy figures hover over me. Faces approach, then recede. I raise an arm to shield my vision and hear a voice shout, “He’s alive.”

I struggle to focus and see that I’m being loaded into the back of a van. All I can see is the beam of a bright flashlight, which confirms what I need to know. I made it. Then I catch a stench of blood and death. Beside me in the van lies a huge dead boar on a sheet of blue plastic. A man scrambles inside. My mouth is dry and sticky, and the sudden roar of an engine drowns out the first words I try to say.

“You awake then, mate?” a Scottish voice says. “How ye feeling?”

It belongs to a man in his fifties, with a deeply weathered but friendly face, wearing a waxed jacket.

“Where are we going?” I ask, resisting the urge to swat the flashlight away.

“Aye, well, if your name is Malone, we thought we’d maybe take ye to your friends at the castle. If ye’re no him, though, we should maybe carry ye down to the village. They’ve a wee cottage hospital there.”

“I’m Malone,” I assure him, then shut my eyes again, trying to gather strength, my memories a whirlwind of confusion.

Was the whole thing a dream?

Not real?

By the time the van turns into the paved drive that leads to the castle—once more ablaze with electric floodlights—I’m sitting up, passing a flask back and forth with one of my saviors.

“Archie McAndres, purveyor o’ fine game,” the man tells me, with a companionable slap on the flank of the dead boar. “The lad and I were headin’ along to the castle, when we saw ye stagger out o’ the moor. Thought ye were drunk, but then I remembered Mr. Chubb showin’ me the wee photie of ye when we brought the pheasants yesterday.”

“They were . . . looking for me?”

“Ach, aye. When they found your man Nyetski or whatever, lyin’ dead on the moor wi’ a bullet in him, there was a clishmaclaver from here to Inverness. When they found the things in his pockets, they thought ye maybe—”

“Things?” I ask. “What things?”

“Oh, I cannae just charge my mind, but it was bits o’ ivory, maybe icons. Was it icons, Rob?” the man bellows toward the cab. “What the Russian fella had?”

“Jewels, I heard it was,” Rob’s voice comes back over the thrum of the motor.

The flask returns to my hands.

“Have another drink. Seems the dead one wasn’t named Nyetski a’tall. He was one of the East European fellas. Known to the polis.”

I pass on more from the flask. Talk of Kuznyetsov makes me think of the missing grimoire I found at the base of the stone. In the dream I tucked it at the small of my back, beneath my sweater. Then lost it on the boat. I reach around and feel, but no book is there.

The van stops and the rear doors open.

A blue sky overhead promises a new beginning.

I am back at Castle Ardsmuir.

THE QUESTIONS COME IN RAPID fire, but I decide a lie is better than saying I may have traveled 262 years back in time. Besides, I’m not sure any of it ever happened. Kuznyetsov is definitely dead, though, but there is nothing linking me to that fact. Apparently, my gun has not been found. So it’s better to just do a Sergeant Schultz. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing.

“Ye don’t offer much,” a local police inspector tells me, businesslike and composed. “Ye never saw the Russian?”

I shake my head.

“No idea how he got shot and dead?”

This is the fourth time we’ve been through it, but I know the drill. Have someone say something over and over enough until they mess up. “Like I’ve already explained, I have no idea what happened to him.”

“Detective Inspector,” Malcolm Chubb says, interrupting. “My friend is exhausted. He’s been out on the moors with no food for nearly two days. For God’s sake, look at him. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

The finality of Chubb’s voice seems to outlaw any further discussion, and the policeman doesn’t look happy.

“Aye, for the present, sir. But I’ll be back later.”

The inspector leaves the drawing room.

“Do you want to clean up, old fellow?” Chubb asks. “I’ve organized some sandwiches and coffee, but say the word and we can do you some steak and eggs, jam omelet, you name it.”

“Sandwiches and coffee sounds perfect.”

The food arrives and I eat. Compared to the moor, the drawing room seems like an oasis. A crackling fire, comfortable chair, quiet warmth. Chubb sits watching me in companionable silence.

“We naturally put off the auction, after they found Kuznyetsov—or whatever his name turns out finally to be,” Chubb says. “The guests had to stay to be questioned, and since everything seems to have quieted down, the police have agreed that we can have the sale tomorrow. If you’re still interested in that old grimoire, I mean?”

I wash the last of a venison sandwich down with the first cup from the second pot of coffee.

Time to fess up.

But before I can, Chubb says, “Apparently that was the one thing Kuznyetsov actually didn’t steal. We turned the whole castle upside down, as discreetly as possible, and were just considering how to question the guests when word came about Kuznyetsov’s body being found. Then all hell promptly broke loose.”

I wait for more explanation.

“You know how, when you’ve lost something, you keep looking over and over in the same place, because you can’t really believe that it isn’t there?” Chubb nods toward the glass cases across the room. “And blast me if it wasn’t right there. Have a look. I wouldn’t have believed it either, but there the bloody thing is.”

I stand and walk over.

Chubb unlocks the glass case, slipping on a pair of white gloves and carefully lifts out the book, holding it like a relic. I stare in amazement. It is the incunabulum 15th-century grimoire—the same one Kuznyetsov stole, the same one I found at the stone, the same one that went with me to 1755.

The same one I dropped in the boat.

A chill bristles the hair on the back of my neck.

How is that possible? Then I know. It was in my family for hundreds of years. That’s what Eleanor LeBlanc said. Passed down, until some impoverished ancestor sold it.

Passed down?

Chubb closes the case, seemingly pleased with everything.

A quote from Shakespeare rolls through my mind.

What is past is prologue.

Had Melisande Robicheaux apparently become the inadvertent owner of the incunabulum. Left in the boat by a man who rowed her out to the silkies’ island, then passed down to her heirs, and they to theirs, through the centuries, until making its way here. That’s nonsense. Ridiculous. It was all a dream. The missing book was simply found here at the castle, as Chubb said.

My host pours two generous measures of whisky. The silence in the room exaggerates the clink of the bottle against the rim of the glass.

“You’re sure you’re all right, old man? No need for a doctor?”

“I’m fine,” I say, knowing that I can now keep the whole experience to myself.

I accept the drink and enjoy a sip. It is one of the peaty Highland malts with fumes that can clear the head of crazy dreams.

Exactly what I need.

But a thought occurs to me. The flintlock pistol in the boat. I reach down and open the sporran that hangs from my waist.

Inside lies the wad and load.

I smile.

Not a dream.

Then I wonder if someday the rusted remnants of my watch and gun will make their way inside some collector’s case too.