Alex was saved from his momentary doubt by the lifting of his rescuer’s head. The oval face was as clearly female as any he had ever seen. He forced himself to concentrate on its contours rather than its surroundings and began again. “I thank you for the favor of our lives, mistress. Might I know your name?”

“Heavenly Father,” the young woman said, her vowels oddly flattened and the final R growled deep in her throat. “I didn’t know anyone still talked like that.” Her eyes raked over his face and the back of Moxie’s head as though she were searching for answers, but then she shook her head and pushed herself off him, coming to her feet in one fluid movement and holding down her hand to help him up. “You’re welcome, to start with—I’d do the same for anyone, at least I hope I would. My name’s Helen, Helen Morrow. What about you?”

“Alexander Redstone. Alex to friends.” Alex accepted the hand and found he needed its support. His knees were trembling. “And this is Moxie,” he added, shifting her in the crook of his left arm. “A friend’s daughter, but I have the care of her for the time being.”

Moxie lifted her head and gave Helen a timid, and apparently fully human, smile before hiding her face again.

I doubt our mysterious benefactor, whoever he was, actually changed her into a human—that level of magic needs three people at the least to manage it—but it is certainly a complete illusion. Extends to all senses, and even Moxie herself cannot see through it...

Helen tilted her head to one side, regarding them both. “Would you care for a drink, and maybe some lunch?” she said. “I’m meeting a friend, but he won’t mind the company, and I’ll pay.” She smiled. “And maybe then you can explain to me how you two just happened to appear in the street like that...”

* * *

“Yeah, I think it's the alternator or something; the battery was fine when I picked the car up, but it's dead now. I lost the satnav with it but there's a sign for... Tavistock Road next to the car. All right, great. And please ask him to expedite this one; I'm in a car full of expensive electronic components in a really dodgy bit of Brixton. Thanks, bye.” Jake hung up his work mobile, unlatched the small but comfortingly heavy fire extinguisher from the bracket under the driver's seat and set it within convenient grabbing range, then poured himself a coffee from the thermos in his bag and settled in to wait for the tow-truck. “Christ, what a day...”

The RAC patrol turned up half an hour later. Jake exchanged pleasantries with the driver and opened the bonnet.

“Alternator, all right,” the patrolman concluded. “I'll have to tow this one.”

“Great. 'Scuse me a sec...” Jake dialled the office. “Hello? Yeah, it's me again. The guy from the RAC says he can't fix the car at the roadside; what do you want me to do? I can double up with someone else, or... Well I could, but it'd be half past three before I got back; I live a good hour and a half up the M1 from London, remember? I don't mind grabbing some spares from the boot and getting around on the bus or something... So don't send me to Effing Jeff again today; nobody else will care even if they notice, and anything's got to be better than having me sitting around the office doing busywork until the car gets fixed. Look, I'm supposed to be going on lunch in about ten minutes; I'll see you back at the office at 1:30 and we'll figure something out then. Yeah, I'll tell him. Bye.” He hung up and turned to the tow-truck driver. “Sorry about that. You know where the hire firm's garage is, don't you?”

“I've got the address for the satnav,” the man replied.

“Great.” Jake tossed the car keys into the glove compartment. “Would you mind dropping me off at a Tube station on the way?”

The carriage was half-empty at this time of day, and he had no trouble finding a seat. Jake rested his chin in his hands and stared at nothing, suddenly feeling far older than his years and incredibly weary. He caught a glimpse of his reflection and sighed. Untidy black hair, already streaked with grey; pale as a corpse, with dark circles and worry lines framing dull navy-blue eyes. Lovely. Not only do I feel closer to fifty than twenty-five, I look the part too.

Is this all there is to life? Killing myself a little at a time with too much booze and coffee and junk food and not enough sleep, grabbing all the overtime going because I can't face the thought of going home to an empty bedsit and another night with four cans of lager, the Internet and my landlady's cats for company?

I need something more than this. I need something to live for.

Someone...

The train came to a halt, jerking him out of his bitter musings with the realisation that he had arrived.. Jake shook himself mentally and got off the train, hurrying out of the station before he ended up having to be scraped off the rails. What you need is a decent meal, he told himself firmly. Nothing else. You've got a job that puts food on the table and a roof over your head; everything else is an optional extra that you can exist perfectly adequately without!

He even believed it.

***

Helen bent her head over the menu, pretending to study it closely, and peered through her eyelashes at the fascinating duo across the table. Moxie, sitting like a queen in the booster seat the waitress had provided, was shaking a delicate finger at Alex, scolding him in a whisper and ignoring his attempts to get a word in edgewise.

She certainly doesn’t act like a five-year-old ‘friend’s daughter’. She looks like one, right down to that pixie smile, but she treats him as if she were his teenage sister. And they’re both dressed as if they came from a RenFaire, but the clothes look worn. Lived-in. Not made for show, but for real life and hard work.

To cap it all off, neither of them noticed they were about to be run over by a bus. That seems impossible—they’re neither blind nor deaf—but what if they were overwhelmed by new sounds and new sights, and unaware that such things as buses existed?

And let’s not forget the little detail of them appearing out of thin air, in a spot I was looking straight at.

She glanced upwards. “I think Somebody has a sense of humor,” she muttered.

Somebody disdained to reply.

The waitress returned, delivering four mugs of brown liquid in various degrees of clarity. Helen thanked her, claimed the clearest of the four for herself, and slid the cloudiest two across the table to Alex and Moxie, whose argument had ceased with the arrival of these interesting cups. “Blow on it first,” she told them. “Then take a sip. See if you like it.”

“What is it?” Alex asked, taking a sniff of the steam rising from the mug.

“A drink from my homeland,” Helen said, crossing mental fingers as she extracted a packet of Splenda from her purse. It was half-true, she comforted her conscience. The trees were native to the Americas, if not to any part she’d ever called home.

Moxie blew across the surface of the opaque brown liquid, then sipped. Her eyes went wide, and she set the cup down reverently as she swallowed and licked her lips. “This is very good,” she pronounced with all the solemnity of a high priestess declaring a sacrifice fit for her god. “Sweet and spicy all at once. Your homeland must be a wondrous place, Lady Helen.”

Helen nearly choked on her tea. “Lady?” she repeated when she could breathe again. “Thank you for the compliment, but really, it’s just Helen. No title, no honorific, nothing like that. And my homeland... well, it’s got its flaws, but thank you on its behalf as well.”

Alex tasted his own drink, and his eyebrows rose. “I thought my father knew all the fine things in the world,” he said. “It seems he missed one. What is this called?”

“Chocolate. And I’m not surprised you don’t know about it. When did you say you were from?”

Alex stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth for another sip. “Did we?”

Helen resisted the urge to beat her head against the table. That was supposed to be a trick question. “I don’t think you did. Am I allowed to know anyway?”

“It is the year of our Lord 1281, and the ninth year of the reign of our gracious king Edward Longshanks,” Alex said promptly, then frowned. “Or I should say, it was. I know only that we have traveled in time, not how far, though I would guess some centuries from the changes I can see.”

“Very good.” Helen chewed a bit of skin off her lip while she calculated numbers in her head. “You’ve come seven hundred twenty-eight years into the future,” she said finally. “I’m sure that has some mystical and magical meaning to it, but I have no idea what that is.”

Alex leaned against the padded back of the booth and closed his eyes, truly relaxing for the first time since Helen had seen him. Moxie laid a hand on his arm, and he squeezed it with his free one. “No mystical meaning, no,” he said quietly. “And no magic, unless you count that which brought us here. But meaning all the same.”

“May I ask?” Helen looked up as the door of the restaurant opened. “On second thought, hold that answer, here comes my friend.” She half-stood and waved at Jake, receiving a nod in return. “We’ll have introductions, and then we can get started on believing six impossible things before lunch.”

Half of her chuckled at the bemused glance that passed between Alex and Moxie. The other half noted it as more evidence that Somebody had taken her in dislike and placed her under the most potent curse known.

“May you live in interesting times.” Oh yes, I’d say these times are about to get plenty interesting.

Jake (who looked terrible, Helen noted, but that was no more nor less than usual) slid into the booth beside her, looking curiously at Moxie and Alex.

At least I get to share.

“Hi Helen, sorry I'm late; it has not been a good day so far...” Jake belatedly noticed Alex and blinked, momentarily confused. “Um, have we met?”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Alex replied with a wry smile. Helen noted the striking likeness between the two men with mild surprise; aside from the different eye colour, and the streaks of grey at Jake's temples, the two men might have been brothers.

Of course, if I didn't know Jake's real age, I'd be seeing them as father and son. Helen sighed inwardly, wondering not for the first time what she was going to do with him.

“Alex Redstone, Moxie, Jake Grey, and likewise,” she said aloud, waving at each person. “All right, Alex. Start from the top.”

* * *

The old man added five drops of ink to a bowl of water—one each of red, green, blue and two each of black—and spoke three words, then peered into the bowl and scowled. “What the...?”

He paged through the old, well-used book beside the bowl, and his scowl deepened. The woodcut had been ancient by the time the book was printed, and the reproduction was poor, but it sufficed.

This could well turn out to be a total sodding disaster. And poor old Jake's right in the bloody middle of it!

He made a mental note to keep an eye on things. Jake and that fluff-headed American bird might not know what they’d walked into, but he had a decent idea, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Cardinal rule of life. Don’t fuck with sorcerers. Doubly so for evil ones...

* * *

By the time Alex was halfway through his story, Jake was wishing the table was clean enough to rest his forehead on it. I am not nearly drunk enough to be hearing this.

He shot a sideways look at Helen, who was listening with the patience he’d seen her display with some of her youngest brother’s wilder tales. Least she could have done was make this an Irish coffee. Oh well, bottoms up anyway.

A long swig later, he noticed the little girl watching him. There’d been a part of the story about her—Pixie? No, Moxie, that was it. Pixie would have suited her, with her delicate and vaguely Asian features...

She’s a kid, he told himself firmly. Even if she’s not as young as she looks, she’s still too bloody young for me. And not my species. Get your sex drive under control, Grey, there’s more important stuff to be listening to here. Like that bit about an evil sorcerer...

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but is there any chance your dad could follow you here?” Jake broke in as Alex was describing the mysterious robed man who’d appeared on top of the tower and offered them a way out, assuring them that they would find help within moments of their arrival. “I mean, you don’t want to get comfortable here, or now, rather, and then find him on the doorstep one morning.”

“I... do not know,” Alex said, his face troubled. “I was given a spell to return us to our own time if we do not like this one, to be used within the first year we spend here; I had not thought until just now that it implies a connection still exists...”

“I don’t think we’ll be followed,” Moxie said firmly.

All three of the others turned to look at her.

“You don’t hear everything, Master Alex,” the girl said, though she blushed. “I do. Or my family does. And your... the Baron was beginning to wonder about you already. He was asking the Baroness just last week if she thought there might be a curse upon your family, to ensure one son in every generation went astray.”

Alex snorted. “May all my brother’s sons go so astray. But thank you, Moxie. That is very good to hear.”

“Yes, it is,” Helen agreed. “But on that topic... well, not quite on it, but somewhere near it... I am not saying this well.” It was her turn to blush. “I don’t know if there is a good way to say it. You’ve got to drop the ‘Master’ bit, Moxie. People are going to get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea?” Moxie asked. “What kind of wrong... oh!” It was a squeak, and she clapped both hands across her mouth immediately after. Alex was staring at Helen with an expression that strongly suggested he was thinking of using that return spell right here. Helen slid down in her seat, trying with only partial success to stifle a fit of giggles.

Jake lifted his coffee cup ironically to the three of them. “I honestly didn't think any of you three would get that. Ah, well. Welcome to the 21^st Century, Al.”

Alex leveled a glare at him. “Call me that again and you will not exist in any century.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Gentlemen,” said Helen and Moxie in identical tones of warning.

Jake and Alex both shut up immediately.