“I was conducting scholarly analysis,” I informed him.
“Of course.”
“There are at least three restoration periods visible in this section alone.”
“And this required talking aloud?”
“Yes.”
Father William considered this gravely.
“I have decided,” he announced, “that whatever century produced you was probably extremely exhausting.”
He crossed toward the altar while I returned, at least superficially, to examining the tapestry. My pulse had finally begun settling back into normal human function again.
Until the psalter started glowing. Not subtly. Not the faint shimmer from before. This was brighter. Stronger. Gold illumination pulsing beneath the vellum pages in steady rhythmic waves that lit the chapel with unsettling clarity.
Father William stopped immediately.
“No,” he said firmly to the manuscript. “Absolutely not. It is far too early in the day for this.”
The glow intensified as I crossed the chapel slowly toward the lectern, every instinct sharpening at once. The air itself felt strange now. Charged. Like pressure gathering before a storm.
The psalter pulsed again. And this time I felt it.
Come back.
My breath caught softly.
Come back if you wish. The path is open.
Father William looked between me and the manuscript with deep theological suspicion.
“You’re making that face again.”
“What face?”
“The deeply concerning one.”
I stepped closer.
The manuscript had not brought me here merely to witness history. Somehow, impossibly, it had brought me here for Geoffrey. And now that I had helped him and his family, I wondered if the psalter believed its purpose fulfilled.
Geoffrey de Warenne survived in historical records. I knew that already. But surviving was not the same thing as living. Before me, he had been becoming harder year by year. More isolated and strategic. A man who trusted numbers more easily than people because numbers hurt less when they failed. And somehow, the psalter had reached across eight centuries and dropped a historian directly into his path.
Not to alter England. To alter him. Gold light moved beneath the vellum pages like living fire.
Come back or stay. The choice is yours.
My pulse staggered painfully as energy thrummed through me.
Footsteps sounded outside the chapel. Familiar. Measured. Heavy with unconscious authority. A second later Geoffrey appeared in the doorway.
He stopped immediately. The gold light reflected across his face and dark wool surcoat, catching in the loose strands of dark hair that had escaped whatever inadequate attempt someone had made to civilize it that morning. He looked tired, sharp-eyed, devastatingly handsome.
And the moment his eyes found me, everything else disappeared.
“Harper.”