Page 21 of The Last Stitch

The light had shifted to deep gold by the time I finally stopped pacing. August had left hours ago—or what seemed like hours, anyway. Time moved strangely when you were trapped in a room that belonged to the wrong century. I'd spent the interim alternating between the window and the bed, my mind churning through everything that had happened, everything he'd said, everything I needed to understand.

Work together.

His words echoed in my mind, cold and certain. Not a threat, exactly. More like a statement of fact. As if my cooperation was inevitable, my compliance assured.

He had no idea how wrong he was.

I sank onto the bed, my legs finally giving out. The room had grown cooler as afternoon stretched toward evening, shadows lengthening across the floorboards.

I looked down at my Apple Watch. The screen was dark again. I tapped it, and it flickered to life, showing the time and date in familiar glowing numbers.

Wednesday, October 1, 2025. 2:34 PM.

Then faded to black as the battery drained.

“Shit.” My only connection to my time was officially gone.

Mrs. Hartley had said October 1892. Which meant I'd traveled back exactly 133 years.

Why October? Why 1892 specifically?

I thought about my research. The patterns of disappearance I'd been tracking. Most of them had occurred between 1865 and 1892, with the heaviest concentration in the late 1880s.

People erased from history. Possibly Weavers, if August was to be believed.

Gran's necklace had brought me here. To this specific time. To the exact moment when these disappearances were happening.

It couldn't be coincidence.

Gran had known something. Trust your instincts, even when logic tells you otherwise.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, fighting the urge to scream. Or cry. Or both.

Think, Lily. Think like a historian.

I was in 1892 Oxford. . . August Hawthorne was one of these hunters. And he thought I might be a Weaver.

The question was: was I?

I'd never done anything magical. Never seen threads or manipulated fate or created illusions. I was just a PhD student who spent too much time in archives and not enough time sleeping.

But Gran's necklace had brought me here. And that little girl in the forest had done something impossible.

What if there was a connection? What if Gran had been trying to tell me something about who I was? What I could do?

No. That was insane. I was overthinking this because I was scared and alone and completely out of my depth. I needed information. Needed to understand what was really happening here, what Weavers were, what this “unraveling” meant. And the only source of information I had was the man who'd just locked me in this room.

A knock at the door made me jump.

I stood and moved to the door. The housekeeper carried a tray laden with a teapot, cup, and a plate of sandwiches and small cakes.

“Mr. Hawthorne thought you might be hungry,” she said, setting the tray on the small table by the window.

My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten since. . . , when? Yesterday morning? In 2025?

“Thank you,” I managed.

Mrs. Hartley poured the tea with practiced efficiency. “I've also brought some items that might make you more comfortable. A nightgown, some basic toiletries.”