William woke to pain.
Not the distant, muddy ache of before—this was sharp, immediate, a burning brand pressed into his right hip. He gasped, hands flying to the bandage wrapped tight around his waist. Clean cloth. Professional work. Someone had dug the bullet out while he slept.
He lay on a cot in a canvas tent, small and dim, lit only by a single oil lamp hanging from the center pole. The air smelled of antiseptic and gunpowder. Outside, voices shouted in a rhythm he didn't recognize—commands, responses, the organized chaos of a military camp.
The flap opened.
"You're awake." The man's accent was strange, clipped, foreign. He didn't approach the cot, staying near the entrance with one hand resting casually on his rifle stock. "Good. Bad wound you have there. Lucky we found you before the wolves did."
William said nothing. His throat felt packed with sand.
The soldier picked up William's raincoat from a nearby stool, turning it over in his hands. His fingers traced the zipper, the synthetic fabric, the waterproof seams. "I've never seen cloth like this. Rubberized? Some kind of... celluloid fastener?" He pulled the zipper up and down, frowning at the smooth motion. "And this." He lifted the flashlight, clicking it on.
The LED beam blazed through the tent, brighter than the oil lamp. The soldier flinched, nearly dropping it, then clicked it off with trembling fingers. "Electric," he whispered. "Portable electric. That's not possible. That's Edison's work, and even he can't make it this small, this bright."
He set the flashlight down like it might explode, then turned back to William. His casual posture had vanished—now he was coiled, dangerous, a predator deciding if prey was worth the effort.
"Who are you? German spy? Some kind of... test? The Kaiser has scientists, we know, working on secret weapons." He stepped closer, close enough for William to smell the stale coffee on his breath. "Where did you come from? How did you get that equipment?"
William's mind raced. Tell the truth? They'd think him mad. Lie? He had nothing to work with.
"I found them," he managed, voice cracking. "In the forest. I was lost, and I found... things. Equipment. I don't know where it came from."
"Liar." But there was uncertainty in the soldier's eyes now. He picked up William's flashlight again, examining it with the desperate curiosity of a man confronting the impossible. "This craftsmanship. These materials. It's like... like something from twenty years in the future. Thirty." He laughed, harsh and broken. "Listen to me. I sound like a madman."
He sat heavily on the stool, suddenly exhausted. "My name is Captain Elias Vane. British Expeditionary Force, though I suspect that means nothing to you." He looked up, meeting William's eyes. "I'm going to ask you once more, and I need you to understand—if you are a spy, we have laws. If you are something else..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Just tell me. Please. Before my superiors arrive and this becomes official."
William opened his mouth, truth and lie warring on his tongue—
A shout cut through the tent wall. "Captain Vane! Enemy on the doorstep!"
Vane's head snapped toward the sound. For a moment, indecision warred across his face—interrogation or battle? Battle won. He stood, grabbed his rifle, and was gone, ducking through the flap, shouting orders that dissolved into the general uproar.
William waited. One minute. Two. The pain in his hip was a living thing, but fear was stronger. He eased himself off the cot, testing his weight. His leg held, barely, sending lightning bolts of agony with each step.
He limped to the tent opening and peered out.
Chaos. Soldiers running in every direction, pulling on gear, checking weapons, forming lines. The camp was small—perhaps fifty tents arranged in a clearing, surrounded by dense forest that looked nothing like the Thornveil he knew. The trees were wrong. Younger. Healthier. Older in a way that made no sense.
No one looked at him. In the panic of impending battle, a wounded boy in strange clothes was invisible.
William ran.
Or tried to—his hip screamed with every step, forcing him into a lurching half-jog toward the tree line. Behind him, a whistle blew. Shouts. Then the first gunshots, distant but growing closer, and the screams of men dying in ways William had only seen in movies.
He kept moving.
The village appeared suddenly, nestled in a valley below the camp. Small houses, thatched roofs, a dirt road winding between them. And terror—pure, palpable terror—hanging in the air like smoke.
Soldiers in the same drab uniforms ran through the streets, shouting warnings. "Surrounded! They've broken through! Get inside! Lock your doors!"
Doors slammed. Windows shuttered. William stumbled down the road, knocking on each one, pleading with wood and iron that stayed stubbornly closed.
"Please! Help me!"
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then—a crack. A door opened a sliver, revealing a man's face, gray with fear, eyes darting left and right.
"Please," William whispered. "They're coming."
The man hesitated. Behind him, a woman's voice, high and terrified: "Henri, no—"
"He's a boy, Marie. Just a boy."
The door opened wider. William slipped inside, and the man—Henri—slammed it shut, throwing a wooden bar across it with shaking hands.
The room was small, one room for living and cooking, a ladder leading to a sleeping loft. A woman stood by the hearth, clutching a baby so tightly the infant squirmed in protest. She was young, maybe thirty, with dark hair escaping a loose bun and eyes that held no hope—only the desperate, animal instinct to protect.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want?"
"I don't—" William didn't know how to answer. "I'm lost. I'm just lost."
"Everyone is lost now." Henri pressed his ear to the door, listening. "The Germans. They broke the line. They'll be here in minutes."
"Germans?" The word felt foreign in William's mouth. "Like... World War One?"
Henri turned, staring at him with something between pity and madness. "What other war is there?"
The baby began to cry. Marie bounced it, shushing desperately, but the sound seemed to fill the room, to amplify, to call to something outside.
"Quiet him," Henri hissed. "Please, God, quiet him—"
Too late.
The first explosion rocked the village. Close—too close. Shouts in a language William didn't recognize, harsh and triumphant. Then gunfire, not distant but here, in the street, in the houses, the systematic execution of a defense that had already failed.
A scream. Then another. Then a chorus of them, rising and falling like a hellish song.
"Upstairs," Marie breathed, pointing to the ladder. "Hide. Both of you."
Henri didn't move. "This is my home. I won't—"
"They'll kill you!"
"Then they'll kill me!" He grabbed a kitchen knife, pitiful against rifles, and stood before the door like he could hold back an army with will alone.
The door exploded inward.
Splinters flew. Henri was thrown back, knife clattering useless across the floor. Three soldiers entered, gray uniforms this time, different badges, faces flushed with victory and something worse—hunger. The hunger of men who had been promised spoils.
The leader, a corporal by his stripes, scanned the room with predatory efficiency. His eyes found Marie, cowering by the hearth, and his smile was the worst thing William had ever seen.
"Well, well. Hospitality."
"Please," Henri choked, blood on his mouth from where he'd struck the wall. "My wife. My children. We have nothing—"
"You have her." The corporal gestured, and his men moved, pulling Marie screaming from her corner. The baby fell, landing hard, wailing. "And upstairs..." He sniffed the air, theatrical. "I smell a girl. Young. Pretty."
"No!" Henri lunged. A rifle butt to the stomach dropped him, gasping, to the floor.
William watched from the shadows beneath the ladder, paralyzed. This wasn't his war. This wasn't his time. He should stay hidden, stay silent, survive—
Henri stood up with rage. The corporal didn't flinch. His pistol came up, steady and casual, and fired once.
The sound was impossibly loud in the small room.
Henri stopped. The knife clattered to the floor. He looked down at the dark flower blooming on his chest, then up at Marie, his mouth working soundlessly. He tried to take a step toward her, toward his family, but his legs betrayed him. He collapsed, face-first, body twitching once, twice, then still.
Marie's scream was wordless, endless, the sound of a soul being torn in half.
The corporal stepped over Henri's body without looking down, boots leaving prints in the spreading blood. His eyes found Marie, cowering by the hearth, and his smile was the worst thing William had ever seen.
They found the girl in the loft. Sixteen, maybe seventeen, with her mother's dark hair and her father's desperate eyes. They dragged her down by her ankles, her nightgown tearing, her screams joining the symphony of horror that filled the village.
"Please," she begged. "Please, I'm only—"
"Only?" The corporal laughed, unbuckling his belt. "You're perfect."
The other soldiers held her arms. The corporal reached for her—
William moved.
He didn't think. There was no thought, only the red haze of rage and the memory of his father's voice: Protect the innocent, Will. Always.
The hammer was on the floor, fallen from Henri's repair work days ago. William's hand closed around it, heavy and familiar, and he swung with everything he had.
Crack.
The sound was wrong. Not the wet crunch of skull, but the sharp ring of metal on metal. The corporal staggered, turned, his helmet dented but his head intact. His eyes found William, and the surprise in them lasted exactly one second before transforming to fury.
"You little bastard."
The rifle came around, the stock catching William across the temple. He fell, vision exploding with stars, the hammer spinning away into darkness. The corporal stood over him, breathing hard, and then his boot came down—
On the wound.
Pressure. Grinding, twisting pressure, reopening the bullet hole, pressing bone against torn muscle. William screamed, the sound tearing his throat raw, echoing off the walls.
The girl's voice came screaming. "Run! Please—"
The corporal raised his rifle, aiming for William's head. "Should have stayed hidden, boy."
The door burst open.
Not soldiers—something else. A figure in black, face covered by a cloth mask, moving faster than seemed possible. A knife flashed, and one of the German soldiers collapsed, throat opened. Another flash, and the man holding the girl screamed, clutching his wrist.
The corporal turned, firing, but the figure was already moving, rolling, coming up behind him. A chokehold, efficient and brutal, and the corporal dropped.
Silence.
The figure turned to William. In the chaos, the mask had slipped, revealing eyes—brown, familiar, impossible—and a scar above the left eyebrow.
"Who—" William gasped.
"Quiet." The voice was rough, disguised, genderless. "Can you walk?"
"I... I think—"
"Then walk. Now."
The figure pulled William to his feet, half-carrying him toward the back door. Through the window, William saw more gray uniforms approaching—dozens of them, torchlight bouncing off rifles.
"Wait, the family—"
"Dead if you stay." The figure shoved him through the doorway into cold night air. "Run. To the cave. Northwest, follow the stream. The frequency is stable there—you can get back."
"Back where? Who are you?"
But the mask was up again, and the figure was already turning, drawing a second knife from their belt, preparing to face the soldiers alone.
"Go!" The command cracked like a whip. "And William—"
He froze. The figure knew his name.
"—don't trust the device. It lies about the numbers. The safehold isn't five. It was never five."
Then the door slammed, and William was alone in the burning village, bleeding, limping, running toward a cave that might not exist in any time he understood.
Behind him, gunfire. Screams. And somewhere in the chaos, a whisper that might have been his name, spoken by a voice that might have been his father's, or might have been nothing at all.