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Konnor nodded. The boy needed a distraction, and maybe even cheering up.

“Hey, buddy, do you want to learn a game?”

His eyes lit up. “A game?”

“It’s called soccer.”

“Soccer?”

“Yeah. It’s a game where I come from.”

His eyes burned with curiosity. “A game?”

Konnor glanced at Marjorie. Somehow, having her near made him feel less awkward with the boy. Plus, talking soccer was something he was comfortable with.

“’Tis all right,” she said. “He isna allowed to go outside the castle normally, but ye’re here, and I’m here, and my men are building the stakes nearby, so I think ‘tis safe. Ye can show him.”

Konnor chuckled. “All right. Look, Colin, soccer is normally a game for two teams of eleven people. But even two people can play. Even one sometimes. We do need a ball for it. But sometimes all a man needs is a hazelnut bunch.”

Konnor looked at Marjorie. “Would you like to play?”

She giggled. “Me?”

“Sure. If you want.”

“I’d like to learn games from the future.” Her eyes sparkled.

Colin looked at him with wide eyes. “From the future?”

Marjorie bit her lip. “I shouldna have said anything, should I?” She sighed. “Colin, son, ye must keep this a secret, aye?”

Colin nodded. “I swear on my life, Mother.”

Marjorie sank down to kneel in front of him. She took his hands in hers, and Konnor’s gut twisted in memory. How many times had his mom sunk to her knees to be at the same eye level with him as a kid when she’d wanted to calm him down or say something important, to make him feel like she understood him. But usually it was to feed him one illusion after another. “Jerry will change. It will be over soon. We just need to let him heal and come back to his senses. He’ll stop, we just need to be patient. He’s unwell.”

“Konnor is a time traveler,” she said. “He was sent here by a Highland faerie.”

“Sìneag,” Konnor said without thinking.

Colin’s eyebrows lifted into the thick bangs on his forehead. “A Highland faerie?”

“Yeah,” Konnor mumbled. “I was born—or will be born—almost seven hundred years in the future.”

“Seven hundred?” Colin repeated with an expression of wonder.

Konnor wondered how his young brain would’ve reacted to meeting someone born in 2700. He’d have loved the idea of something like that when he was Colin’s age.

“Yeah,” Konnor repeated like an idiot.

The boy’s gaze scanned him up and down, and he felt uncomfortable.

“Mother, are ye certain?” he said. “I ken that faeries dinna exist.”

“Apparently, they do,” she said. “What do ye think about that?”

“I think… I think I’d like to see the future. What are swords made of, Konnor? Are castles made of gold? Or glass? Does King Robert the Bruce win?”

Konnor chuckled. “Yeah, the Bruce does win the war. And some castle are made of glass, though they do look quite different. Some are taller than that tree.” He pointed at the tallest tree in the nearby grove—a pine. Gold is still very valuable.”