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She went into her leather pouch, hoping that the phone battery still wasn’t dead. “And this.” She retrieved her phone, switched it on, and showed it to him. Still 2 percent battery. The colorful wallpaper on her home screen glowed, looking foreign and strange in the medieval setting around her. He stared at it with wide eyes and a deep frown, like she were holding a devil’s spawn in her hand, but he didn’t step back.

He squinted and looked closer, then shifted and studied it from different angles.

“What the devil?” he said.

“It’s a smartphone, you can call people with it and talk with them from long distances. Also, you can take photos.” She opened the photo gallery and showed him the picture of Bruce’s letter. She zoomed in, and Angus’s nostrils flared as he watched her. He clearly looked like he wanted to run away, but, as a battle-clad warrior, he stood and faced his fear.

“I took a picture of the letter because it doesn’t exist in the future. And it proves my hypothesis—I mean, my mother’s hypothesis—that Bruce was ready to give up when he was defeated in 1306. Only she couldn’t prove it. And without this, I can’t prove it, either.”

“Prove it? To whom?”

“To the world. I study history and analyze it, and well, I’m writing a book on Robert the Bruce and want to defend it to get a doctoral degree… It doesn’t matter. The point is, if I show this letter in 2021, I have a chance to have a good career in science. My brother, who is seventeen, can move in with me and I can support him. Right now, he lives with our aunt and uncle. They’re good people, but they don’t really want him there, as they have five kids of their own. So…this letter will help me prove my mom’s hypothesis. And that would be how I honor her legacy. You know?”

He didn’t. He stared at her as though he had a toothache.

“’Tis the biggest pile of horseshite I’ve ever heard,” he boomed.

Oh, dang. Of course he wouldn’t believe her. But she could still show him one more trick, which would, perhaps, tip the scale to her side. “Wait! Look!” she said and opened the camera app. In the darkness, she had to switch on the flash, and Angus roared and retrieved a dagger and pointed it at her. Her vision went blank, too, from the power of the flash.

“Ye blinded me, witch!” he growled.

But she managed to snap a picture of him and turned the phone around, showing him the screen. “Look!” she said. “It’s you, do you see?”

The photo was a little blurry from the movement he’d made, but it was still clearly him. His black hair shone with white from the flash, the blade of his dagger blinding. His face was a grimace of battle rage, his teeth bared and white against his black beard.

He was still pointing the dagger at her through the grating of the cage. He was panting and studying the photo with round eyes.

Then, suddenly, the screen went black. Without the artificial light, it was dark in the dungeon. Rogene saw stars from the flash.

“Darn,” she said, staring at the useless phone. “The battery died.”

He brought the dagger closer to her. “Who died?”

She chuckled. “Not who. What. The battery. The energy source that feeds the phone with the ability to show the pictures and to take them. That’s what we have in the future—electricity that makes it all possible.”

He shook his head. “I dinna ken what this is, Lady Rogene, and I dinna believe ye.”

He put the dagger back in place. “And if I dinna believe ye, ye’re in big trouble, because no one else will. I need to think what to do with ye, but ken this. Ye just lost the one person that was on yer side.”

He walked out of the dungeon, leaving her alone, shivering, and hurt. Because although she was terrified to think what Angus would do to her now, even worse was knowing she had lost his trust.

Because, somehow, the trust and appreciation of this kind, strong man had started to feel like a greater treasure than any lost letter or proof of her thesis could be.

Chapter 16

The next day…

“And what makes ye think ’tis a good idea that I come to yer wedding, brother?” Raghnall asked.

The bright sun was warm on Angus’s shoulders, the dirt dry under his feet as he walked through Dornie at his brother’s side. He wanted to check on Father Nicholas and see if he was doing any better. It was also an opportunity to see Raghnall and, perhaps, to stop thinking of the beautiful prisoner he’d put in the dungeon yesterday.

“Because ye’re my brother,” Angus said.

Raghnall scoffed. “But nae part of clan.”

“Ye are, as far as I’m concerned. When will ye go and talk to Laomann?”

Raghnall shrugged. “After yer wedding, I reckon.”