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“Okay. Here goes. Based on everything I have seen since yesterday, I think I probably came from the future.”

Andor blinked. Out of all explanations that he could possibly imagine, he had never thought he would hear this one.

Seeing his face, Cathy hurried on. “Or maybe from an alternate reality.”

No. This was the most insane explanation.

Indeed, he was in the hands of a madwoman. A pretty one. But a mad one.

And the sooner he left her company the better.

But being powerless and injured, there was little he could do to protect himself—against her or even English monks. Truthfully, he needed her right now, just until he could stand on his feet again. He needed to pretend he believed her until she got him out of here alive. Then he would make her take him to wherever she’d hidden Dragon’s Trouble. After that, he’d leave her and head back to York, to Ubba—

No. Andor’s mind went blank.

Ubba was dead.

His commander had fallen. Andor closed his eyes briefly, his lungs tightening, something cold and nasty slithering in his gut.

What now?

If he had a home—

But he did not. No reason to dwell on things he had no intention of changing.

He would go to York and find his men and would fight for the second strongest leader in the Anglo-Saxon lands, Guthrum.

Anything to forget the sucking, heavy darkness that enveloped him every time even a small echo of a thought about Svana and home crept through his mind.

He looked at Cathy, who was staring at him with raised brows.

“Say something. What do you think?” she said.

He cleared his throat. “I think I believe you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Really? Even I don’t really believe me. I keep trying to think of another explanation, but so far these two are the best ones I’ve got.”

“What happened before you”— he coughed—“traveled in time…or to this world.”

“Well, I got some bad news yesterday morning,” she said, her voice breaking. “And I went to the beach because I wanted to connect to Brad. I went surfing, well not really, just took my surfboard and paddled into the ocean.”

Andor nodded as though he understood what she meant. He had no idea what a surfboard was. He imagined some sort of a boat.

“There was this strange old lady.” Cathy stood up and began walking around the room again, seeming agitated. “It was so bizarre, you know? It was as if she appeared out of nowhere. We began talking, and she said something about not being able to help Brad. But that I’d need to help a Viking. And then she gave me a golden spindle.”

Andor cocked his head. Golden spindle? Norns had golden spindles. But what wouldn’t Loki whisper to a mad person?

“I was so stupid to touch it. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Then something happened to my body, as if I was being washed into somewhere, as though a wave grasped me and took me with it. But not just physically. Metaphysically. You know?”

He did not. But he nodded.

She nodded, too. “Okay. And then next thing I knew, I was standing on that beach, between you guys and those guys. And then…well, you know the rest.”

She stopped walking and looked at him, picking her nails. “I thought at first I was on drugs. Then I figured maybe it was some sort of an alternate reality. But your wounds are real. So are the swords and the walls. And this seems like the same world I came from, but far in the past. There really is no electricity, no cars—no nothing! What else can this be but time travel? What do you think?”

Andor growled. She kept asking him what he thought, expecting him to help her. He did not want to help her. He did not want anything to do with her except for using her to get out of here alive.

“What do I think?” he asked, rage boiling in his weak body. “I think that Loki stole your mind. I think that I want you to leave me alone. And I think that I condemn every minute spent with the woman who was the reason my people lost, my commander is dead, and I lie helpless among enemies. I think I want nothing to do with you.”