The Archbishop's departure left the manor in a state of exhausted silence. The banners had been taken down, the extra trestle tables cleared, and the "miracle" of the steam engine was now officially a secret of the Church—or so Anselm believed.
Thomas sat in the solar, the dead phone resting on the desk before him. He had been back at the "origin point" for six hours. He watched the black glass with the intensity of a man waiting for a pulse.
Suddenly, the screen flickered. A faint, white apple logo appeared, followed by the familiar glow of the lock screen.
Battery: 1%... 2%...
A long, shuddering breath escaped his lungs. It was charging. The "home" resonance was feeding the device, the invisible bridge between 2026 and 1125 humming back to life. As the percentage ticked upward, a flurry of notifications cascaded down the screen—ghosts of the week he had spent in the darkness of the south.
Mom: Sent a video. Mom: Thomas? Your sister said you missed her call on her birthday. Everything okay? Sarah: Just saw a sunset that looked like that painting in your hallway. Thinking of you.
Thomas tapped the video from his mother. He held the phone with trembling fingers, the blue light reflecting in eyes that had grown accustomed to firelight and tallow.
The video played. It was his mother, sitting on the back porch of the house he grew up in. The sound of a lawnmower buzzed in the distance—a sound so mundane it felt like a symphony. She was holding a glass of iced tea, her face lined with the soft worry he knew so well.
"Hey, honey. Just sitting out here enjoying the evening. The fireflies are just starting to come out. I was thinking about how much you loved catching them in jars when you were little. Remember? You used to call them 'bottled stars.' Anyway, call me when you get a chance. Love you."
The video ended. Thomas stared at the frozen frame of her smile.
"Bottled stars," he whispered.
He looked out the window at the village below. He saw the glow of the gas lamps—Wat's "Captured Stars." He realized he had subconsciously recreated his childhood wonder to light a medieval valley. He was building his mother's porch, bit by bit, in the mud of the past.
Victoria entered the room, carrying a tray of bread and wine. She saw the glow in his hand and stopped. She didn't approach; she knew the look on his face. It was the look of a man who was home, yet forever homeless.
"They are there, aren't they?" she asked softly.
"My mother," Thomas said, his voice thick. "She's talking about the lights. About catching fireflies."
Victoria walked over and looked at the small, glowing square. She saw the woman in the video—the strange, modern clothes, the short hair, the unmistakable warmth in her eyes.
"She looks like you," Victoria remarked. "The way she holds her head when she smiles."
"She's worried," Thomas said. "She thinks I'm just... away. She doesn't know that every time I build a better furnace or print a new book, I might be making it so she never exists."
"Or," Victoria said, resting a hand on his shoulder, "you are making sure that when she does exist, her world is even brighter. Perhaps you aren't erasing her, Thomas. Perhaps you are the reason she becomes the woman she is."
It was a circular, impossible logic, but it was the only comfort he had. He tapped out a reply, his heart aching with the weight of the lies he had to tell to keep her heart from breaking.
Thomas: Sorry Mom, the project is just really intense. No signal most of the day. I remember the fireflies. I'm actually working on some lighting for the site right now—think you'd like it. Love you.
He hit send. He watched the status bar. Sent.
He looked at the battery: 15%. The charge was slow, agonizingly so, but it was there. He realized he was like the phone—he could only venture so far into the world before he started to fade. He needed this room, this woman, and these messages to keep his own internal battery from hitting zero.
"Wat is waiting in the forge," Victoria said, sensing he needed to move, to act. "The Archbishop's scholars took the drawings for the bronze valves, but Wat hid the crucible for the new iron-steel alloy. He says the 'Iron Heart' needs a stronger beat if it's going to drive the looms."
Thomas wiped his eyes and stood up. He tucked the phone into his tunic, feeling the warmth of the charge against his skin.
"The Archbishop wants a heart of iron," Thomas said, his voice regaining its steel. "But we're going to give this valley a soul of steel. If we can't go back to their world, Victoria, we'll make this one so beautiful they'd want to stay."
He walked toward the door, but paused at the threshold. He looked back at the desk, at the spot where the light had just been.
"Victoria?"
"Yes, Thomas?"
"Make sure the children in the schoolhouse learn about the fireflies. Tell them they aren't magic. Tell them they're just... bottled stars."
He descended the stairs toward the forge, the rhythmic clack-clack of the weaving looms in the distance sounding, for the first time, like the ticking of a clock he intended to wind for a thousand years.