Was that when she’d begun playing things safe? Because she’d felt like a turtle without a shell, fragile and exposed, unwilling to love and lose again? Oh, she’d not decided such a thing consciously, but she’d gone back to college and buried herself in a double major, then a master’s. Without even thinking, she’d kept herself too busy to get involved.

She blinked. The grief was still raw, as if she’d never faced it, only pushed it into a dark corner, blocking it. It occurred to her that maybe a person couldn’t shut out one emotion, such as grief, without losing touch with all of them. By shutting out pain, refusing to face it, had she missed innumerable chances to love?

Chloe glanced at Gwen searchingly. “It sounds like you’re encouraging me.”

“I am. He’s going to ask something of you. The mere fact that he’s going to ask it speaks more than any words could, of how he feels about you.”

“What is he going to ask me?”

“You’ll know soon enough.” Gwen paused and sighed heavily, as if she were having a heated internal debate with herself. Then she said, “Chloe, Drustan and Dageus come from a world that’s hard for girls like us to understand. A world that—though it may initially seem impossible—is firmly grounded in reality. Just because science can’t explain something, doesn’t make it any less real. I’m a scientist and I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen things that defy my understanding of physics. They’re good men. The best. Keep an open mind and heart, because I can tell you one thing for sure: when these Keltars love, they love completely and forever.”

“You’re freaking me out,” Chloe said uneasily.

“You haven’t begun to be freaked out. One question, just between you and me, and don’t lie to me: Do you want him?”

She stared at Gwen in silence for a long moment. “Is this really just between you and me?”

Gwen nodded.

“I have since the moment I met him,” she admitted simply. “And it doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. I’m all possessive about him, and I have no right to be. It’s crazy. I’ve never felt anything like this before. I can’t even reason with it,” she said, frustration underscoring her words.

Gwen’s smile was radiant. “Oh, Chloe, the only time reason fails is when we’re trying to convince our minds of something our heart knows isn’t true. Stop trying. Listen with your heart.”

“I doona like this,” Drustan growled at Dageus.

“Did you give Gwen a choice?” Dageus countered, as he finished etching the second-to-last formula on the central slab. He need but etch the final one to open the bridge through time. He and Drustan had agreed that he should return to six months after last he’d been there, to avoid his past self, and in hopes that Silvan may have discovered something useful in the interim. “Chloe’s a strong lass, Drustan. She held the point of my own sword at my chest. She fought off her attacker valiantly. She chose to come to Scotland with me. Though sometimes she hesitates, she fears nothing. And she’s smart, she speaks many languages, she knows the old myths, and she loves artifacts. I’m about to take her to them. If for naught else, she’ll forgive me for that,” he added, dryly.

Och, aye, she would. He could put texts in her hands that would make her weep with the joy of a true bibliophile and guardian of relics. They shared that: Her chosen profession was to preserve the old things, and she hadn’t been satisfied with merely preserving, she’d studied it all, much as he had in his role as Keltar Druid.

“Gwen knew what I was.”

“But she didn’t believe you,” Dageus reminded. “She thought you were mad.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. If you’d haud yer wheesht a moment, you’d hear that I intend to give her a choice.”

“You do?”

“I’m no’ entirely without scruples,” was his mocking reply.

“You’re going to tell her?”

Dageus shrugged. “I said I’d give her a choice.”

“The honorable thing would be to tell her—”

Dageus’s head whipped up and his eyes sparked dangerously. “I doona have time to tell her!” he hissed. “I doona have time to try to convince her, or help her understand!”

Silvery gaze warred with copper.

“You do realize that once you take her through, she’s going to know that you’re a Druid, Dageus. You’ll no longer be able to pretend you’re naught but a man.”