“That is . . .” Rosalind blinks back tears, touching her pregnant belly. “I do not have the words.”

“It is unbelievably horrific,” Bronwyn says. “I am so sorry, Dr. Dupuis.”

“Nico, please.”

“I am sorry for your loss. I am only glad that you and Miranda can put his spirit to rest. We will do whatever we can to help. I don’t think we can travel back to your time, though. I’m still not sure how Miranda got there.”

“Providence,” Nicolas says with a smile. “She arrived in time to warn me. Just as you passed through to meet Lord Thorne. The stitch, as you call it, sends people where they need to be.”

Bronwyn glances quickly at Rosalind. “Not in every case.”

“My sister went through accidentally,” I say. “She was trapped in the twenty-first century for four years. We thought she’d perished.”

“Oh.” Nicolas sits upright. “I apologize, Lady Courtenay.”

“It’s Rosalind, please. While my stay in the twenty-first century was involuntary, I did enjoy their much more relaxed social protocols.”

“Which were also more relaxed in the eighteenth century,” I say. “I think the current social constraints are all ours.”

“Speaking as the Victorian historian, they are mostly yours,” Bronwyn says. “Even Georgian England wasn’t quite so . . . uptight. As for the stitch, I am starting to believe it is different things to different people. For me, it was a door to William, even when we were children. For you, Miranda, it was a door to warn Nicolas of an ambush and then to return here before you were both captured. For Rosalind, it was”—she shrugs—“an accident. A twist of fate. But it has righted the error and allows her family to pass freely. The point is that while I don’t think we can help you directly, Miranda, we can play armchair detective.”

“Bronwyn has solved a few murders herself,” Rosalind says. “She freed ghosts haunting Thorne Manor.”

“And Rosalind helped a ghost at Courtenay Hall,” Bronwyn says. “So we are more than happy to offer our services, putting all our heads together to solve this particular murder. You said you found papers in this Norrington’s office?”

“Yes,” I say. “But we left them in the nineteenth century.”

“Non, crécerelle,” Nicolas says. “I grabbed the satchel before I passed through. It is upstairs.”

“Crécerelle?” Bronwyn says, her lips twitching. “That means kestrel, doesn’t it?”

I roll my eyes. “He thinks it suits me.”

Bronwyn turns to Rosalind. “It’s a small North American hawk. A force to be reckoned with, despite its small size. Seems fitting, I think.”

Rosalind grumbles under her breath.

“I will bring the satchel,” Nicolas says. “While staying far from that time stitch.”

Nicolas retrieves the satchel, and we divide up the papers we took from Norrington’s safe. In them, we find mostly important business documents that do not aid our cause at all. Legitimate business documents. We also find a small stack of what Bronwyn calls “blackmail-worthy” documents. Proof that Norrington knows he is imposing undue regulations on the people of Hood’s Bay in an attempt to control the sea trade there. More specifically, he wants to control the harbor itself and turn it into a rival for Whitby. To do that, he must force the fishermen out, as they are using docks. He must also put small rival trading firms out of business.