“Cyrus Crombie?” she said. “Why? Da isn’t conscripting him into his gang, is he?”

“I believe ‘partisan band’ is the proper term,” Roger said primly. “And no. Hiram asked Jamie to take the boy on and teach him to fight—with a gun and dirk, that is. He said if it was a matter of fists, any fisherman could lay a landsman out like a flatfish without half trying—and he’s probably right—but none of the Thurso folk had ever even held a gun before coming here, and most of them still haven’t. They fish, and snare, and trade for meat.”

“Mm. Do you think Hiram made him, or was it Cyrus’s own idea?”

“The latter. He’s courting Frances—in his own inimitable way—but he knows he hasn’t a chance unless your da thinks he’ll make her a good husband. So he means to prove his mettle.”

“How old is he?” Brianna asked, a note of concern in her voice.

“Sixteen, I think,” Roger said. “Old enough to fight, so far as that goes.”

“So far as that goes,” she muttered, huffing a little under her breath, and he knew why.

“Jemmy won’t be old enough to ride with them before the war’s over,” he assured her. “No matter how good he is with a gun.”

“Great. So he can stay and guard the ramparts here with me, Rachel, and Aunt Jenny and the Sachem, while the partisan band—and Mama, because she won’t let Da go alone—and probably you—go roaming the countryside, getting their asses shot off.”

“As you were saying about your physics class …?”

“Oh.” She paused to regather her thoughts, a small soft frown between her brows. “Well. You know all about atoms and electrons and that sort of thing?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, there are smaller things than that—subatomic particles—but nobody knows how many or exactly how they work. But while we were hearing about that in class, the instructor said something about how everything—everything in the universe and probably even if there’s more than one universe—everything is made of stardust. People, plants, planets … and stars, I suppose.

“‘Stardust’ not being a scientific term,” she added, just in case he’d thought it was. “Just that everything is composed of the same infinitesimal bits of matter.”

“Yes?”

“So what I’m thinking is … maybe that’s what happens when someone steps through a time place. I’m almost sure that it’s an electromagnetic phenomenon of some kind, because of the ley lines.”

“Ley lines?” He was surprised. “I wouldn’t think you’d be running into those in a physics class.”

She rolled a little, in order to look up at him. Her breath tickled the hairs on his chest and warmed his neck as she talked. She’d grown warm with talking; he could feel the vibration of words through her back as she spoke. It was curiously arousing.

“‘Ley line’ is kind of an informal term, but … you know that the earth’s crust is magnetic, right?”