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Then returned. I went with them that second time. And then we knew we had to try a third trip—to try to save you.”
    “You came back for me,” he said, his tone numb. “And it worked.”
    “Yes. But what I don’t know is if we can ever go back now,” Mom said. “We’ve seen that we’re modifying history by being here. Castello Forelli—in our own time, it was in ruins. But when we returned for you, it was whole, a tourist attraction. So…buildings can be saved. History can be changed to some extent. But a life, once gone…Can that be changed too?”
    “We could go back, to right before…” He couldn’t seem to make himself say it. “Not even come to Tuscany that Christmas.”
    “If we can get to that year,” I said. “There’s a fair amount of luck involved.”
    “Or is your time done then, regardless of where you are?” Mom asked. “Will you meet some accident on a Colorado highway instead of a Tuscan road?”
    “But the same logic could be applied here, Adri. If my time is up, then will I die here? Some arrow find my gut? A knight cut me down?”
    I shuddered. “I hope not. But don’t you think…Dad, we think we might have a better chance here, in this time, to see you live . Don’t you see? We’ll never have to face that horrible day in our lifetimes. Not if we’re here in the fourteenth century.”
    He studied me, then Mom. “So, then, we just give up our lives as we know it? Everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish, gain?”
    “Would that be so terrible?” Mom asked in a whisper, reaching out to touch his thigh. “Benedetto…” she whispered, “you don’t know what it was like, seeing you dead.” She swallowed hard. “Living life without you. Pushing forward, knowing my best friend was gone forever.” Her big eyes grew teary, and Dad wrapped a hand around the back of her neck. “This place, Ben, that time tunnel has given us a second chance. Maybe we’re meant to be here, all together. Meant to discover life anew, as a family.”
    “I wasn’t convinced at all either, Dad,” Lia said, rejoining us. “But trust me, this place, this time, grows on you.”
    I smiled at her, then nodded in the direction she’d just walked from. “What’d you see?”
    “We’re about a quarter mile from the Gianninis’,” she said, pointing northward. “Let’s stay to the woods, though. There are Fiorentini patrols on the road.”

     
    We waited until it got darker before we dared leave the woods and head down to the Giannini cottage. I remembered the last time we had been there, when Signore Giannini had returned home so ill with the plague. I wondered again if they were all dead and gone by now. Or had he recovered, as Luca had, before any of the rest got it?
    As the rain began to fall, we hurried down the back path, and I knocked on the door. Lia stood behind me, arrow drawn but hidden, in case an enemy answered.
    Signore Giannini came to the door, and I took a breath of awe and relief. Friends, at last.
    “M’ladies,” he said with a gasp, looking as though he was going to pass out at the sight of me and Lia. His eyes moved beyond us, to our parents. “Entrate, sbrigatevi,” he added, drawing us in. Come in, quickly . He stared toward the empty road for a long moment before closing the door. “What are you doing here? It is not safe!”
    Inside, Signora Giannini immediately set to bustling around us, handing us lengths of cloth to dry our hair, sending children to the fire to fetch us cups of warm stew. I introduced my father to the family, noting that the kids looked like they’d grown an inch or two. Had it been a year? Three?
    “We have been away since the great battle,” I said. “We escaped and went home for a time and came back to find Firenze had retaken these lands. Our friends at Castello Forelli are long gone. Pray, tell us what has transpired.”
    “Why did you not go directly to Siena?” he pressed with a grumble, as the children gave us our mugs of