Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) Read Online Free PDF

“How is this your identity?”
    “Actually, if that works, it’s money.” I took back the card. “It could allow us to stay here until Llywelyn gets well, depending on what all this costs.”
    “And if it doesn’t work?”
    “Then we’ll start selling everything we own.”
    I stewed briefly about the ethical issue of running up charges on a card I would (probably) never pay back, and then put it aside. The first thing was for Llywelyn to live. I’d mail the credit card company a gold coin in payment if I had to.
    I also decided I wouldn’t mention how low my expectations were that the spa would accept my credit card. I’d been in Wales for four years. My sister could have—should have—cancelled the card as soon as I disappeared. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought to mention or ask her in the years between my disappearances. I’d tried to tell her about my life in medieval Wales, and about Llywelyn, so many times . She’d always cut me off, never wanting to talk about him. Still, David’s opinion was that part of her had always believed me—and certainly she’d believed me enough not to want any of us declared dead.
    The moment I thought of Elisa, I felt a sharp punch to the gut. I honestly had no idea what kind of reception she would give me when I called her and told her I was here, in the twenty-first century, once again. But I had to call her, no matter how upset it made her.
    David had related what had happened when he’d gone to her house. At first, Elisa had disbelieved who he was and that he could have been living in medieval Wales. Would she believe it was I on the phone, or simply hang up on me? Three years had passed since she’d seen David: a long time. While I’d had no way to contact her, humans weren’t always rational beings. Could she forgive me for my silence?
    At the very least, Elisa had to feel that I’d abandoned her. Certainly, David had made it clear when he left with Ieuan and Bronwen that I was happy in the Middle Ages and had no intention of returning to the modern world if I could help it. If it had been she who had told me that, how would it have made me feel? I had effectively chosen never to see her again.
    Goronwy thumbed through the cash and then set it down on my lap in a deliberate motion such that his forefinger rested on the pile for a second longer than it had to. “You really did plan ahead.”
    He didn’t speak the sentence as a question, but it was one. He was looking for answers. He had been the one to urge us to the top of that wall, but he could see now that I’d not told him everything I was thinking. “I wasn’t planning for this, Goronwy, at least not specifically. I certainly hadn’t planned on coming here today.”
    I looked up at him once and then down to my boots. Goronwy and I were friends, close friends, but Llywelyn had always been a part of our friendship. Goronwy and I had leagued together at times—most recently, in trying to get Llywelyn to consent to David’s marriage to Lili—but we’d never gone anywhere together, or hung out as friends. Sitting with him here felt more intimate than he and I had ever been. It wasn’t in a sexual way, but I found myself revealed to him. I’d never felt this way with any man but Llywelyn.
    “I sewed my cards and my passport into this dress when I discovered I was pregnant,” I said.
    “Ah,” Goronwy said. “You returned to this time at Dafydd’s birth. You were afraid that it might happen again?”
    I nodded.
    “For good reason, I suppose,” he said. “One would think that childbirth was difficult enough without adding time travel to it.”
    “It was twenty years ago to the day that I returned to this world the first time,” I said. “That fact sends chills down my spine.”
    Goronwy massaged the back of his neck and stared at the floor. “I’ve never been comfortable with magic.”
    “And you think I am?” I said. “It’s crazy! The whole thing is crazy.”
    “You’ve