Their first task? Find the missing pages of Ashmole 782. Their real task? Survive each other. Matthew’s protective fury clashes with Diana’s stubborn humanity. “You cannot cage me in this century,” she snaps, as he tries to leave her behind.

Diana Bishop gasps awake, not in her Oxford bed, but on a straw pallet. The scent of woodsmoke and tallow replaces her familiar lavender. Matthew de Clermont stands by the hearth, his vampire stillness sharper here in the past—more predator than professor.

“You’re not just any witch,” he murmurs.

But when a witch’s hex boils the water in her cup, Diana lights a fire with no flint—raw, instinctual, and terrifyingly powerful. Matthew watches, not with fear, but awe.