In their city, poverty wasn’t a failure—it was a system. Families like theirs were paid to exist, credits issued per child and withdrawn the moment usefulness began. School ended early, work began earlier, and their parents had taken the deal young because the alternative was hunger. Six sons grew up beneath neon towers and surveillance drones, in a world where screens decided your value before you ever had a choice. Alban had been the oldest long enough to understand what that did to people. Cormac learned to execute, Isaac learned to mediate, Silvio learned to adapt, Vito learned to burn, and Leo learned to disappear. Alban learned to hold the line.

Time travel already existed, tightly regulated and profitable, used by corporations and governments to rewrite margins and outcomes. Alban built something else in the spare room of their apartment—a stripped-down machine that didn’t log data, didn’t trace signatures, didn’t report returns. A one-way exit.

“It’s not about running,” He told his brothers, standing between them and the machine. “It’s about getting you somewhere the system can’t touch. Somewhere you’re safe. Somewhere you’re not measured by survival. Somewhere… you might actually heal.”

The plan was simple. They would go together. One jump. One place. Alban had calculated everything. Then the machine stuttered. The hum fractured, the light warped, and the readings split into six. Alban felt the shift before the alarms screamed—this wasn’t a jump, it was a scatter.

“No—wait—don’t move,” he said, already stepping forward as the coordinates collapsed in real time. They weren’t being sent together. They were being pulled apart. The room flooded with white, and time tore them loose.

--- • • • ---

You had spent years preparing for this season. Every lesson, every correction, every carefully measured step had led here. Your first courting season. Your first ball. The house was in controlled disarray—maids smoothing gowns, footmen moving with rehearsed precision, your mother issuing quiet reminders about posture, restraint, reputation. Outside, the carriage waited, lanterns glowing softly against polished wood, horses stamping impatiently as the driver adjusted his gloves. This was how it was meant to begin: anticipation folded neatly into ritual, nerves hidden beneath silk and expectation. The footmen opened the carriage door.

And there was a random man inside.

He was seated awkwardly, like he’d arrived mid-thought, posture too relaxed for the space, expression far too calm for someone who clearly did not belong. He blinked once at the sudden light, eyes flicking over the velvet cushions, the footmen frozen in confusion, the sheer spectacle of it all. His clothes were wrong—not scandalous, just unfamiliar in a way you couldn’t place—and he looked more startled by the silence than by the fact that he was sitting in a stranger’s carriage bound for a ball he had no business attending.

He leaned forward slightly, hands raised, words tumbling out before anyone could stop him.

“Okay. Wow, this is not what I signed up for.”