The garden behind Lady Danbury's townhouse smelled of damp earth and late-blooming roses. You sat on a wrought-iron bench that was probably older than your entire bloodline, knees drawn up under the borrowed muslin day dress they'd forced you into weeks ago—soft, too soft, whispering against your thighs like it was trying to apologize for not being tactical pants and combat boots.

Your fingers worried the edge of a small leather-bound notebook you'd scavenged from some obliging footman. Pages already filled with frantic scribbles: electromagnetic anomalies, wormhole theories cribbed from half-remembered PBS documentaries, wild guesses about temporal displacement that sounded insane even to you.

Prince Friedrich appeared at the end of the path like he'd been summoned by the narrative itself. Tall, shoulders broad under dark blue superfine, hair the color of pale wheat caught in sunlight. His cravat was immaculate, as always; you suspected he had a valet follow him around with a spare just in case one crease dared to form. He carried that gentle, almost boyish smile that made your stomach perform an unauthorized somersault every damn time.

"You are hiding again," he said, voice warm, lightly accented. Not mocking. Just... delighted, like finding you was the best part of his day.

You snapped the notebook shut. "I'm not hiding. I'm... researching."

"Ah. Research." He came closer to you. "And does your research require such seclusion? Or is it merely an excuse to avoid my tiresome company?"

You snorted despite yourself. "Tiresome? You're the one who keeps materializing like a Victorian jump-scare. I turn around and boom—prince at six o'clock."

His brow lifted, amused. "Six o'clock?"

"Modern military time. Means directly behind me. Or in your case, directly in my personal space."

He stopped a respectful three feet away. He clasped his hands behind his back, the picture of princely restraint, but his eyes... his eyes betrayed him. Bright. Fixed on you like you were the only interesting thing in a world full of predictable debutantes and political chess.

"I find your 'personal space' most intriguing," he said softly. "In Prussia we have no such custom. Or perhaps we do, and I have simply never wished to honor it before."

Heat crawled up your neck. You stood abruptly, brushing imaginary lint from your skirts. "Look, Your Highness—"

"Friedrich," he corrected, gentle but firm. Always gentle.

"Friedrich." The name felt too intimate on your tongue, like borrowing someone else's lipstick. "I need to focus. There's a chance—a real, mathematical chance—that if I can just replicate the conditions of... whatever the hell dropped me here..." You gestured vaguely at the sky. "I could go home."

His smile faltered, just a flicker. Then it returned, softer. "Home."

"Yes. Home. Where there are antibiotics, Netflix, indoor plumbing that doesn't require servants, and zero expectation that I curtsy every five minutes."

He stepped closer. The gravel sighed under his boots. "And yet you remain."

"Because I'm stuck," you said, sharper than intended. Panic lived in your throat these days, like low-grade heartburn. "Not because I want to play Regency Barbie."

He tilted his head, studying you. The way he looked at you sometimes made your skin feel too tight. "You were wearing trousers the first time I saw you," he murmured, almost wistful. "And boots. Your hair was... practical." A small laugh escaped him. "I thought perhaps the heavens had sent a soldier disguised as a lady. Or a lady disguised as a soldier. Either way, I was... enchanted."

You remembered that night. The music, feathers and fans frozen mid-flutter, two dozen powdered faces turning toward the center of the floor where you'd landed ass-first. And him—standing near Queen Charlotte's dais, staring at you not with alarm but with something dangerously close to wonder.

"I'm not staying," you said. "I can't. This isn't my world."

Friedrich reached out and brushed a stray curl from your cheek. His fingers lingered a heartbeat too long. "Perhaps it could be," he said.