Chapter 1

My sister, Beatrice, they called her Bea, was holding court again.

Her voice, a little too loud for Mrs. Astor' s ballroom, cut through the polite murmurs.

"It's simple economics, gentlemen, women in the workforce aren't a threat, they're an untapped resource."

A few monocles nearly dropped.

I sipped my lemonade, hidden near a potted palm.

Bea was a scandal, a delight, a whirlwind.

They saw a rebellious debutante, a flapper before her time, pushing for suffrage and modern business.

I saw a fellow traveler, someone who remembered skyscrapers and the internet, just like me.

This was our secret, the one we never spoke of, not yet.

We were from the 21st century, dropped into this gilded cage of early 1900s New York.

Bea embraced the chaos, I just tried to breathe.

"And this obsession with handwritten ledgers," Bea continued, gesturing with a champagne flute, "double-entry bookkeeping, properly audited, that's efficiency!"

Old Mr. Vanderbilt choked on his cigar.

I knew that glint in her eye.

It wasn't just "newfangled" ideas.

It was the ingrained knowledge of a future she'd already lived.

My knowledge was different, quieter.

Civil engineering.

Not much call for that in a drawing-room, not yet.

So I watched, and I remembered, and I waited.

Bea was the fire, I was the observer, for now.

She caught my eye across the room, a quick, almost imperceptible nod.

It said, can you believe this era?

I gave the smallest smile back. No, but we're here.

This shared, silent understanding was our lifeline.

It was also the seed of whatever future we might build, or break, in this strange, old world.

The men around Bea were mostly dismissive, some amused, a few intrigued despite themselves.

She didn' t care.

She was planting ideas, little bombs of modernity.

I admired her courage, her sheer audacity.

My own rebellion was internal, a quiet refusal to fully accept this reality as the only one.

One day, I thought, my skills might matter too.

Until then, I was Eleanor Hayes, the quiet younger sister, living in Bea' s vibrant, controversial shadow.

And that was perfectly fine.

It gave me time to think.

And plan.