“I bought an antique four-poster bed at Sotheby's, said to be the final resting place of a long-dead European king. A week later, I woke up to the thick smell of blood, only to find a massive, heavily wounded man in my bed holding a forged steel sword to my throat. He was dressed in ruined velvet and gold, bleeding out from a massive abdominal gash. When I tried to save him with modern medicine, he called it sorcery and nearly choked me to death. He destroyed my expensive appliances, treating my home like a witch's lair. I thought he was a lunatic cosplayer who broke in, until he tossed me a massive ruby ring as a down payment for my help. I looked it up online. It was the lost coronation ring of King Cain the Cruel, valued at thirty million dollars. I was terrified of this savage who could snap my neck in an instant. I couldn't comprehend how a tyrant who had been dead for 135 years was breathing in my attic, until he lay back down on the antique mattress and literally vanished into thin air before my eyes. The bed was a time portal. The police would lock him in a psych ward and confiscate the priceless artifact, leaving me with nothing but bloodstained sheets and trauma. "I can give you more wealth than you can imagine." So, when he reappeared and offered me the lost Fabergé eggs of his fallen empire in exchange for modern shelter, I didn't call 911. I took his hand and became the 21st-century gatekeeper for a time-traveling king.”