Текст книги "Stars of Fortune"

Автор книги: Nora Roberts

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“Which way?” Bran asked her. “What does your instinct tell you?” he added when she hesitated.

“To the right. But—”

“To the right it is.”

“Hold on.” Riley dug chalk out of her pack, marked the wall of the chamber. “Always good to know where you’ve been.”

The chamber opened, higher and wider yet. Stalactites, stalagmites, and the columns they formed when they met glimmered in the light in golds and reds and umbers.

“Like jewels,” Annika said.

“Different minerals in the stone.” Riley studied the area. “But I’ll give you pretty here.”

Sasha played her light over a column, moved to it. “You need to see this. It looks like a woman. Look, her head, shoulders, body, all beautifully proportioned. Her face—eyes, nose, mouth. It’s not painted or carved. How could the stone have formed this way?”

She stood, long, dark hair, lithe form in flowing robes. Her eyes looked down, as if watching them. One hand, lifted, gestured to the back of the cave. The other held a globe.

“No way that’s a natural formation,” Riley said. “It had to be made.”

“It’s not painted,” Sasha repeated.

“There are other ways.” Bran aimed his light where the figure pointed. “There’s a ledge there, and an opening above it.”

“I’ll go in, scout it out,” Sawyer began, then caught the movement. “Riley.”

“It’s what I do,” she reminded him, and boosted herself onto the ledge and through.

“Hell. All of us then. Stay close,” he ordered Sasha.

Annika went in behind them, glanced back at the stone figure. “I don’t like her,” she murmured as Sawyer pulled up the flank.

They crawled for about ten feet, where it suddenly occurred to Sasha she might be a little claustrophobic after all. Then Riley called out.

“Another chamber, and a big one. There’s a drop, about three feet.”

Sasha heard the scrape of boots on rock, then the thud of a landing.

“I’ll have you,” Bran said before he dropped lightly into the dark. With his flashlight showing her the way, he held up a hand for hers. “Relax your knees,” he warned her.

She took the leap, caught her breath.

Before Bran could turn to offer Annika a hand, she’d jumped down gracefully.

Not dark, Sasha realized, or not completely. A light came from somewhere, pale and slightly . . . off. But it showed her the size of the cave, the smoothed teeth of rock stretching toward the floor, the others that soared up from it. All red, she thought, all red as blood.

A weight dropped on her chest, and her head swam.

“Don’t.” She reached out as Riley approached a formation that resembled a raised table. “Don’t touch it. Dark deeds done.”

“Riley,” Bran said sharply. “Touch nothing.”

In silent assent, Riley lifted her free hand, playing the light over the table stone. “There’s writing carved here. Ancient Greek.”

“Bones. Human bones piled over here.” Sawyer turned from them.

“Can you hear them screaming?” Sasha fisted her hands over her ears. “The children. She craved the children. The youth. The innocence.”

“I’m getting her out of here.”

“Wait, just wait,” Riley snapped at Bran. “I can read this. ‘In blood taken. In blood given. So she may live, so she may rise. In the name of Nerezza.’”

As she spoke the name, came a stirring, the dry rustling overhead.

“Just bats. Don’t panic.”

Riley’s warning came seconds before the screams, and the dark flood of wings.

Instinctively Sasha covered her head and face, curled up to make herself smaller. She felt the spidery wings brush her hair, shuddered.

Just bats, she told herself. Just bats.

She gasped at the quick pain as something sliced her arm. Grabbing it, she felt the warm, wet flow of her own blood.

“They bite!”

“They’re not just bats.” Riley pulled a gun from the holster snugged at the small of her back. “Run.” She shot one flying toward her face, and the sound crashed through the chamber.

Echoed by another as Sawyer fired another gun.

Blood fell on the ground, splattered on the altar.

And the ground shook.

Bats circled, looking down with hungry, somehow human eyes.

She formed out of the dark. The black robe swirled around her, and her hair, dense as midnight, curled in sleek coils around her face.

The face formed in the stone, and she smiled with terrible beauty.

“I have waited.” While the bats swooped and squealed, she lifted her hands. In one she held the glass ball. “I have watched.”

Her voice rang over the chaos, over the ring of bullets, of shouts and screams. Armed with only her flashlight, Sasha swung out to defend herself, saw Sawyer pivot to take aim at a bat diving toward Annika.

In a liquid blur of movement, Annika flipped back, pushed off with her hands and sent the bat smashing into the cave wall with a powerful thrust of her legs.

“Your blood.” She stepped off a pedestal, bent gracefully to run her finger through the blood that had dripped from Sasha’s arm to the cave floor. “It is warm,” she said as she licked it delicately from her finger as she might a dab of rich chocolate or cream.

“Your power is strong and . . . tasty. Through your blood I will drink that power. Through that power the path to the stars.”

Trapped, fighting to avoid fangs, claws, wings, Sasha stumbled back only to find herself pressed against the wall.

Across the chamber, Riley shouted, fired. But the bullets passed through the figure walking toward Sasha.

Something gripped her mind, something cold and fierce. She fought to pry it loose, felt it give, just a little.

“Very strong.”

Now that same force, the cold and fierce, gripped her throat, cutting off her air. All she felt was her own fear, and pushing against it dark hate, bottomless greed.

“Come with me, and live.”

Lies. The mother of lies. Nerezza.

Something—someone—leaped out of the shadows. A sword flashing silver in the dim red light. It cleaved through the swarming bats, severing them. As if through water, Sasha heard someone shouting.

“Get out! Go.”

“Give me what I want.” Nerezza loomed closer. “Or I will crush you, and all you love.”

“Not today.” Bran shoved Sasha behind him. While she gasped in breath, choked it out again, he threw up both his hands. Lightning bolted from them, blinding white.

Nerezza threw up an arm to shield her eyes, and from her came a roar more beast than human.

“Get her out!” Bran shouted. “Get her out of here. This won’t hold long.”

The bats swirled up, reformed, and like a great winged arrow came at him. The swordsman thrust, hacked, sent severed bodies tumbling to the ground while bullets pierced more.

“Get her out.” Bran’s voice, ice cold, snapped out. “Get them all out.”

The swordsman grabbed Riley, all but tossed her into the tunnel. He caught Annika as she finished a series of flips that sent bats tumbling. “Go!”

“Get Sasha,” Sawyer ordered, and ranged himself beside Bran. “I’m not leaving you, man.”

“Then get ready to move.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the swordsman lift Sasha under one arm, glance back with a kind of fierce regret, then boost her with him into the tunnel.

“Go when I say,” Bran said. “There won’t be time to hesitate. I’m right behind you. My word on it.”

“If you’re not, I’m coming back.”

Bran felt Nerezza pushing back against his power, knew he didn’t have enough. Not here, not yet.

“Now. Go now!” he shouted at Sawyer, then heaved both bolts to the ground. The explosion rocked the chamber, filled it with wild light, thick smoke.

Understanding that fierce regret, he dived into the tunnel behind Sawyer.

“Don’t stop,” he ordered. “I don’t know how long a reach she has.”

The rock shook under them. Contrary to orders, Sawyer paused after he jumped out of the tunnel until Bran came out behind him. White smoke curled out of the opening.

“I’d say you’ve got a pretty damn long one. Nice work,” he added as they ran for the mouth of the cave.

Just outside the mouth, the man and his sword stood guard with Riley, arguing bitterly.

“That’s a sword, this is a gun. Guess who wins.” She swiped at the blood on her face, smeared more from the cuts on her hand. “I don’t want to shoot you, but you can bet your ass I will if you don’t get out of my way. I’m going back for my friends.”

“If you shoot me, you’re going to piss me off.” Then he turned when he heard running footsteps. “They’re coming,” he said, and stepped aside.

The minute they stepped clear, Riley punched Bran in the chest—though she pulled it. Then she threw her arms around both of them. “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. Don’t ever push me out like that again.” She dragged Sawyer’s head down, kissed him soundly on the mouth, then took Bran’s head in turn. “You’ve got some ’splaining to do.”

“This isn’t the time or place.” He patted her cheek, nudged her aside to go to where Annika sat on the ground beside Sasha, gently tending her wounds with Riley’s first-aid kit.

He crouched down, stroked a finger down her cheek, then over the raw, red bruising around her throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you more quickly. I’m sorry she hurt you.”

“Who are you?”

“What I’ve told you. Perhaps a bit more.”

“Her nice shirt is ruined, but the cuts aren’t very bad.” Annika wound a bandage around the long gash in Sasha’s arm. “But she is shocked.”

“In shock,” Riley corrected. “She got the worst of it. It was going way south before you stepped in with the light show. We just couldn’t hold our own.” She glanced back at Sawyer. “But nice shooting, Tex.”

“Back at you.”

“Who the hell are you people?”

They looked back at the newcomer. He’d housed his sword in the sheath he wore on his back and stood, legs spread, face scowling.

Just as Sasha had depicted him, in detail, in one of her sketches. The breeze caught at his black, disordered sweep of hair, tossing it around a face that might have been carved with razors. The high slash of cheekbones, the sharply sculpted, unsmiling mouth, the long, patrician blade of nose. His eyes were fierce and burning green.

Riley ran a measuring gaze over him, from the scarred boots that laced up to midcalf, the long legs in well-worn jeans, the blood-splattered shirt over a broad torso.

She pushed to her feet. “Riley Gwin, archaeologist; Sawyer King, dead-eye; Annika Waters, adorable ass-kicker.”

“Aww,” Annika said, delighted.

“Sasha Riggs, seer. And Bran Killian, magician. To say the fucking least. And who the hell are you?”

“McCleary. Doyle McCleary. And if you lot hadn’t been in the way, I might have had the bitch at last.”

“Fat chance,” Riley tossed back.

“We can have a fine argument about all of it, away from here. Do you mind?” Bran asked as he tapped Sasha’s backpack. When she shook her head, he reached in and found, as he’d thought he would, the sketch of the six of them.

Rising, he walked over to Doyle. “First, I’ll thank you for the assist. Sasha was hurt, and I don’t know if I could have held the bitch and gotten everyone out safe without it. As to who we are, well, there’s this.” He offered the sketch. “We’re a team, and you’d be the last of us.”

“Who drew this?”

“I did.” Sasha’s voice came hoarsely through her abused throat. “Weeks ago.”

“How did—”

“Not now,” Bran interrupted. “We’re all of us bloody and battered. We have a place where we can talk. Private.”

“How the hell are we going to fit him in the jeep?” Riley wondered.

“I have my own way of getting around.” Doyle looked at all of them, back at the cave. Shook his head. “I’ll go with you, and talk about this.” He handed the sketch back to Bran. “Then we’ll see.”

“Fair enough.”

Bran went back to Sasha, started to lift her. She pushed his hands away. “I can walk.” She got to her feet. She might have been chilled and queasy, but she could damn well walk.

To prove it, she started back toward the track.

“Yeah, some ’splaining.” Riley patted Bran’s arm, then went after Sasha.

“She didn’t know you’re a wizard?” Doyle commented.

“No. I hadn’t found the right time to tell her, or the others.”

Doyle gave what might have been a sympathetic grunt, then walked away.

“She’ll come around.” Sawyer reached out a hand to help Annika to her feet. “You’ve got some wild moves, Anni. I really liked the one where you ran halfway up the wall, flipped backward, then did a handspring.”

“It’s fun. I don’t like to fight.”

“Maybe not, but you’re good at it.”

When they followed the others, Bran looked after them, then back at the cave. His white smoke blocked the mouth, for now, but was already beginning to thin. It told him he had a great deal of work yet to do.

He hefted his pack back into place as he watched Sasha walk—limping a bit, he noted—down the rough track.

A great deal of work yet, he thought, in several areas.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Doyle’s way of getting around turned out to be pulled off into the brushwood well down the trail. As he brought it out, Riley fisted her hands on her hips.

“Classic. Harley Chopper. Twin Vs?”

“That’s right.”

“Bet she moves.”

Like his boots, the bike showed some battle scars—and like its owner, looked muscular and tough.

“The dragon!” Annika pointed to the red dragon, wings out, talons curled, painted on the side of the engine. “You ride the dragon. Sasha said.”

“Yeah. Where am I riding it?”

“Just west of Sidari,” Bran told him. “It would be easier if you followed us in.”

“All right. That yours?” he asked, gesturing to the jeep farther down.

“It is.”

“Can I ride the dragon, too?”

Doyle hesitated, then shrugged. “I hate saying no to a beautiful woman, so I won’t.” He swung a leg over, nodded to Annika. “Hop on.”

Sawyer hesitated. “You have to hold on to him,” he told Annika. “And lean into the turns—not against. Just lean into them a little. Okay?”

“Okay.” She got on behind Doyle, and laughed when he turned on the engine. “It roars!”

“Hold on to him,” Sawyer repeated, then quickened his steps to catch up to the others. “She’ll be all right.”

“I don’t think we just came through that little experience for her to take a header off a bike.” Riley got behind the wheel. “Relax.”

“Take the front.” Bran got into the back. “You’re pissed, and I won’t argue about it,” he said to Sasha as Riley navigated down the excuse for a road. “I’ll explain once we’re back at the villa and settled down some.”

“I just want to sleep.” And turning away from him, closing her eyes, Sasha surprised herself by doing just that.

*   *   *

She woke, headachy, her throat burning, her arm throbbing, when Riley bumped up the road to the villa.

When she got out, found her legs shaky, she wanted to crawl back into sleep.

“I need to clean up. You can start without me.”

Bran took her arm. “Sasha.”

She yanked free. “I can feel her on me. I need a shower.” Shaky or not, she got her legs moving, rushed straight into the house.

“Give her a little space,” Riley advised, giving the welcoming Apollo a quick rub. She glanced over toward Doyle as Annika jumped off the bike. “Look, we’ll get some food first, give her time to settle.” She looked down at her hands. “I want to clean up some myself.”

“Fine. We’ll all have a nice wash.”

“I’ll take mine down at the beach,” Sawyer decided.

“Oh, yes, a swim! I’ll go with you.”

“Great. Grab your suit.”

She looked blank. “My suit?”

“Bathing suit.”

“Oh, yes. I have one.” She dashed into the house, and Sawyer went up the terrace steps.

“What’s her story?” Doyle asked Bran.

“We’ve a lot of stories among us. If you’d wait a half hour. We’re a bloody mess, so we’ll do better cleaned up, and getting some food. There are two rooms left, and you can have your pick.”

“I’m a long way from staying.”

“That may be, but you’ve bat blood and guts and Christ only knows on you same as the rest of us. You can use the shower, do what you do after we talk. I’ll show you which rooms are left, and you use whichever you like.”

“I wouldn’t mind a shower.”

“Come inside, and you can have the two-penny tour along the way.”

“Hell of a house in a hell of a spot. Whose is it?”

“Friend of a friend of an uncle—of Riley’s. She’s connections.”

“Handy.”

“It has been. McCleary, is it? So your people are from Ireland?”

“Back a ways,” Doyle said as they started upstairs.

“Mine are still there—or most of them. Sligo.”

“Clare. I’m told.”

“Well, McCleary. Either of these two rooms are open to you.”

“This one’s fine.”

“Then it’s yours. Be at home, and if you’ll come down when you’re ready, we’ll put some food together and talk this through.”

He went into his own room, stripped down, and took a good look at his side. The cuts and slices on his arms didn’t bother him overmuch, but his side showed a maze of punctures and gashes from when a group of the bastards had swarmed him when he’d tried to get to Sasha.

Gone now, he thought. He’d burned them to cinders, but they’d gotten some pieces of him along the way. He moved to the dresser, brushed a hand over the drawer to release the locking spell he’d put on. He lifted out a case where he kept some potions and brews, took what he needed, locked up the rest again.

In the shower, he hissed as the water hit the wounds, then just braced his hands on the tile wall, and let those wounds run clean.

Once he’d washed, let the water beat most of the aches away, he got out of the shower, examined the wounds again, and laid the salve on thick. Immediately the raw edge of pain eased. He bandaged it as best he could, dressed, then went to face the music.

*   *   *

Sasha wept in the shower. The jag increased the headache, but she felt steadier purged of tears. She ran the water as hot as she could bear until it no longer felt as if spiders crawled over her skin. She scrubbed that skin, ignoring the pain when she hit cuts and scrapes, washed her hair. Scrubbed again, washed again.

And finally felt clean.

After wrapping herself in a towel, she wiped the mirror clear of fog, studied her face, traced the bruising at her neck.

She’d been weak, she thought, and couldn’t, wouldn’t be weak again. If she continued this—and she knew she would—she had to be smarter, stronger, more prepared. She wouldn’t cower back a second time while some demon goddess from hell tried to take her over.

She wouldn’t be used again or deceived again.

“People underestimate you because you underestimate yourself,” she told her reflection. “That stops now.”

She walked out of the bath, then stopped when she saw Bran at her open terrace doors, looking out.

“I need you to leave.”

He turned back, studied her as she stood, hair sleek and wet, her hand clutching the towel between her breasts. And insult and anger in her eyes.

“I have a salve.” He held up the small jar. “I can help with the wounds, and with the pain.”

“I don’t want—”

“Stop being a git. You’re not a stupid woman. You want to be pissed, be pissed,” he invited as his own temper clawed at him. “Stay pissed after I explain, that’s your choice to make, but now you’ll sit down and let me help.”

“You’re not in charge of me.”

“And thank the gods for that. But we’re all in this together, and I’ll do what I can to help the others in turn. But you took the brunt of it. Now sit down, and be pissed and smart.”

Refusing, she realized, was weak, was letting her hurt and disappointment cloud judgment. She needed to be strong and well to fight.

So she sat on the side of the bed.

He came over, set the salve down. And laid his hands gently on her head.

“That’s not—”

“Your head aches, that’s clear to see. She tried getting into your mind, didn’t she? And you’ve been crying. So your head hurts.” He brushed his thumbs over her temples, her forehead. “I’m not as good at this as others, but with you being an empath—”

“I’m not.”

“For Christ’s sake, woman, don’t argue with what I know.” Impatience snapped, a whiplash. “You block most out, but it’s there. Use it now, in a kind of reverse, and that will help me help you. Let me feel it, open up and let me feel. We’ll start with the headache, as you’ll think clearer then.”

Because he was right, because there’d been impatience rather than pity, she closed her eyes, offered her pain.

“There now,” he murmured, and his fingers stroked her brow, her skull, her temples. “It’s a dark gray cloud.” He ran his hands down, pressed thumbs into the base of her neck. “It’s whisking away as a breeze comes up. Cool and fresh. Feel it.”

She did, and the horrible, gripping pressure eased. “Yes, that’s better. That’s better,” she repeated, and nudged his hands aside. “Thank you.”

“You’ve cuts and scrapes and bruises, and a puncture or two. The salve alone will do for that, but this gash needs more. Annika did a fine—what do they call it?—field dressing. She’s an array of disparate talents. Let me feel it.

“Yes, it’s hot, and it throbs.” And would scar if he couldn’t fix it. It surprised him how the thought of that upset him. “But it’s clean. Nothing to fester here.”

“How do you know?”

“You know, and I can see what you know here. Help me cool it now, help me close it.”

She lost herself in his eyes. It occurred to her later he must have taken her into some light trance, but her feelings seemed to touch his, like fingertips, and the heat of her arm cooled.

“That’s good now, that’s fine. And the salve will do the rest right enough.”

A little dazed, she looked down to see the gash closed, and no more than a long scrape remaining.

“But, that’s—”

“Magick?” he suggested. “It’s healing, and you’re doing most of the work. What about your leg? You’re favoring the right one.”

“I don’t know. I must have twisted or turned my ankle in the cave. When the bats . . .”

“We won’t think of them now.” He crouched, skimmed his hands over her ankle, eased back when she flinched. “Tender, is it? We’ll fix it.”

She understood now, let him in. Imagined the swelling, the tendons and muscles while his fingers circled and stroked.

Then he rose. “Your throat, that’s the worst of it, and the hardest. She touched you.”

“She didn’t. Not physically.”

“And that’s the deepest wound, you see? Her power against ours. I think it will hurt to heal this, at first. You have to trust me.”

“Then I will. For this.”

“Keep your eyes on mine. I don’t have what you have, but what I have will help you lift this away.”

He closed his hands lightly, gently, around her throat, covering the raw bruises.

It did hurt. A sudden shock of pain stole her breath, had her gripping the side of the bed to hold herself in place. She fought not to cry out—weak, weak—but a moan escaped.

“I’m sorry. A little more.”

He murmured in Irish now, words that meant nothing to her, but the tone, both comfort and distress, helped her bear it. Then, as the rest, it eased. The relief made her head spin.

“It’s better.”

“It needs to be gone. I won’t leave her mark on you. I should have stopped it.”

“You did. With blinding bolts of lightning. That’s enough. It doesn’t hurt.”

She shifted away, stood. “You should take the salve for the others.”

“That’s for you. I have more.”

“I’ll be down as soon as I get dressed. We all have a lot to talk about.”

“We do.” But he stood where he was, waited.

“You lied to me.”

“I never did.”

“The absence of truth—”

“Isn’t always a lie. Sometimes it’s just personal business.”

“I told you everything about me, everything I knew, and you . . . What are you? A warlock?”

He winced, had to struggle not to be insulted. “Some will insist on turning that word away from its origin—which is one who does evil, even the devil—and making into a man with powers. I’ll take witch, even sorcerer, but I prefer magician, which is what I told you when we met.”

Accusations, and worse, much worse, disappointed hurt lived in her eyes.

“You know what I thought you meant.”

“I do, and there’s an absence there. Still, I do stage magic to make a living and to entertain myself. And my blood, my craft, my gift, and my honor is in white magicks. But it’s considerable to share with someone who doesn’t trust her own gifts, fáidh. What would your reaction have been, I wonder, if I’d shown you more than a bit of sleight of hand at first?”

“I don’t know.”

“My family keeps our bloodline to ourselves, not out of shame, but caution. I can wish now I’d been able to show you what I am, who I am, in its entirety, in a less dramatic way, but Nerezza took the choice out of my hands.”

“She meant to drain me.”

“I never anticipated, and for that . . . I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t plan it better, or find a better way. But I can’t be sorry for what I am, or for waiting until I felt there was real trust before I told you, or the others.”

“Did you kiss me to help create trust?”

He cursed, surprising her with the quick flare of anger as he strode around the room. “That’s an insult to both of us. Bloody hell.”

He grabbed her, yanked her to him without any of the care or gentleness he’d shown in the healing. The flare of anger remained hot and ready in the kiss.

“You know it all now, so what was that about, do you suppose?”

“I have to think about it.”

“Fine then, you do that.”

“I’ll be down when I’m dressed.”

“That’s grand.” He strode out, gave the door a quick, bad-tempered slam.

She turned, walked to the mirror. No marks remained on her throat, and color had come back into her face. She didn’t feel weak now, Sasha realized.

And that was a damn good start.

*   *   *

Sawyer put his spin on sandwiches with grilled ham and cheese. Annika once again created a tablescape with napkins folded into flowers arranged along a winding river of plates. Once again wearing one of her flowy dresses, she stopped her work to turn and give Sasha a hard and heartfelt hug.

“You look pretty, and you feel better.”

“Thanks, and I do. Were you hurt?”

“Only a little, and Bran gave us a salve that smells very nice. Don’t have mad at him.”

“I’m working on it. Where’s . . . I can’t remember his name.”

“You mean Doyle. Doyle McCleary. Riding his dragon is fun. He came down, and he wanted to walk around the villa, to see the lay of the land.”

“Can’t blame him. Annika, thank you for helping me when I was hurt.”

“We’re here to help each other.”

As simple as that, Sasha thought. “You’re exactly right. Let’s have some wine.”

“I like wine.”

“I’ll get it.”

She went into the kitchen, where Sawyer flipped the last of the sandwiches onto a platter, and Riley pulled beer from the fridge.

“Dead-Eye here has hidden depths,” Riley said. “He made salsa.”

“Everything was here.” Sawyer turned. “Ready to eat?”

Sasha hadn’t thought she could face food, and now found the opposite true. “More than, and those look great. We’re missing Doyle and Bran.”

“They’re doing a walkabout. Snooze you lose,” Riley announced. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine now. How about both of you?”

“Bumps and cuts, and nothing a hot shower and Bran’s magic salve didn’t deal with. Probably shouldn’t have said magic,” Riley realized.

“It is what it is. Annika and I are having wine.” She chose a bottle, got glasses, and took them out with her.

“She came around quick,” Sawyer observed.

“Men.” Pitying him, Riley screwed a half dozen beers into a bucket she’d filled with ice. “She’s pissed, cutie. Down to a smolder maybe, but pissed—and trying to figure out how she feels about the fact that she was locking lips a few hours ago with a guy who turns out to be a sorcerer.”

“Oh, yeah? Lip-lock?”

“Talk about smoldering.” She winked at him, hefted the bucket. And noticed when she carried it out, Bran and Doyle rounding the side of the villa. They struck her as pretty easy with each other already.

“Order up!” she called to Sawyer, then plucked out a beer, dropped down into a chair. She waited until Sawyer brought the food, until others had taken wine or beer. Then lifted her own bottle.

“Here’s to a damn good fight.”

When Sasha just stared, Riley gestured with the bottle. “Any fight you walk away from and polish off with a cold beer is a good fight.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Doyle took a sandwich. “Got beer, got food—and appreciate it. But I still don’t have answers. Mr. Wizard’s being vague. Let’s get specific.”

“Mr. Wizard.” Riley snorted out a laugh. “That’s a good one,” she insisted as the others kept silent. “Sash, you should start rolling the ball, seeing as you got things going.”

“I don’t think I got anything going, but all right.” She took a sip of wine first. “I’m an artist.”

“I could see that from the sketch.”

“I live in North Carolina, now. I’ve always had . . .”

“A gift,” Bran finished, as if daring her to contradict him.

She just ignored him. “Right after the first of the year, I began having dreams, about us—all of us here—and about the stars.”

She took him up to her arrival at the hotel in Corfu.

“So you just hopped on a plane and . . . followed your dreams?”

“I couldn’t ignore them, couldn’t make them stop, so yes, that’s what I did. Riley, you should take it from there.”

“Sure. Most excellent salsa,” she added, and dipped a chip in the hill she’d put on her plate. “Tracking legends, myths, finding antiquities and artifacts—that’s what I do. The stars have been on my radar for a long time, and I’d dug up some information that arrowed here. I’d just finished a job, had some time, and decided to see what I could find out on the spot.”

She waved the bottle, took another hit.

“The thing is—and I didn’t mention this before—I didn’t plan to stay in that hotel. I’d planned to come to this area all along, but I had this impulse, is the best I can say. Treat yourself to a good hotel for a day or two, Riley, take a break. So there I was, taking a break with a very nice Bellini on the hotel terrace, and up walks the blonde.”

When she’d finished her side of it, she reached for another beer. “Over to you, Bran.”

He’d wrangled with himself over how much to tell them, what he should hold back. And decided, considering all, on full disclosure.

“Someone in my family, generation by generation, has been tasked to look for the stars, to hold them safe, and to one day return them to where they began, to where they can never be used for ill. So it came to me. We descend from Celene.”

“The goddess?” Riley set her beer down. “You’re a god?”

“I’m not.” Impatience sharpened his voice. “I’m what I told you. I’m a magician, and descended from her. She mated with a sorcerer—a mortal—and bore his son.”

“The demigod Movar,” Riley prompted, “conceived with the sorcerer called Asalri.”

“As you say.”

“And Movar had five sons and three daughters. I know the legend. Or,” Riley corrected, “your family tree.”