by Nora Roberts
cushion beside her. “I paint, as you know. Pitte spends time on our finances. He enjoys the game of money. We read. I’ve enjoyed your books, Jordan.”
“Thanks.”
“Pitte enjoys films,” Rowena added with a glance of affection toward her lover. “Particularly ones where a great many things blow up in impressive explosions.”
“So you go to the movies?” Dana prompted.
“Ordinarily no. We prefer settling in at home and watching at our leisure.”
“Multiplexes,” Pitte muttered. “They call them this. Like little boxes stacked end by end. It’s a pity the grand theaters have gone out of fashion.”
“That’s something you’d both be up on. The changes in fashion. There’d have been a lot of that in a couple of millennia.”
Rowena lifted a brow at Dana. “Yes, indeed.”
“I know this sounds like small talk,” Dana continued, “but I’m just trying to get a handle on things. It occurred to me that you know everything about me. You’ve had my whole lifetime to watch. Did you watch?”
“Of course. You were of considerable interest to us from the moment you were born. We didn’t intrude,” Rowena added, running the jeweled chain she wore around her neck through her fingers as she spoke. “Or interfere. I understand your interest in us now. We are more like you than you may think and less like you than you could possibly imagine. We can and do indulge in what you’d call human pleasures. Food, drink, warmth, vanity. Sex. We love . . .” She reached up for Pitte’s hand. “As genuinely as you. We weep and laugh. We enjoy much of what your world offers. We celebrate the generosity and resilience of the human spirit, and mourn its darker sides.”
“But while you’re here, you’re of neither one world nor the other. Isn’t that right?” There was something about the way they touched each other, Jordan thought. As if they would wither away without that small contact. “You can live as you choose to live, but within limitations. Within the boundaries of this dimension. Even so, you’re not of it. You might feel the heat, but you don’t burn. You might sleep at night, but when you wake in the morning, you haven’t aged. The hours haven’t changed you. Millions of hours can’t.”
“And do you see that kind of . . . immortality,” Pitte inquired, “as a gift?”
“No, I don’t.” Jordan’s glance shifted to Pitte’s face and held. “I see it as a curse. A punishment, certainly, when you’re locked out of your own world and spend those millions of hours here.”
Pitte’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes seemed to deepen, to heat. “Then you have excellent sight.”
“I see something else clearly enough. The penalty, if Dana fails to find the key, is a year of her life. A year of Malory’s and Zoe’s as well. From your standpoint that’s nothing. But it’s a different matter when you’re human and your life is already finite.”
“Ah.” Pitte draped an arm over the mantel. “So, have you come to renegotiate our contract?”
Before Dana could speak, tell Jordan to mind his own business, he shot her a look. “No, because Dana’s going to find the key, so it won’t be an issue.”
“You have confidence in your woman,” Rowena said.
“I’m not his woman,” Dana said quickly. “Has Kane watched us, too? From the beginning of our lives?”
“I can’t say,” Rowena answered, then waved an impatient hand at Dana’s dubious expression. “I can’t. There are, as Jordan said, certain boundaries we can’t cross. Something has changed—we know this because he was able to draw both Malory and Flynn into dreams and to cause Flynn harm. He wasn’t able, or perhaps didn’t choose, to do so before.”
“Tell them what he did to you.”
It wasn’t phrased as a request, and this time Dana’s anger was sparked. But before she could snap at Jordan, Rowena took her arm.
“Kane? What happened?”
She told them, and found that this time her voice remained steady throughout the telling. More distance, she thought, less fear.
At least there was less until she saw a flicker of fear cross Rowena’s face.
She didn’t care to think what it took to frighten a god.
“There wasn’t any real threat, right?” Her skin was prickling, icy little ants rushing down her back. “I mean, I couldn’t have drowned when I jumped into the sea, because the sea didn’t actually exist.”
“But it did,” Pitte corrected. There was a grim chill to his face. A soldier’s face, Dana thought, as he watched the battle from a rise and waited for the time to draw his sword.
And she was the one down in the field, she realized, waging bloody war.
“It was conjured first by your fantasy, then by your fear. That doesn’t make it less than real.”
“That just doesn’t make sense,” she insisted. “When he had Malory in that fantasy, when she was painting, we could see her. We all saw her, just standing there in that attic.”
“Her body, perhaps part of her consciousness—she has a strong mind—remained. The rest . . .” Rowena drew a breath. “The rest of what she was had traveled to the other side. And if harm had come to her. To her body,” Rowena explained, holding out one hand. “To what you can call her essence.” Then the other. “On either side, the harm would be to all of her.”
“If she cut her hand in one existence,” Jordan said, “it would bleed in the other.”
“He could prevent it.” Obviously troubled, Rowena rose to pour more wine. “If, for instance, I wished to give you a gift, a harmless fantasy, I might send you into dreams, and watch over you to keep you from harm. But what Kane does is not harmless. He does it to tempt, and to terrorize.”
“Why didn’t he just shove my head under the bathwater while I was out of it?”
“There are still limits. To maintain the illusion, he can’t touch your corporeal body. And as it is your mind that forms the texture of the illusion, neither can he force you to harm yourself. Lie, yes. Deceive and frighten, even persuade, but he can’t make you do anything against your will.”
“That’s how she broke back through.” It was the answer that Jordan had needed confirmed. “First, by choosing to see it as a trick, she changed the texture, as you said, of the world. Instead of paradise, nightmare.”
“Her knowledge and fear, and Kane’s anger, yes,” Pitte agreed. “The fruit you dropped,” he said to Dana. “Your mind saw it then as rotten in the center. This was not your paradise but your prison.”
“And when she dived into the sea rather than let him take what she was, rather than accept the fantasy or the nightmare, she broke through both,” Jordan concluded. “So her weapon against him is staying true to herself, whatever he throws at her.”
“Simply put,” Pitte agreed.
“Too simply.” Rowena shook her head. “He’s wily and seductive. You must never underestimate him.”
“He’s already underestimated her. Hasn’t he, Stretch?”
“I can handle myself.” His easy confidence went a long way toward quieting her nerves. “What’s to stop him from hitting on Zoe, screwing with her while we’re focused on him screwing with me?”
“She is not yet an issue for him. But precautions can be taken,” Rowena mused, tapping a finger on the rim of her glass. “She can be protected, to an extent, until her time begins.”
“If it begins,” Pitte corrected.
“He’s pessimistic by nature,” Rowena smiled. “I have more faith.” She walked back to the sofa, sat on the arm with the fluid grace some women are born with. Reaching down, she took Dana’s face in her hands.
“You know the truth when you hear it. You may turn your ear from it, close your mind to it. As my man is pessimistic, you are stubborn by nature.”
“Got that in one,” Jordan muttered.
“But when you choose to hear it, the truth rings clear for you. This is your gift. He can’t deceive you unless you allow it. When you accept what you already know you’ll have the rest.”
“
You wouldn’t like to be a little more specific?”
A smile touched the corners of Rowena’s mouth. “You have enough to think of for now.”
LATER, when they were alone, Rowena curled on the sofa beside Pitte, rested her head on his shoulder and watched the fire. In the flames she studied Dana, her hands competent on the steering wheel as she drove through the night toward the quiet valley below the Peak.
She admired competence, in gods and mortals.
“She worries him,” she said quietly.
Pitte watched the fire, and the images in it as well. “Whom does she worry? The soul-stealer or the story-spinner?”
Absently, for comfort, Rowena rubbed her cheek against Pitte’s shoulder. “Both, certainly. And both have hurt her, though only one with intent. But a lover’s blade slices deeper than any enemy’s. She worries Kane,” she said, “but the man is worried for her.”
“They have heat.” Pitte turned his head to brush his lips over Rowena’s hair. “He should take her to bed and let the heat seal old wounds.”
“So like a male, to think bedding is always the answer.”
“It’s a good one.” Pitte gave her a little shove, and when she fell, it was onto the big bed they shared.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. Her silver dress had melted away so that she wore only her own skin. Such things, she knew, were one of his more playful, and interesting, habits.
“Heat isn’t enough.” She spread her arms, and dozens of candles flared into flame. “It’s warmth, my love, my only love, that heals the wounded heart.”
With her arms still open wide, she sat up and welcomed him to her.
DANA had hardly gotten back in the door—and kept Jordan out—had barely settled down with Othello again and cleared her mind enough to focus on the task at hand, when there was another knock.
Figuring Jordan had come back with some new ploy to wheedle his way in, she ignored it.
She was, by Jesus, going to spend two hours working on this book angle, and then she was going to think about the drive to the Peak, what had been said there. What hadn’t been said on the drive home.
If she had to think about Jordan, she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it when he was around.
He’d sniff it out of her head like a bloodhound.
There was another knock, more insistent this time. She merely bared her teeth and kept scanning the play.
But the barking got her attention.
Realizing that she would get nowhere until the door was answered, she got up and opened it. “What the hell are you doing here? Both of you.” She scowled at Flynn, then leaned down to rub Moe’s floppy ears and make kissing noises. “Did Malory kick you out? Poor baby.” Her sympathetic tone turned icy as she straightened and peered at her brother. “You’re not sleeping here.”
“Don’t plan to.”
“Then what’s in the bag?”
“Stuff.” He squeezed inside, around his dog and his sister. “I hear you had a rough one last night.”
“It was an experience, and I’m not in the mood to rehash it. It’s after ten. I’m working, then I’m sleeping.”
With, she thought, every light in the apartment burning, just as she had the night before.
“Fine. Here’s his stuff.”
“Whose stuff?”
“Moe’s. I’ll haul over the big-ass bag of dog food tomorrow, but there’s enough in there for his breakfast.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She looked in the bag he’d shoved into her arms and saw a mangled tennis ball, a tattered rope, a box of dog biscuits on top of about five pounds of dry dog food.
“What the hell is this?”
“His stuff,” Flynn repeated cheerfully, and grunted when Moe leaped up to plant his paws on his shoulders. “Moe’s your new temporary roommate. Well, gotta go. See you tomorrow.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She tossed the bag on a chair, beat him to the door by a step, and threw herself against it. “You’re not walking out that door without this dog.”
He gave her a smile that was both mildly quizzical and wholly innocent. “You just said I couldn’t sleep here.”
“You can’t. Neither can he.”
“Now look, you’ve hurt his feelings.” He looked sorrowfully at Moe, who was trying to nose his way into the bag. “It’s all right, big guy. She didn’t mean it.”
“Give me a break.”
“You don’t know what dogs understand. Scientific tests are inconclusive.” He gave Dana a brotherly pat on the cheek. “So anyway, Moe’s going to stay for a couple weeks. Play guard dog.”
“Guard dog?” She noted that Moe was now chewing on the bag. “Give me a serious break.”
Obviously not finding the brown paper to his taste, Moe wandered off to sniff for crumbs, and Flynn sat down, stretched out his legs. He’d reconsidered his strategy and decided that this tack was foolproof with Dana. “Okay. I’ll stay and be guard dog since you have no faith in Moe. Let’s flip a coin for the bed.”
“I’m the only one sleeping in my bed, and I have less faith in you than I do in that big mutt, who is currently chasing his own tail. Moe! Cut that out before you wreck my place.”
She considered just tearing out her own hair when Moe bashed against a table in his desperate attempt to latch teeth onto tail, and sent books thudding down on his head.
He gave a startled bark and scrambled toward Flynn for protection.
“Go away, Flynn, and take your klutzy dog with you.”
Flynn simply lifted his legs and used Moe as a footstool. “Let’s just go over our options,” he began.
Twenty minutes later Dana stomped into the kitchen. She stopped short, hissed through her teeth when she saw the contents of her trash can strewed from one end of the floor to the other and Moe happily sprawled over the mess of it, chewing on a wad of paper towels.
“How does he do it? How the hell did he talk me into this?” And that, she admitted, was the mystery of Flynn Hennessy. You never knew just how he managed to box you into the corner of his choice.
She crouched down, got nose to nose with Moe.
Moe rolled his eyes to the side, avoiding hers. Dana swore that if dogs could whistle, she’d have heard the I-wasn’t-doing-anything tune coming out of the dog’s mouth. “Okay, pal, you and I are going to go over the rules of the household.”
He responded by licking her face, then flopping over to expose his belly.
SHE woke with the sun streaming over her face and her legs paralyzed. The sun was easy to explain. She’d forgotten to draw the curtains again. And her legs weren’t paralyzed, she realized after a moment of panic. They were trapped under the massive bulk of Moe.
“Okay, this is no way to begin.” She sat up, then shoved the dog hard. “I said no dogs allowed on the bed. I was very clear about that rule.”
He moaned, an oddly human sound that made her lips twitch. Then he opened one eye. Then that eye brightened with manic joy.
“No!”
But it was too late. In one leap, he’d trapped not only her legs but her entire body. Dancing paws pressed into her belly, her breasts, her crotch. His tongue slathered her face with desperate love.
“Stop it! Down! Mary Mother of God!” And she was laughing hysterically, wrestling with him, until he leaped off the bed and raced out of the room.
“Whew.” She pushed at her hair. It was definitely not the way she cared to wake, as a rule. But for one day she could make an exception.
Now she needed coffee. Immediately.
Before she could throw back the covers, Moe bounded back in.
“No! Don’t you do it! Don’t you bring that horrible, disgusting ball into this bed.”
Her usual morning speed approximated that of a snail on Valium, but one look at the tennis ball in Moe’s mouth had her moving like an Olympic sprinter. She hit the floor, causing Moe to change direction and go into a skid. He thudded against the bed frame, then, undaunted, spat the ball at her fee
t.
“We do not play fetch the ball in the house. We do not play fetch the ball when I’m naked, which, you may notice, I am. We do not play fetch the ball before I have coffee.”
He cocked his head charmingly and lifted a paw.
“We’re going to have to compromise. First I’ll get unnaked.” She went to the closet for her robe. “Then I’ll have my first cup of coffee. After which I’ll take you for a very, very brief walk during which you can relieve your bladder and play fetch the ball for exactly three minutes. Take it or leave it.”
SHE didn’t know how he did it—like master, like dog, she supposed—but she ended up spending a good twenty minutes playing with Moe in the park.
This was not her morning routine, and if there was anything that was sacrosanct to Dana, it was her morning routine. She could admit that she felt more energized and more cheerful after the interlude with the goofy dog. But she wasn’t going to tell Moe that, or anyone else.
He gobbled down his breakfast while she ate hers, then fortunately for all involved, plopped down for a quick morning nap while she substituted Othello for her current breakfast book.
To stay fresh, to let it all simmer in her head, she switched gears after thirty minutes, and chose one of the books on sorcery. However wily and amoral Iago was, Kane was more so—and he had power. Maybe there was a way to undermine it, or deflect it, while she searched for the key.
She read of white magic, and of black. Of sorcery and necromancy. And it was different, she realized as she made her notes, when you knew the fantastic you read of was real.
Not fantasy. Not lies, but truth.
She had to remember that, she thought as she closed the book. It was essential that she remember the truth.
IT was very satisfying, Dana discovered when she was hip-deep in work at Indulgence, to prime the dull wall with fresh white paint.
Our place, she thought.
As they painted, she briefed Zoe and Malory on her visit to the Peak and what she’d learned.
“So he can hurt us.” Frowning, Zoe added more paint to the automatic roller for Malory. “Or we can hurt ourselves. I guess that’s what it really means.”
“If we drift too far beyond actual reality, yeah,” Dana agreed. “I think that’s what it means.”
“But he can’t hurt us unless we allow it,” Malory put in. “The trick is not to allow it, which is not as easy as it sounds.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” The memory of her brush with Kane still made Dana shudder. “It’s not just finding the last two keys, it’s protecting ourselves.”
“And the people around us,” Zoe reminded her. “He went after Flynn, too. If he tries anything with Simon—anything—I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting him down.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.” Dana reached over to squeeze Zoe’s shoulder. “When your turn comes, we’ll all look after Simon. We can always send Moe to protect him,” she added to lighten the mood. She sent a steely look at Malory. “A true friend would’ve called and warned me I was about to get a dog.”
“A true friend knew you’d sleep better at night with a dog snoring beside the bed.”
“Beside, my ass. He snuck onto the bed when I was sleeping. Which means I’d have slept through an earthquake last night, as he’s not what we can call stealthy. And Moe-proofing the apartment is no snap, just let me add. Not to mention I’m not allowed to have dogs in my building in the first place.”
“It’s just for a few weeks and mostly at night,” Malory reminded her. “You did sleep better, too. I can tell by your mood.”
“Maybe I did. Anyway, I should fill you in on what I’m doing about the key.”
WITH the first room primed, they moved to the next and the more tedious chore of cutting in around the trim.
“Jealousy, sorcery, getting inside Kane’s skin.” Standing on the new stepladder, Malory took on the task of painting the ceiling. “That’s very smart.”
“I think so. The answer’s in a book. It’s got to be. Yours dealt with painting, and one of the daughters, the one who looks like you, is an artist. Well, a musician, but that’s an art.”
Zoe glanced over. “I sure as hell hope that means I don’t have to take up fencing because my goddess carries a sword.”