by Nora Roberts
Some had been laid to rest inside, under slabs of stone where the names and dates were faint fingerprints, eroded with time and weather. But for her, it echoed of life and death, of fires burning, pots simmering, voices hushed in prayer.
Smells of incense and smoke and earth.
She started up a narrow curve of stone stairs, noting where the joists—long gone—had once held up the second floor, and the third.
She stepped through an opening, onto a wide ledge overlooking the lazily flowing river. She spotted the bird huddled in a tree, reached under her jacket for her gun.
Then relaxed.
Just a rook, idling on a rainy afternoon.
Below, she saw Annika turning a circle, hands held up as if to catch the rain.
“She makes her own fun.”
“Wherever she goes,” Doyle agreed from behind her.
Riley turned her head. “Boots ought to make more noise on stone steps.”
“Not if you know how to walk. There’s nothing here, Gwin.”
“There’s history and tradition, there’s architecture and longevity. We’re standing here where some buried below once stood. That’s not nothing. But no, I don’t think this is the place.”
She watched Sasha walk into the ruins with Bran.
“She’s feeling the pressure—from all of us. We’ve been here nearly three weeks now.”
Riley followed his gaze, back to Annika.
“She’s got time. She has more than another month. We haven’t gotten this far together to stall, to just tread water so she’ll have to go back before we finish.”
“In Nerezza’s place, from a tactical standpoint, I’d hold off until that time was up—until one of us, by nature, is separated from the rest.” Resigned to the rain, Doyle scanned the mists and stones. “Even if we find the star first, we have to find the island, get there. And the clock’s ticking.”
“Screw tactics.”
“That could’ve been Custer’s motto.”
“Yeah? Were you in the Montana Territory in 1876?”
“Missed that one.”
“Then I’ll point out Custer was an arrogant egomaniac, and part of an invading force that didn’t quibble at genocide. Got his ass handed to him. I think Nerezza’s got a lot more in common with him.”
“The Lakota won the battle, but they sure as hell didn’t win the war.”
Tipping back her hat, she angled her head to study that hard, handsome face. “You know, maybe it’s not the pressure of our combined thoughts blocking Sasha. Maybe it’s your consistent pessimism.”
“Realism.”
“Realism? Seriously? I’m a lycan standing here with a three-hundred-year-old man. There’s a mermaid down there skipping around a graveyard. Where does that fit in with realism? We’re a fucking mystic force, McCleary, and don’t forget it.”
“Three hundred and fifty-nine, technically.”
“Funny. Now why don’t you— Wait, wait.” Eyes narrowed, she turned to him. “In what year were you cursed? In 1683, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
Struck, she thumped a fist on his chest. “Do the math! Three hundred and thirty-three years ago. Three-three-three. Three’s a number of power.”
“I don’t see how that—”
“Three.” Snapping out the number, Riley circled her hands in the air. “How the hell did I miss that?” She grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the stairs. Stopped halfway as Bran and Sasha had started up. “Doyle’s three hundred and fifty-nine.”
“He holds up so well,” Sasha began.
“And he was cursed in 1683. Three hundred and thirty-three years ago.”
Now Bran angled his head, laid a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Now how did we miss that?”
“See!” Riley jabbed a finger at Doyle. “We didn’t think about the exact number because, hey, immortal to round things off. But it has to apply.”
“You’ve lost me.” Sasha glanced back as Annika and Sawyer stepped up.
“Three,” Bran repeated. “A magickal number, one of power. As we are. Three men, three women, in search of three stars.”
“Created by three goddesses,” Riley finished.
“Next year it’ll be three hundred and thirty-four.”
“Now is what matters. Don’t be a blockhead.” Dismissing him, Riley waved the others back so she could come down. “This time, this year. Three, three, three. And this place—Ireland, Clare, where the house sits. You were born there, right? In the house?”
“The birthing center at the local hospital was full up at the time.”
On a roll, Riley just slapped the back of her hand on his chest. “Maybe it ends where it began. Or Doyle began, and the clock started on the day he was cursed.” Riley demanded. “What month? When in 1683?”
“January.”
“Do you hear that click? Sasha, when did you first start dreaming of us, of the stars, of this?”
“You already know, because I told you. In January, right after the first of the year.”
“Exactly. Click, click. You started being pulled into this when Doyle hit his triple threes as an immortal. And you pulled us all together.” She looked at Bran now. “It’s not nothing.”
“It’s not, no. Signs are meant to be heeded.”
“There’s a graveyard—stones—back at the house. Sorry, man,” Sawyer added.
“Where we’ve been living,” Doyle pointed out, “training, walking for weeks now.”
“But not looking, or digging.” Riley held up a hand at the flare in Doyle’s eyes. “I don’t mean digging literally.”
“We would never disrespect your family,” Annika added. “Is it possible your family helps protect the star? Is that the possible Riley means?”
“That’s exactly the possible. Look.” Now she turned to Doyle. “What I do, even the literal digging, is because I respect and value who and what came before. I don’t desecrate, ever, or support anyone who does, even in the name of science and discovery. We need to check this out. We just go back and check it out for now. Okay?”
“Fine. We’ll get out of this filthy weather. And tomorrow, as the chances of the last star popping out of my mother’s headstone are thin, we dive, whatever the weather.”
Since she figured everyone was entitled to mood, and she wanted to think, Riley said nothing as they trooped back to the car, squeezed in.
She spent the drive back using her phone to gather more data on the number three.
“Three divisions of time,” she mused aloud. “Past, present, future. From the first three numbers, all the others synthesize. What makes up a man—or woman—mind, body, spirit. Three. Most cultures use three as a symbol of power or philosophies. The Celts, the Druids, the Greeks, Christianity. Art and literature.”
“You had to say Beetlejuice three times,” Sawyer commented.
“There you go. Third time’s the charm. Actually—didn’t think of it—the Pythagoreans believed three was the first true number.”
“They were wrong, weren’t they?” Doyle replied.
She lowered her phone, met his eyes. “Plato divided his Utopian city into three groups. Laborers, Philosophers, Guardians—who were, essentially, warriors.”
“And in his Utopia, laborers equaled slaves, philosophers rulers. Only Utopia for some.”
“The point is three,” Riley insisted.
The minute Bran parked, she shoved out. “We have to look. We know it’s personal for you, we all do. But that may be part of it. So we have to look.”
“So we look.”
When Doyle started back, Bran signaled to Riley, then lengthened his own stride to catch up.
“Most of my family rest in Sligo,” he began. “But those here are family all the same. For all of us.”
“You didn’t know them.”
“I know you, as we all do. Tell us about them.”
“What?”
“One thing,” Bran said. “Tell us one thing that strikes your memory about ea
ch. And we’ll know them.”
“How will that help find the star?”
“We can’t know. Feilim. This is the brother you lost. You’ve told us he was kind and pure-hearted. So we know him. What of this brother?”
“Brian? He was clever and good with his hands. Beside him is his wife, Fionnoula. She was pretty as a sunbeam, and he fell for her when he was no more than ten. Loved her all his life. Steadfast, that was Brian.”
“And their children here with them?” Bran prompted.
“Three more than the two here. I barely knew them.”
Doyle moved to his last brother. “Cillian, he liked to dream, to make music. He had a voice like an angel that drew the girls like bees to honey. My sister Maire’s not here, but buried with her husband and children in a churchyard near Kilshanny. Bossy, opinionated. Always a scrapper.”
He found a kind of solace, finding something about each of his brothers, his sisters. His grandparents. Paused at his father.
“He was a good man,” Doyle said after a moment. “He loved his wife, his children, the land. He taught me to fight, to build with stone and wood. He didn’t mind a lie, if it was entertaining, but he’d tolerate no cheating.
“My mother. She ran the house, and all in it. She’d sing when she baked. She liked to dance, and when Maire had her first child . . . I still remember her holding the baby, looking at its face. She said whoever you were, now you’re Aiden.”
Annika laid her head against his arm. “We believe when one of us dies they go to another place. One of peace and beauty. After a time, there’s a choice to stay there or to come back again. It’s harder to come back again, but most do.”
Solace, Doyle thought again. “I never thanked you for the flowers, the shells and stones you put on the graves.”
“It’s to honor who they were. Even if they choose to come back, we might not know them.”
“That’s who they were, or a part of it. I’ve said their names. There’s no star here.”
“We just need to figure out how to pick the lock. I’ll work on it,” Riley promised. “Maybe not here. Maybe in or around the house, or the old well. Somewhere in the woods. There’s too much weight not to think it’s right here.”
“Let’s go in, take a break. It’s been a dreary couple of days,” Sasha added. “We could all use a break.”
“We can have wine, with cheese and bread. Sawyer said I could be chief cook tonight, and I could make . . . What am I making?”
“Baked potato soup—in bread bowls. Good for a wet day.”
“Bread bowls? How am I supposed to think about research when I’m going to eat bowls of bread?”
Sasha took Riley’s arm. “By having wine first.”
“That could work.”
Wine usually worked, in Riley’s opinion. And she didn’t mind having some in front of the fire, her feet up while she worked on her tablet. Especially when the air began to smell of whatever Sawyer taught Annika to chop, stir, or mix.
It seemed to her Sasha felt the same as she sat in the kitchen lounge sketching. Doyle had said something about a hot shower and disappeared. Since she thought he wanted space, she provided it.
She noted idly that Bran was absent for at least an hour, came back in, left again. Shortly after helping Annika form balls of bread dough, Sawyer told her to cover them with a cloth, time it for an hour.
He slipped out.
Riley lowered her tablet. “What if we tried something like a scavenger hunt?”
“Why would you hunt scavengers?” Annika wondered.
“No, it’s like a game.”
“I like games. Sawyer taught me one with cards, and when you lose, you take off a piece of clothes. Oh, but he said we only play it for two.”
“Yeah, that’s better as a duet. It’s when you have a list of things to find, and you hunt for them.”
“Like the stars. So it’s a quest.”
“In a way.”
Sasha glanced up from her sketch. “How does a scavenger hunt help us find the star?”
“It’s a way to get us to comb through the house, to look for the unexpected. I don’t know. Reaching,” Riley admitted. “Doyle’s family built on this spot. He was born here. Bran built, three hundred years later, on this spot. We’ve been driving and hiking around Clare, diving in the Atlantic. But it’s making more sense, it’s just more logical, the answer’s right here.”
“Don’t you think Bran, being Bran, would have sensed it?”
Because Riley had rolled that around, she had a theory. “I think, somehow, it didn’t really begin for us until January—and Doyle’s unwilling rebirth. Yes, everyone but you already knew about the Stars of Fortune before we hooked up on Corfu—and that’s another in the mix. We all knew; you didn’t. The clock started when Doyle hit the magic number.”
She pushed up, poured more wine. “It’s a solid theory. January starts the clock, you start having visions about us, about the stars. It takes you a while, but you go to Corfu—and so do the rest of us. Same time, same place.”
“Riley is very smart.” Annika poured more wine, too.
“You bet I am.” She clicked her glass to Annika’s, and feeling generous, took the bottle to where Sasha sat, topped off her glass. “You’re drawing the house.”
“I love the house. I don’t think it’s any more than that. But I do follow the theory. And . . . Bran brought the other two stars here, into this house. So maybe this is why.”
“Good point. So we could go through it, top to bottom. Your visions, so far, say it’s somewhere cold, talk about a name on a stone. First on the hunt list is a name, a stone. You talked about the boy seeing the man, the man the boy.”
“We have three men,” Annika pointed out.
“Right you are. One of them was born here, was a boy here. That could be it. Or . . .” Riley sipped. “It could be symbolic again. Something in the house from Doyle’s time, or that represents—”
She broke off when Doyle came in.
“Who knew it was that easy to shut you up.”
“She doesn’t want to poke at a sore,” Sasha told him.
“Nothing sore.” He looked at the wine, and since it was handy, got a glass. “You had a point before. The whole whims-of-fate deal pisses me off. It wasn’t you, but like this wine, you were handy.”
“Riley wants to hunt scavengers to find the star.” Annika peeked under the cloth, pleased to see the balls were bigger.
“A scavenger hunt?”
“A form thereof,” Riley said to Doyle. “We compile a list of things, symbols, possibilities that may apply, and we start looking. Hell, what else have we got to do on a rainy night?”
He shifted, caged her back against the counter. “Seriously?”
“You can have sex now,” Annika suggested amiably. “There’s time before dinner.”
Doyle smiled at her. “Gorgeous, are you sure I can’t talk you into tossing Sawyer over for me?”
“Nice.” Not too subtly, Riley lifted her knee, pressed it firmly against Doyle’s crotch.
“He’s making a joke because he knows Sawyer is my only true love.”
“Good thing,” Sawyer said as he came in with Bran behind him.
“Sawyer, the balls are bigger!”
“Not mine.” Doyle eased Riley’s knee down.
“No, yours, too— Oh.” Tossing her hair, Annika laughed. “You made another joke.”
“He’s a laugh riot.” Riley shoved Doyle’s chest, didn’t budge him. “You’re blocking me.”
“I’m thinking of time before dinner.”
“I’m using the time before dinner,” Sawyer announced. “Anni—”
“But we can’t have sex now because I have to make the dinner. It’s my turn.”
“Anni,” he said again, and went to her, cupped her face, kissed her.
“Sasha could watch the balls of dough,” Annika murmured, and circled his neck with her arms.
“I love you. Everything about
you. Everything you are.”
“Is this happening now?” Doyle muttered at Riley.
“Shut up.”
“Do you remember when Riley and I went to Dublin?”
“It hurt my feelings you didn’t take me with you, and the others were angry because—”
“Yeah, let’s skip over that,” Sawyer said quickly. “I went to get something for you, and Riley helped me.”
“The surprise, but you never gave me the surprise.”
“I’m going to give it to you now, because you like the rain, and we’re making soup, and this is family. You’re my family. Stay my family, Annika.”
He took a pair of polished shells out of his pocket.
“It’s beautiful.”
But when she reached for it, Sawyer lifted the top shell.
Gasping, she pressed her hands to her lips. “A ring. Is it mine?”
“Made for you. We designed it—we all had a hand in that. Riley helped me find the stones, and Bran, well, made the magicks. The blue stone—”
“I know this stone. It’s precious. It holds the heart of the sea.”
“You hold mine. Always. Marry me.”
“Sawyer.” She laid a hand on her heart, her other on his. “Will you put it on, the way Bran put Sasha’s on?”
“I take that as a yes.” He slipped it on her finger.
“It’s more beautiful, more precious than anything I have. Except you. I will be your mate, always.”
She slid into his arms to seal it with a kiss, held tight, tight. “I thought I already had the biggest happy, but this is bigger.”
“And that’s our Anni.” This time Riley elbowed Doyle aside. “Show it off.”
“It’s so beautiful. It holds the sea, and the pink is for joy, and the bands are for all, for family. Thank you for helping.” She kissed Riley’s cheek. “Thank you.” Then Sasha’s, then Doyle’s. “And you, for the magick.” She hugged Bran, swayed.
Then swung away, holding her ring hand high. “Look! It’s so, so pretty. It’s the best of any surprise.”
She leaped into Sawyer’s arms, laughing as she took his mouth.
“Mmm. Sasha will finish the—” She jumped back when the timer buzzed. “The balls!”
“Brother.” With a shake of his head, Doyle lifted his glass. “You’ll never have a dull moment in the rest of your life.”
Sawyer watched Annika whip the cloth off the dough, like a magician completing a trick. “I’m counting on just that.”