“Well, yeah, you have a point.” Travers sounded nervous, but Megan wasn’t about to turn around and look at him.
Instead, Rob was the one who broke out of the embrace.
“We do need to discuss the wheel,” he said.
Megan frowned at him. “You’re the one who didn’t want to be involved,” she said.
“And you’re the one who pissed off Zeus,” Rob said.
“Zeus?” Zoe sounded scared. “How did you make him angry?”
“We have no idea whether I did or not,” Megan said.
“She promised to help the Interim Fates,” Rob said to Zoe.
Zoe’s eyes were wide. “Help them with what?”
Megan sighed and pulled her robe tighter. “They have an emotionally abusive, controlling father who doesn’t care about them at all. They’ve been thrust into a job that they have no training for, and they’re expected to perform well. They have no abilities to take care of themselves, let alone others, and they’re frightened. Someone has to help them.”
Zoe just stared at her. Travers let his arms drop. He sighed and leaned forward on the couch, then shook his head.
“You can take the psychologist out of her practice,” he said softly, “but you can’t take the practice out of the psychologist.”
“I don’t think switching the cliché really works,” Megan said, “but you made your point. And you’re wrong. I wasn’t being intrusive. Those girls need help.”
“Those girls have more power than all of us combined,” Zoe said quietly.
“Power means nothing,” Megan said. “I’ve counseled teenagers who’ve had more money and more power than I have, but that still didn’t stop them from being screwed up. These girls need a lot more than a pile of magic books and some instructions on running the world. They need someone to care for them."
“You said you’d do that?” Travers asked slowly.
“I said we’d help them get out of that job,” Megan said. They were still staring at her. She was glad she couldn’t see Rob’s face. She already knew how he felt about this. “I figured we can do it since we know where the real Fates are.”
“She did get the Interims to agree to step down if the real Fates come back,” Rob said, “but whether they do that or not remains to be seen.”
“You think they won’t,” Zoe said. It didn’t take a psychologist to infer that, considering his tone.
Travers had his hands stuck through his hair. He was still shaking his head. “You know, sometimes I think I’m going to wake up and find myself in front of my computer, doing Mrs. Jacobson’s taxes. And sometimes, I think I’d be happy doing just that.”
Zoe gave him a sideways look. “Having second thoughts?”
He grinned up at her. “Not after this afternoon.”
It was Megan’s turn to moan out loud. “Too much information.”
“It’s not even close to the information you gave me earlier,” Travers said.
“I can give you more,” Megan said.
“Enough!” Rob had a spectacular bellow. It shook his body and Megan’s. “We have to resolve this. Megan did make promises to the Interim Fates and, it seems, Kyle has made promises to the Fates. We all will come to the attention of Zeus sooner or later—he’s not as dumb as his daughters when it comes to tracking magic—and so I suggest we do something.”
“We’ve already done something,” Zoe said. “It’s in your ballpark now, at least according to the Fates.”
“What is?” Megan asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“This entire scheme—with your lovely, added Zeusy fillip—can’t go any farther until the Fates have that wheel. It’s the only way they can reclaim their magic without the help of the Powers That Be,” Zoe said.
“They can’t ask the Powers That Be,” Travers said to Megan, “because Zeus is one of those Powers.”
Megan nodded. “I got that from Rob’s paranoid reaction.”
Rob’s hand left her shoulder. “I’m not paranoid. I’m just practical.”
“This from a man who tried to take on the Fates,” Megan said.
“I was dumb,” he said, “and lucky.”
She sighed. Then she turned to Zoe and Travers. “Why can’t you guys get the wheel?”
“Because,” Zoe said, “the Fates took us off the case.”
“So we’ll put you back on.”
Travers stood, put his arm around Zoe, and pulled her close. “She nearly died in Faerie,” he said. “I’m not letting her go back.”
“As if he has any say,” Zoe said. “But I do agree with him. I’m not going back inside, even if the Fates wanted me to.”
“So you’re going to send us?” Megan asked.
“Actually,” Zoe said, “the Fates only wanted Robin.”
Rob nodded. “So then it’s Robin they’ll get.”
Twenty-six
Rob’s kind of thievery wasn’t really suited to a heist. He’d never done one. He’d started out as a highwayman, and then had become a master con artist.
And he did continue along his old lines. He still found ways to take from the rich and give to the poor.
Only now, he made the rich believe they were going to get a good return on that investment. Of course, he never promised when that return would happen—or even if it would happen. And he made certain that the rich knew they were investors in high-risk businesses. Most of the time, that was all he had to say.
The rest of the time, he threatened to expose his investors who wanted to pull out. We’re building hospitals in the poorest countries in the world, he would say. Do you really want the press to hear that you believe building hospitals isn’t a worthwhile investment?
He had a dozen variations on that theme, and it always, always brought compliance from his rich investors. A few of the savvy ones never invested with him again, but the rest had no idea what they were getting into.
Legal highway robbery. When he’d come up with this at the turn of the last century (and somehow managed to survive the U.S. stock market crash in ’29), he had been proud of himself. It had gotten rid of the risk, at least for him, and had enabled him to keep the haves from completely breaking the backs of the have-nots.
But this—stealing something from someone else, something physical—he hadn’t done that in more than a hundred and fifty years.
“I suppose,” he said softly, “there’s no way to get this wheel out of Faerie.”
He was thinking of some sort of broad-daylight truck hijacking or a spinning-wheel snatch in the middle of the Vegas strip.
But Zoe shook her head. She reached into what passed for a pocket in her skin-tight leather pants, and removed a piece of paper.
The paper glittered with magic.
“I have a map of Faerie,” she said.
He whistled.
“We have to be very careful with it,” she said, “because it has its own magic. If we touch it too much, someone’s going to know what we’re doing.”
“Gotcha.” He’d seen maps like that before. Usually, he tried to stay away from them. It’d been relatively easy, since he’d never been the kind of thief looking for real treasure.
He’d always just wanted to equalize the playing field between those with power and those without.
Zoe held the map gingerly between her thumb and forefinger as she walked into the dining room. Rob followed her, cinching his robe tighter. He would rather have spent the afternoon with Megan, but his conscience had gotten in the way.
His conscience and his concern about Zeus. Zeus’ punishments were legendary: this was a man who had destroyed his own father, and who had taken true heroes, like Hercules, and made them into slaves. He was the one who had come up with the whole Sisyphus-pushing-a-rock-uphill-for-eternity thing, and who had once decided that mortals were so wicked, he had to flood the Earth to rid the world of them. (Fortunately that hadn’t worked.)
And that was long before Rob’s time. He’d tried hard not to pay attent
ion to the things that Zeus had done since. They were equally icky, but a lot more covert.
Megan stayed at Rob’s side until they reached Travers. Travers stood and glared at his sister.
“I don’t think this should be clothing optional,” Travers said.
“You don’t want me to hear this,” Megan said.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he said.
“I’m involved, thanks to you and Kyle, and now Rob. I’m staying.” She pushed past him.
Rob grinned at Travers. “She’s not going to listen to you.”
Travers shook his head. “Doesn’t stop me from trying,” he said softly. Then he gave Rob a sideways smile. “You know, it’s hell being an older brother.”
“I can only imagine,” Rob said truthfully.
Zoe spread the map over the entire surface of the dining room table. Lights flickered and spun, making the entire suite seem like it was part of a casino.
“Hey,” she said, beckoning them, “we’ve got a world to save here.”
“Or at least a spinning wheel,” Rob said, then sighed. How had he gotten into this? Ah, yes. A beautiful redhead, a silly promise, and some sort of buried nobility.
“This is amazing.” Megan had bent over the table. The colors from the map illuminated her face. She was bathed in light.
“Don’t touch it,” Zoe said.
“It’s hard not to,” Megan said.
“That’s part of the magic,” Zoe said. “It’s a Faerie map. Usually only Faeries can have it, and then only for a short period of time.”
“How’d you get it?” Rob asked as he reached the table.
Zoe grinned at him. “I have strange friends in low places.”
“Some of them quite helpful.” Travers reached Zoe’s side. He squeezed her waist and pulled her close. “Which reminds me. Has anyone heard from Gaylord since last night?”
Zoe shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll show up when we least expect him.”
“Gaylord?” Rob asked.
“A friend of Zoe’s,” Travers said. “He’s a Faerie.”
“Man,” Megan said, “I’m not sure I can get used to that word in its old-fashioned context. It makes me bristle.”
“Faeries make mages bristle,” Zoe said. “Historically, we don’t get along.”
“But you get along with them?” Rob asked, feeling odd. He had never heard of such a thing.
Zoe shrugged. “People are people. Magic people even more so.”
“Whatever that means,” Megan said softly.
Rob slipped his arm around her and hugged her to him, then moved her slightly. He didn’t want her to have any chance of touching that map.
It had sunken into the tabletop. The colors on the map constantly changed, moving and floating around as if tracking moving objects. Some parts of the map had runes on it; other parts were written in Old English, a language he’d grown up with but never learned to read well. It made his brain hurt. A few parts of the map had directions in Celtic, and one or two other parts had something written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“This thing is pretending to be old,” he said, “but it isn’t.”
“I have no idea about its age,” Zoe said. “I bought it from a shaman a few days ago.”
“And left it in her car last night,” Travers said. “I’m amazed no one stole it.”
“The car was parked outside a casino,” Zoe said to Rob. “Everyone knew better.”
“Why?” Megan asked.
“Most of the casinos lead into Faerie,” Rob said.
Megan frowned.
Poor thing. She had to learn about the great wide world all at once. No wonder she was getting confused.
“This map,” Zoe said, “shows Faerie as it is at this minute. It constantly changes. The entrances, the exits, the location of magical items.”
Rob nodded. He’d seen a few other maps like this, but never one of Faerie.
“You need to look up from it,” Zoe said to Megan. “You can lose yourself in it.”
Megan looked up slowly and blinked. “Wow. I still see a reflection across my eyes.”
“This map is really dangerous,” Zoe said. “I’m told that its power will only last a month, but I’m not sure of that. I do believe the warnings I got, though. They went like this: Don’t look at it too much, or you’ll lose time. Don’t hold it too long, or you’ll end up at a place of the map’s choosing. And don’t try to take magic from the map, or it might kill you. Is that clear?”
Rob shivered. Faerie magic. The most dangerous kind. “Very.”
“No,” Megan said. “How can a map do all that?”
“At this stage, Meg,” Travers said, “Just accept. Believe me, it makes things a lot easier.”
“And saves us all from pink elephants,” Zoe muttered.
“What?” Megan asked.
Zoe grinned. “Your brother was very hard to convince about magic. We had an incident with a pink elephant.”
“And too many five-dollar bills,” Travers said.
“After seeing you guys this afternoon,” Megan said, “I’m not sure I want more information.”
“I know I don’t,” Rob said.
The map showed all sorts of warrens and tunnels. It also showed a wide expanse marked Faerie. Entrances were all over Las Vegas, with a few in Mississippi, one in Connecticut, and a handful more in Atlantic City. The rest were scattered across Europe. Past Italy and Spain, the entrances to Faerie faded out. The Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, and unsurprisingly, Greece had no entrances at all.
He couldn’t commit the map to memory though; every time he looked at it, something changed.
“How’re we going to find anything in there?” he asked. “It’s different from minute to minute.”
“Well,” Zoe said, “finding the wheel is actually pretty easy. Getting it out is going to be hard.”
“Why?” Rob asked.
“Because,” Travers said. “The wheel is the very heart of Faerie.”
Rob wasn’t sure he’d heard this right. “What do you mean?”
“It’s in the center of Faerie,” Zoe said, “and it powers everything.”
“And you want me to go in there and take it out?”
“I don’t,” Zoe said. “The Fates do.”
“One man, alone, taking down Faerie.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Zoe said, and smiled.
Megan slipped her arm through his. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, you won’t,” he said.
Megan squinched up her face like she did when she thought he was controlling her. He really wasn’t controlling her, but he did have centuries more experience dealing with magic than she did. He knew a lot more about it than almost everyone in the room.
“She probably has to go with you,” Zoe said. “That’s how the Fates work. What’s your prophecy?”
He felt a trickle of irritation. “I have no idea.”
“You don’t know your prophecy?” Zoe sounded shocked.
“I don’t believe in that nonsense,” he said.
“Then why are you helping?”
Megan had her arms crossed. Travers was pointedly not looking at the map and was, instead, watching Rob. Zoe was the one who was frowning.
“I’m helping,” Rob said, “because I got talked into it. Let it go at that.”
“He’s helping because you sent him to the Interim Fates,” Megan snapped, “and he thinks I was stupid. You all think I was stupid.”
“Misguided, maybe,” Zoe said. “No one takes on Zeus.”
“At the expense of his children?”
“Do you know how many children he has?” Zoe asked.
Megan shook her head. “I gather no one does.”
“That’s right,” Zoe said. “Hundreds, maybe thousands, some with magic, some without.”
“Over the centuries, I trust,” Travers said.
“Yeah,” Zoe said. “I’m sure a lot are gone now.”
&
nbsp; Travers shook his head. “I have trouble enough raising one. I can’t imagine raising hundreds, maybe thousands.”
“That’s the point,” Megan said. “He isn’t raising them. He’s using them.”
“Why is that our problem?” Zoe asked.
Megan seemed to grow taller. Rob had never seen anything like it. “You see, that’s the problem. All you people thinking that other people should be allowed to raise their kids however they want. We pay for that dysfunction in increased crime rates, suicides, and just general misery.”
“From Zeus?” Zoe asked.
“From all dysfunctional parents,” Megan said. “And this society. We abandon our kids. Everyone figures they survived their rough childhood, so these kids can too.”
Rob felt his face heat. He’d said something similar to her earlier.
“Yet, if you really think about it, imagine how you would’ve felt if someone had stepped in and helped you when you needed it.”
“You can’t save the world, Meg,” Travers said softly.
“Oh, really?” she said, putting her hands on her hips and whirring to face her brother.
Her robe started to pull open. Rob would have liked that, but he knew it would create another familial scene, so he reached over and tightened her belt.
She acknowledged him with a small nod.
“It seems to me,” she said to her brother, “that this mission is all about saving the world. Because the world isn’t worth living in without love—”
“My thoughts exactly,” Zoe said.
“—and Zeus and everything he stands for is getting in the way of love. I have no idea why you people are balking at helping in any way you can.” Megan was shaking.
Rob wanted to pull her close, but this time, he realized, he didn’t dare. She was very upset, and part of that upset was at him.
“We did help,” Travers said.
“Then you took a break for some nookie,” Megan said.
“I’m not the only one.”
“No,” Megan said, “nookie takes two.”
“Oh, really?” Travers asked. “Is that a technical definition? Because I know you know that there are some things which can be done alone—”
“You’re mean!” Megan said, obviously remembering an old slight.
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