by Nora Roberts
Jordan nudged Flynn aside, stepped between them. “Why dont you know what happened?” he demanded of Rowena.
“Hes capable of blocking certain actions from us.”
“And you from him?”
“Yes, of course. He doesnt have her soul,” she said, gently, to Flynn.
“Whatever hes got, get it back.” Flynn shoved forward again, pushing Malorys hand away. He only flicked a cold, hard stare atPitte when he moved to flank Rowena. “Do you think you worry me right now?”
“You waste time in your fear for your sister.”
“Shes cold. Her skins like ice. Shes barely breathing.”
“He took her into the book,” Jordan said and had Rowenas attention snapping to him. “How do you know?”
“I know.” He picked up the book hed set on the night table. “She opened this and she was gone.”
She took the book from him. “Its gone. The key is gone from here. It was not to be this way,” she murmured. “He crosses too many lines, breaks too many pacts. Why is he not stopped? This is not temptation, intimidation, or even threat.”
She turned toPitte , and there was a spark of fear in her eyes. “Hes changed the field, and somehow hes moved the key.”
“It was in the book?” Jordan interrupted.
“Yes. Now, somehow, hes taken it into the story, and her with it. He should not be permitted to do so.”
“Shes alone in there. Whether its the story or whether its Kane, her lifes in danger” Jordan gripped Danas hand. “Bring her out.”
“I cant bring out what he put in. Its beyond my power. He must release her, or she must free herself. I can warm her,” she began.
“The hell with that.” Jordan snatched the book back. “Send me in with her.”
“Thats not possible.” She turned away from him to lean over Dana, to run her hands gently over Danas face.
On an oath, Jordan grabbed her arm, spun her back to him. “Dont tell me its not possible.” He felt a jolt, a shock that sang straight up his arm to his shoulder, but he kept his grip firm.
“Take your hand off my woman,”Pitte said very softly.
“What are you going to do, smite me? My womans lying there helpless, going through Christ knows what, because she gave her word to you. And youd stand here and do nothing?”
“He conjured this world he took her into. Its his power that holds there.” In a rare sign of agitation, Rowena pushed at her hair. “Theres no way of knowing what hes done there, or what would become of you if I attempted it. And Im not permitted to take you beyond your own world. To do so would break the vow I took when I came into this place, when I was given charge of the keys.”
“I conjured this world,” Jordan tossed back, and threw the book on the bed beside Dana. “Thats my mind in there, my words, and Ive got a real problem with some self-serving god threatening the woman I love, and plagiarizing me to do it. I dont care how many vows you break, youre not leaving her in there alone. Youre sending me after her.”
“I cant.”
“Rowena.” Taking her shoulders,Pitte turned her to face him. “He has the right. Listen,” he insisted as she started to speak. “A man shouldnt be stripped and bound while his woman fights alone. It was Kane who broke an oath, and doing so crossed beyond all honor. He was not meant to take her life. He was not meant to touch the key by hand or mind or sorcery. Its a different battle now. We fight on his terms or we lose.”
“My love.” She curled her fingers around his arms. “If I do this, even if I succeed, you know what it may cost us.”
“Can we live, in this prison, and do nothing?”
The sigh ached in her breast as she lowered her forehead to his heart. “Ill need you.”
“Youll have me. Always.”
She nodded, drew a deep breath, then looked at Jordan with eyes that seemed to burn. “Be sure. If I do this thing, her life, yours, and all are at risk.”
“Doit.”
“Send us all.”Zoe grabbed Danas hand again. “Send all of us in. You said were stronger together, and we are. Well have a better chance of getting her back if we all go.”
“Valiant warrior.”Pitte smiled at her. “This is not for you. But if gods are willing, youll have your turn.”
“Give him a weapon,” Brad demanded.
“He can take nothing with him but his mind. Lie beside her,” Rowena told Jordan, then picked up the book. She closed her eyes, and it began to glow. “Ah, yes, I see. Take her hand.”
“Ive already got it.”
Rowena opened her eyes. The blazing blue was nearly black against the pure white of her skin. Her hair seemed to lift in an unseen wind. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, Im ready.”
“Bring her back.” Flynn drew Malory close to his side as he looked down at Jordan. “Bring her home.”
“Count on it.” He felt that wind blow through him, fast and warm. He felt it whirl him through time, through space, throughshimmery silver curtains that parted with a sound like the sea.
And he was standing in the moonstruck night, staring at the black peaks and towers of Phantom Watch.
He sprinted toward it, noting the smoking fog, the scream of an owl. A dog would bay at that fat, full moon, he remembered, and felt a curious satisfaction when the sound echoed through the air.
Last chapter, he realized, and confirmed it when he saw the broken window.
Time to do. a little revising, he thought, and climbed through the shattered glass.
Chapter Twenty
WHAT can we do?” Malory held tight to Flynn. “There must be something we can do besides stand here and wait.”
“Keep close,”Pitte told her.
“Perhaps theres a bit more.” Rowena sat on the side of the bed, with the book in her lap. “Weve already broken our vow,” she said toPitte . “If there is punishment, it wont change if we do more.”
“Watch, then.” He ranged himself beside her. “But they deserve the chance to win this on their own. Read.” He laid his hand on her shoulders and merged his power with hers. “So the others can watch as well.”
She nodded and opened the book to the last chapter.
“She took the stairs at a limping run, and the fear was all around her, crowded close in the shadows of the Watch.”
AT the landing Dana started to veer right. There were dozens of rooms, hundreds of places to hide.
But for how long?
He would find her. The dark was no barrier for him.
Would he kill her? Could he? Kate had saved herself in the end, but she had fought a man, flesh and blood against flesh and blood.
How could she know how much of this was Kanes world and how much was Jordans? Even, she realized, how much was her own creation brought on by bits and pieces she remembered from the book, spiked by her own fear?
At the sound below, she whirled to see the shadow of Kane and the long white scarf glowing faintly blue in the path of the moonlight.
And she saw the fog, now cold and blue, begin to crawl up the steps toward her.
“Ill find you, Kate.” He crooned it. “Ill always find you.”
The killers words, she thought. She heard her answer spill out of her mouth without conscious thought. “I wont make it easy for you. It wont be like the others.”
She pivoted on the landing and charged up the next flight of stairs.
She needed distance, she thought frantically. Enough distance to buy enough time to clear her mind. Fear was clouding it, making it harder for her to separate herself and her actions from the characters.
She batted madly at cobwebs, had to stifle a scream as they clung to her hair and face. But somehow the innately human disgust steadied her.
Find the truth in his lies, she remembered, as her breath began to puff out in thin vapors.
“Im Dana!” she shouted. “Im Dana Steele, you bastard from hell, and youre not going to win this one.”
His laughter chased her down the wide corridor where doors swung
open, slammed shut withbulletlike snaps. The mist was sneaking along the floor, added a hideous glow to the dark and curling ice around her feet. The sweat sliding down her back and temples went clammy with cold as she stumbled into a maze of hallways.
Breathless, she turned in circles. There were dozens of corridors now, and each seemed to stretch for miles like some mad dream.
He was changing the story, she realized. Adding his own flourishes to confuse her. And doing a damn good job.
“Choose. His voice whispered inside her head. Choose unwisely, you might tumble off the edge of the world, or rush toward a pit of fire. But stand, only stand and yield, and all this will be no more than a dream.”
“You lie.”
“Run and risk your life. Surrender and save it.” “Choose,” he said again, and she felt the hot silk of the scarf wrap around her throat.
Horrified, she clawed at it, raked her own skin with the frantic swipes of her nails. She was choking, fighting the illusion of the strangling cloth as the blood roared in her head like the sea.
Then suddenly she was free, and there was only the single corridor leading to the last staircase.
Tears leaked from her eyes as she ran for it, dragging herself up by the banister as her injured knee gave out under her.
She threw herself at the door, yanked at the knob with slippery hands. Her breath sobbed out of her burning lungs, scored her abused throat when she stumbled out into the silver light of the moon.
She was at the top of the Watch, high above the valley, where light glowed against the dark. People, she thought, were tucked away in those houses. Safe and warm. She knew them, and they her. Friends, family, a lover.
All so far away now, beyond her reach. Beyond her world.
She was alone, and there was no place left to run.
She slammed the door closed, scanned the stone parapet for something to brace against the door. If she could keep the killer on the other side until day broke…
No, not the killer. Kane. It was Kane.
She was Dana, Dana Steele, and what chased her was worse than a killer.
She pressed her back against the door, using her weight as a wedge. Then she saw shed been wrong. She wasnt alone.
The cloaked figure walked in the shower of moonlight, one hand, with its glitter of rings, skimming along the low stone wall. Her cloak streamed out in a wind that made no sound.
The phantom of the Watch, she thought, and closed her eyes for a moment of peace. The ghost. Jordans ghost.
“Hes coming.” She was amazed how calm she sounded with a vengeful god or mad killer behind her, and a spirit of the dead in front. “To kill me, or stop me, or take my soul. It all comes to the same thing in the end. I need help.”
But the figure didnt turn. She only stood, looking down at the forest where two hundred years before, love had killed her.
“Youre Jordans. Youre Jordans creation, not Kanes. In the book you helped, and the act set you free. Dont you want to be free?”
But the phantom said nothing.
“Kates dialogue,” Dana murmured. “I need Kates words. What are they?”
As she dug for them, the door burst open, throwing her forward onto the stone.
“She cant help you.” Kane ran the scarf through his hands as he stepped out. “Shes only a prop.”
“Its all props.” She scrambled backward like a crab. “Its all lies.”
“Yet you bleed.” He gestured toward her arm, her throat. “Is the pain a lie? Is your fear?” His smile spread as he came closer. “Youve been a challenging opponent. You have a clever mind and a strong will. Clever enough, strong enough to have changed some small pieces of my picture. Imagining the stairs and the door to this place took considerable strength. Bringing her here”—he gestured toward the cloaked figure—“even more. I commend you.”
Her mouth trembled open, then she shut it again. Had she imagined it, the route, the door? Had she willed the ghost into being?
No, no she didnt believe she had. Shed been circling in confusion.
Jordan. It was Jordans book. And he was a man with a clever mind and a strong will. Somehow he was trying to help her. Damned if she was going to let him fail.
She was Dana, she reminded herself. And she was Kate—Jordans Kate. Neither one of them would cower at the end.
“Maybe Ill just imagine you jumping off that wall to your bloody, messy death.”
“Still hissing. A cornered cat. Perhaps Ill simply leave you here, deep inside a book. You should thank me, as books are one of your pleasures.”
He inclined his head as she got to her feet, as he saw her wince of pain. “Or perhaps Ill step back and let the killer come onstage. It would be interesting to see you battle him, though in my version you may not triumph. Either way, it would be entertaining. Yes, I believe Id enjoy the theater of it.”
The white scarf vanished from his hands. “Do you remember how she hears him shambling up the steps, what she feels run through her when she understands that shes trapped?”
Danas breath began to hitch once more as she heard the slow, oncoming footsteps.
He couldnt force her to do anything, she remembered. He could only trick her mind. “How the fear clutched in her belly as she understood that she had run exactly where hed wanted her to run? And below, her lover sees her standing in the light of the moon, sees the
phantom beyond her, and the killer as he steps out onto the stone.
“And he calls her name, in terror and despair, as he knows he can never reach her in time.”
“Sure he can. All it takes is a rewrite.”
Kane whirled as Jordan leaped out of the doorway.
The force of the attack knocked Kane back against the wall.
“You have no place here!”
“This is my place.” Putting all his rage into it, Jordan rammed his fist into Kanes face. It burned as if hed shoved his hand into fire. Still, he reared back to do it again. And was lifted off his feet and flung backward.
“Die here, then.”
A sword shot up from the hand Kane raised. Dana sprang to her feet, and charged him, sprang onto his back to fight with teeth and nails and spitting fury. She heard someone howling, and realized as her throat opened again, that the sound came from her.
Kane knocked her away with a vicious backhand that sent her slamming hard against Jordan. She saw blood on his face, from wounds that both she and Jordan had inflicted.
And her heart danced.
“You will know pain,” she shot out at him.
His eyes gleamed black as he raised the sword. “And you, worse. Your blood will seal you here.”
But as he swung down to strike, his hand was empty.
“Lets see if gods fly,” Jordan said. Both he and Dana rushed forward.
Dana felt her shoving hands connect, then they passed through him as he vanished.
There was a swirl of smoke, a flash of dull blue light. Then nothing but the moon and shadows.
“Did I do that?” She had to wheeze out the words. “Or did you?”
“I dont know.” He caught her when her legs gave way, and lowered them both to the stone floor. “I dont care. Jesus, youre bruised and bleeding. But Ive got you.” He wrapped her tight in his arms. “Ive got you.”
“Ditto.” Undone, she buried her face against his chest. “How did you get here? He didnt bring you. He wasnt expecting you.”
“Hes not the only god in the Valley these days.” Lifting her head, he pressed his lips to her cheek, her temple. “Weve got to find our way back, Dana. I dont mind being sucked into a story, but this is a little much.”
“Im open to suggestions.” Hold on, she ordered herself. Hold on until its finished. “This is just about the end of the story. Heroine grapples with bad guy, and with a little help from the ghost— who was no help at all, by the way—fights him off, sends him over the wall just as the hero bursts out to save her. Kiss, kiss, frantic explanations and declarations of love. Then they
watch the. phantom of the watch fade away, freed by her final act of humanity.”
“You remembered that pretty well for somebody who read it six years ago.” He helped her to her feet, then looked toward the end of the parapet. The cloaked figure stood, looking out at the forest.
“Shes not fading.”
“Maybe she needs a little more time.” When she put weight on her knee, the pain brought tears to her eyes. “Ouch! Damn. Maybe you could write in an ice pack for this knee.”
“Wait.” Fascinated, he stepped forward. “Rowena.”
“Her name wasnt Rowena. It was… I cant quite remember, but it wasnt—” She broke off, her eyes widening as the cloaked woman turned and smiled at her. “Except it is Rowena.”
“I couldnt send you alone. We wouldnt let him take your lives here. Will you finish your quest?” she asked Dana.
“I havent come this far to toss it in now. I was about to—” She cut herself off again. “Its not in the book, not anymore. Not on the white page with the black words. Its here now. In the story, like we are.”
“Ive already done more than Im permitted to do. I can only ask you: Will you finish your quest?”
“Yes, Ill finish it.”
She vanished, not with smoke and light as Kane had, but as if shed never been.
“What the hell do we do now?” Jordan asked. “Go back-somehow—to the beginning of the book and start looking? The lines you remembered were from the prologue.”
“No, we dont have to go back, I need a minute first.” She stepped to the wall, breathed deep. “Autumn smoke in the air,” she chanted. “The way the moon, a perfect ball, is carved into the sky. Everything—the trees, the valley… look, you can just see the river, the way the moonlight glints off the water at the bend of it. Its all here, every detail.”
“Yeah, nice view. Lets finish up and go look at it in our world.”
“I like your book, Jordan. I dont want to live here, but its a fascinating place to visit. Its exactly the way I pictured it. You write a hell of a story.”
“Dana, I cant do this. I cant stand thinking about the way youre lying there back home. Youre so pale, so cold. You look like—”
“Niniane, from Brads portrait. One walks.” She gestured to where Rowena had been. “One waits. That would beNiniane , or in reflection, I guess its me.” She turned, held out a hand. “I need the key, Jordan.”