The Key Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  The air had carried a summer warmth and the scent of turpentine.

  It was dank now, and cold. Rather than canvases, cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls. Old chairs and lamps and the debris of other lives were stored there. But she could see—oh, so clearly see—how it could have been.

  As she imagined it, it began to form.

  Warm, washed with light, alive with color. There, on her worktable with her brushes and palette knives, was the little white vase filled with the pink snapdragons she’d picked from her own garden that morning.

  She remembered going out after Flynn had left for work, remembered picking those sweet and tender flowers to keep her company while she worked.

  Worked in her studio, she thought dreamily, where the blank canvas waited. And she knew, oh, yes, she knew how to fill it.

  She walked to the canvas waiting on an easel, picked up her palette, and began to mix her paints.

  Sun streamed through her windows. Several were open for the practical purpose of cross-ventilation, and for the simple pleasure of feeling the breeze. Music pumped passionately out of the stereo. What she intended to paint today required passion.

  She could already see it in her mind, feel the power of it gathering in her like a storm.

  She raised her brush, swirled it in color for the first stroke.

  Her heart lifted. The magnitude of the joy was almost unbearable. She might burst from it if she didn’t transfer it onto canvas.

  The image was burned in her mind, like a scene etched on glass. With stroke after stroke, color blended on color, she began to bring it to life.

  “You know this was always my deepest dream.” She spoke conversationally as she worked. “For as long as I can remember I wanted to paint. To have the talent, the vision, the skill to be an important artist.”

  “Now you have it.”

  She switched brushes, glancing at Kane before she faced the canvas again. “Yes, I do.”

  “You were wise, making the right choice in the end. A shopkeeper?” He laughed, dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Where is the power in that? Where is the glory in selling what others have created when you can create yourself? You can be and have whatever you choose here.”

  “Yes, I understand. You’ve shown me the way.” She slid him a coy look. “What else can I have?”

  “You want the man?” Kane shrugged elegantly. “He’s bound to you here, a slave to love.”

  “And if I’d chosen otherwise?”

  “Men are capricious creatures. How could you ever be sure of him? Now, you paint your world as you do that canvas. As you wish.”

  “Fame? Fortune?”

  His lip curled. “So it is with mortals always. Love, they say, is what matters more than even life. But it’s wealth and it’s glory that they really crave. Take it all, then.”

  “And you, what will you take?”

  “I have already taken it.”

  She nodded, switched brushes. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to concentrate.”

  She painted in the warm bath of sunlight while the music soared.

  FLYNN hit the door with his shoulder, then gripped the knob and prepared to ram it again. The knob turned smoothly in his hand.

  Zoe gave him a jittery smile. “I must’ve loosened it for you.”

  “Stay down here.”

  “Save your breath,” Dana advised and pushed up behind him.

  The light seemed to pulse now, thicker and somehow animate. Moe’s growling became wet snarls.

  Flynn saw Malory, standing at the far end of the attic. Relief was like a hammer blow to his heart.

  “Malory! Thank God.” He leaped forward, and hit the solid wall of mist.

  “It’s some sort of barrier.” He spoke frantically now as he pushed and slammed against it. “She’s trapped in there.”

  “I think we’re trapped out here.” Zoe pressed her hands against the mist. “She doesn’t hear us.”

  “We have to make her hear us.” Dana looked around for something to batter against the wall. “She must be somewhere else, in her head, the way we were. We have to make her hear us so she’ll snap out of it.”

  Moe went wild, leaping up to tear and bite at the wall of mist. His barks echoed like gunshots, and still Malory stood like a statue, her back to them.

  “There has to be another way.” Zoe dropped to her knees, pressed her fingers along the mist. “It’s freezing. You can see her trembling from the cold. We have to get her out.”

  “Malory!” Helpless rage had Flynn pummeling the wall until his hands bled. “I’m not going to let this happen. You have to hear me. I love you. Damn it, Malory, I love you. You listen to me.”

  “Wait!” Dana gripped his shoulder. “She moved. I saw her move. Keep talking to her, Flynn. Just keep talking to her.”

  Struggling for calm, he pressed his forehead to the wall. “I love you, Malory. You’ve got to give us a chance to see where we can go with it. I need you with me, so either come out or let me in.”

  Malory pursed her lips at the image taking shape on canvas. “Did you hear something?” she asked absently.

  “There’s nothing.” Kane smiled at the three mortals on the other side of the mist. “Nothing at all. What are you painting there?”

  “Uh-uh-uh.” She wagged a playful finger at him. “I’m temperamental. I don’t like anyone looking at my work until it’s done. My world,” she reminded him and daubed on color. “My rules.”

  He gave a single, elegant shrug. “As you wish.”

  “Oh, don’t pout. I’m nearly done.” She worked quickly now, all but willing the image from her mind onto the canvas. It was, she thought, her masterpiece. Nothing she’d ever done would be so important.

  “Art isn’t just in the eye of the beholder,” she said. “But in that, in the artist, in the subject, in the purpose, and in those who see.”

  Her pulse skipped and stumbled, but her hand remained steady and sure. For a timeless moment, she shut everything out of her mind but the colors, the textures, the shapes.

  And when she stepped back, her eyes glittered with triumph.

  “It’s the finest thing I’ve ever done,” she declared. “Perhaps the finest thing I will ever do. I wonder what you’ll think of it.”

  She gestured in invitation.

  “Light and shadow,” she said as he stepped toward the easel. “In looking within, and without. From within me to without and onto the canvas. What my heart speaks. I call it The Singing Goddess.”

  It was her face she’d painted. Her face and the first Daughter of Glass. She stood in a forest, full of sparkling gold light, softened with green shadows, with the river sliding over rock like tears.

  Her sisters sat on the ground behind her, their hands clasped.

  Venora, for she knew it was Venora, carried her harp, and with her face lifted toward the sky you could almost hear the song she sang.

  “Did you think I would settle for cold illusion when I have a chance for the real thing? Did you think I’d trade my life, and her soul, for a dream? You underestimate mortals, Kane.”

  As he spun toward her, fury leaping off him like flames, she prayed she hadn’t overestimated herself, or Rowena.

  “The first key is mine.” As she spoke she reached toward the painting, reached into it. A stunning blast of heat shot up her arm as she closed her fingers around the key she’d painted at the feet of the goddess.

  The key that gleamed in a beam of light that cut the shadows like a gilded sword.

  She felt its shape, its substance, then with a cry of victory, she drew it free. “This is my choice. And you can go to hell.”

  The mists roiled as he cursed her. As he lifted his hand to strike, both Flynn and Moe burst through the wall. With a barrage of sharp, staccato barks, Moe leaped.

  Kane faded like a shadow in the dark, and was gone.

  As Flynn plucked Malory off her feet, sunlight shimmered in the tiny windows, and rain dripped music
ally from the eaves outside. The room was only an attic, filled with dust and clutter.

  The painting she’d created out of love, knowledge, and courage was gone.

  “I’ve got you.” Flynn buried his face in her hair as Moe leaped on them. “You’re all right. I’ve got you.”

  “I know. I know.” She began to weep quietly as she looked down at the key still clutched in her fingers. “I painted it.” She held it out to Dana and Zoe. “I have the key.”

  BECAUSE she insisted, Flynn drove her directly to Warrior’s Peak, with Dana and Zoe following. He kept the heater on high, and had wrapped her in a blanket from his trunk that unfortunately smelled of Moe. And still she shivered.

  “You need a hot bath or something. Tea. Soup.” He dragged a hand that was still far from steady through his hair. “I don’t know. Brandy.”

  “I’ll take all of the above,” she promised, “as soon as we get the key where it belongs. I won’t be able to relax until it’s out of my hand.”

  She clutched it in a fist held tight to her breast.

  “I don’t know how it can be in my hand.”

  “Neither do I. Maybe if you explain it to me, we’ll both get it.”

  “He tried to confuse me, the way he separated us. To make me feel lost and alone and afraid. But he must have some limits. He couldn’t keep all three of us, and you, in those illusions. Not all at once. We’re connected, and we’re stronger than he realized. At least that’s what I think.”

  “I can go with that. To give him credit, he had Rhoda pretty much down pat.”

  “I made him mad, just mad enough, I guess. I knew the key was in the house.” She pulled the blanket a little tighter, but couldn’t find warmth. “I’m not telling this in good journalistic style.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll edit it later. How did you know?”

  “The attic’s where I made the choice, when he showed me all the things I wanted so much. I realized that was the dream place once I went upstairs with Zoe and Dana. And the studio, the artist’s studio, had been on the top floor. The attic. It had to be where I had that moment of decision—like in the paintings. At first I thought we would have to hunt through whatever was up there, and we’d find something that jibed with the clue. But it was more than that, and less.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed.

  “You’re tired. Just rest until we get there. We can talk later.”

  “No, I’m okay. It was so strange, Flynn. When I got up there and I realized it all. My place—in reality and in my dream. And how he brought the dream back, tried to slide me into it. I let him think he had. I thought about the clue and saw the painting in my head. I knew how to paint it, every stroke. The third painting of the set.

  “The key wasn’t in the world he created for me,” she said as she turned to him. “But it was in what I created, if I had the courage to do it. If I could see the beauty of it, and make it real. He gave me the power to bring the key into the illusion.”

  To forge it, she thought, with love.

  “I bet that burns his ass.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that’s a nice side benefit. I heard you.”

  “What?”

  “I heard you calling to me. All of you, but especially you. I couldn’t answer you. I’m sorry because I know you were afraid for me. But I couldn’t let him know I heard.”

  He reached over to cover her hand with his. “I couldn’t get to you. I didn’t know what fear was until then, when I couldn’t get to you.”

  “I was afraid at first that it was just another of his tricks. I was afraid that if I turned around and saw you, I’d break. Your poor hands.” She lifted his hand, pressed her lips gently to the torn knuckles. “My hero. Heroes,” she corrected, looking back at Moe.

  She kept her hand in his as they drove through the gates at Warrior’s Peak.

  Rowena stepped out, her hands folded at the waist of a flame-red sweater. Malory could see the gleam of tears in her eyes as she walked across the portico to meet them.

  “You’re safe, and well?” She touched Malory’s cheek, and the chill Malory had been unable to shake slid into blessed warmth.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I have—”

  “Not yet. Your hands.” She laid her palms under Flynn’s, lifted them. “This will scar,” she said. “There, beneath the third knuckle of your left hand. A symbol, Flynn. Herald and warrior.”

  She opened the back door of the car herself so Moe could leap out and greet her with wags and licks. “Ah, there, the fierce and brave one.” She hugged him, then leaned back on her heels, listening attentively as he barked and grumbled. “Yes, you had quite the adventure.” She rose, resting a hand on Moe’s head as she smiled at Dana and Zoe. “All of you did. Please come in.”

  Moe didn’t need to be asked twice. He bounded across the stones and straight through the doorway where Pitte stood. Pitte raised an elegant eyebrow as the dog skidded over the foyer floor, then turned the look onto Rowena.

  She only laughed and hooked an arm through Flynn’s. “I have a gift for the loyal and courageous Moe, if you’ll allow it.”

  “Sure. Look, we appreciate the hospitality, but Malory’s pretty worn out, so—”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “We won’t keep you long.” Pitte gestured them into what Malory thought of as the portrait room. “We’re in your debt, more than can be paid. What you’ve done, whatever tomorrow brings, will never be forgotten.” He tipped Malory’s face up with one long finger and laid his lips on hers.

  Zoe nudged Dana. “I think we’re getting gypped in this one-for-all deal.”

  Pitte glanced over, and his sudden grin was alive with charm. “My woman is a jealous creature.”

  “No such thing,” Rowena objected, then lifted a brightly woven collar from a table. “These symbols speak of valor, and a true heart. The colors are also symbolic. Red for courage, blue for friendship, black for protection.”

  She crouched to remove Moe’s frayed and faded collar and replace it.

  He sat through the business of it, Flynn thought, with the stalwart dignity of a soldier being awarded a medal.

  “There. How handsome you are.” Rowena kissed Moe’s nose, then got to her feet. “Will you still bring him to see me, now and then?” she asked Flynn.

  “Sure.”

  “Kane underestimated you. All of you—heart and spirit and spine.”

  “He’s unlikely to do so again,” Pitte pointed out, but Rowena shook her head.

  “This is a time for joy. You are the first,” she told Malory.

  “I know. I wanted to get this to you right away.” She started to hold out the key, then stopped. “Wait. Do you mean I’m the first? The first to ever find a key?”

  Saying nothing, Rowena turned to Pitte. He walked to a carved chest beneath the window, lifted the lid. The blue light that spilled out made Malory’s stomach clutch. But this was different from the mist, she realized. This was deeper, brighter.

  Then he lifted from the chest a glass box alive with that light, and her throat filled with tears. “The Box of Souls.”

  “You are the first,” Pitte repeated as he set the box on a marble pedestal. “The first mortal to turn the first key.”

  He turned, stood beside the box. He was the soldier now, Malory thought, the warrior at guard. Rowena stepped to the other side so they flanked the glass and the swirling blue lights inside it.

  “It’s for you to do,” Rowena said quietly. “It was always for you to do.”

  Malory clutched the key tighter in her fist. Her chest was so full it hurt and still seemed incapable of containing the galloping racing of her heart. She tried to draw a calming breath, but it came out short and sharp. As she stepped closer, those lights seemed to fill her vision, then the room. Then the world.

  Her fingers wanted to tremble, but she bore down. She would not do this thing with a shaking hand.

  She slid the key into the first of the three locks worked into
the glass. She saw the light spread up the metal and onto her fingers, bright as hope. And she turned the key in the lock.

  There was a sound—she thought there was a sound. But it was no more than a quiet sigh. Even as it faded, the key dissolved in her fingers.

  The first lock vanished, and there were two.

  “It’s gone. Just gone.”

  “A symbol again, for us,” Rowena said and laid a hand gently on the box. “For them. Two are left.”

  “Do we . . .” They were weeping inside that glass, Dana thought. She could almost hear them, and it ripped at her heart. “Do we pick now, which one of us goes next?”

  “Not today. You should rest your minds and hearts.” Rowena turned to Pitte. “There should be champagne in the parlor. Would you see to our guests? I’d like a private word with Malory before we join you.”

  She lifted the glass box herself, carefully placed it back in the chest. When she was alone with Malory she turned. “Pitte said we owe you a debt we can never pay. That’s true.”

  “I agreed to look for the key, and I was paid,” Malory corrected. She looked at the chest, imagined the box within. “It seems wrong now to have taken the money.”

  “The money is nothing to us, I promise you. Others have taken it and done nothing. Others have tried and failed. And you’ve done something brave and interesting with the money.”

  She crossed over, took Malory’s hands in hers. “That pleases me. But it isn’t dollars and cents I speak of when I speak of debt. If not for me, there would be no Box of Souls, no keys, no locks. You wouldn’t have had to face what you faced today.”

  “You love them.” Malory gestured toward the chest.

  “As sisters. Young, sweet sisters. Well . . .” She walked over to look at the portrait. “I have hope to see them like this again. I can give you a gift, Malory. It’s my right to do so. You refused what Kane offered you.”

  “It wasn’t real.”

  “It can be.” She turned back. “I can make it real. What you felt, what you knew, what you had inside you. I can give you the power you had in his illusion.”