Twelve
“How many times are you going to watch that
thing?” asked Taggart from somewhere behind him.
Hazard heard him amble into the study a few minutes
earlier, but he hadn’t turned then and he didn’t turn now. He had
no intention of squandering his newly restored vision on Taggart’s
homely self when he could be looking at Eve. Watching her image on
a television screen was a poor substitute for the real thing, but
it was better than nothing.
He had no interest in current trends or trinkets
unless they simplified his research or advanced his cause. The box
known as a DVR was such a device. He’d originally mastered its
system of buttons and menus so he could record information that
might someday prove useful, but recently he’d discovered a much
more pleasurable and instantly gratifying use for the thing; he
recorded Eve’s news reports and replayed them. Over and over again,
like an opium addict driven to feed his craving with increasing
frequency until his need becomes the center of his existence, the
fulcrum upon which everything else turns.
Hazard had never allowed anything—or anyone—to
become that all-important to him, and he’d long ago vowed he never
would. As a child and then as a young man, he’d witnessed that kind
of obsession in his mother. He’d been powerless to do anything
about it, but he’d seen how lethal it could be. His mother hadn’t
been an addict in the common sense of the word; her obsession had
been the man who was her lover, and his father. Assuming you
measured paternity by blood alone. Her love and her need for the
man had been without limits or conditions. And in turn, the Earl of
Shafton’s regard for his mother had been without the complication
of either love or need. He’d looked on her as a pleasing commodity,
like a fine cigar or a new cravat, to be enjoyed and used up and
discarded. And that’s precisely what he did.
Their association had ended badly, all the way
around, and when it was done Hazard swore he would never allow
himself to love so deeply or need so desperately. And he never had.
Now, in spite of his resolve, Eve Lockhart threatened to become a
sweet addiction.
And he refused to let Taggart make him feel guilty
for it.
“I’m going to watch as many times as it pleases
me,” he said in reply to Taggart’s question.
“Humph,” Taggart responded, obviously annoyed. “I
only asked because they’ll be giving the results of the races at
Churchill Downs on that sports channel, if you’re
interested.”
“I’m not,” Hazard countered.
“And Starry Night, the black stallion brought over
from Isle of Wight, ran today. I thought for sure you’d be
interested in seeing how he did.”
That was a lie. If Taggart actually cared about
what Hazard wanted to see, he would go away and leave him to watch
his clips of Eve in peace. Starry Night. The name did strike a
chord. Because, he realized with sudden irritation, it was the name
of the horse owned by a mage who specialized in equine trickery, a
horse whose failure to cross the finish line anywhere near close to
first had already cost Hazard a tidy sum to cover Taggart’s
losses.
Pressing the Pause button, he turned to eye the
other man suspiciously. “Tell me you’re not placing wagers.”
“I’m not placing wagers,” parroted Taggart, eyes
wide and innocent. “Sheesh. Can’t a man try to do you a favor
without accusations being made?”
Hazard sighed. That was another lie, but not one he
wanted to spend whatever time he had left before Eve arrived
grousing about. He glanced at the clock on his desk.
“She’s late,” observed Taggart.
“She said she’d be here around six o’clock,”
Hazard countered. “I’d hardly call 6:03 late, especially when you
consider the traffic at this time of day.”
Taggart strolled over and dropped into the chair
beside his. “Maybe she’s changed her mind and won’t come at
all.”
“She’ll come.”
“How can you be sure? You hardly know her now, do
you?” Taggart was right. And wrong. It was true he hadn’t known Eve
for more than a handful of days, but in that time he’d used his
considerable skills to learn all he could about her. Thanks to her
status as a local celebrity, there was plenty of factual
information available. And if you were willing to dig deep
enough—which he was—there were also comments and recollections from
teachers and old friends buried in years of stories and
interviews.
He’d taken that jumble of facts and carefully
pieced them together until he had a detailed picture of her life,
and a good look at the woman she was.
“I know she’ll be here because once, in the middle
of a blizzard, she commandeered a snowplow and convinced the driver
to take her across town to deliver an eightieth birthday cake to
the man who used to run the newsstand outside her building because
she promised him she would.
“And,” he went on, “because once a year she dresses
up as someone called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and reads a book by that
same name to a classroom full of children.” He tried not to smile
as he recalled what Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle looked like on the book
jacket and wished he could see Eve dressed in a white ruffled apron
and a flat straw hat with a black ribbon. “She does it simply
because she did it once, with great success, and it has become a
rite of passage for children in that grade. Something they look
forward to all year.”
Taggart’s face was scrunched with confusion. “So
you think she’s coming here to read us a book about a pig?”
“No, you dolt. She’s coming because she said she
would come, because she promised to help, and she’s not the sort of
woman to break a promise.”
As if on cue the doorbell rang; Hazard stood but
made it only a few steps toward the front door before Taggart
stopped him.
“You’re sure, Gabriel?” he asked. “You’re sure this
is what you want?”
Hazard scowled. “You need to ask?”
“Aye, I do, because there’s no turning back, is
there? If I’m right, if it works, it can’t be undone.”
“I know that,” he said quietly.
Taggart was on his feet now too, his expression
earnest. “There’s no rush, is there? Maybe we should hold off a
bit, until we can learn more about this ritual, the fine points of
it, I mean. I’ve never performed it personally, after all, only
heard about it . . . and not firsthand. It seems we ought to know .
. . more.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d had this
conversation in recent days. Hazard understood Taggart’s concerns;
he just didn’t have any more time to debate them.
He reached out and put his hand firmly on Taggart’s
shoulder. “Trust me; I’ve given this a great deal of thought. It’s
what I want . . . now more than ever,” he added, thinking of Eve,
and where his growing attraction to her could lead. “And the rush
is to get it done while Eve is willing to let us use the
talisman.”
“I thought she wasn’t one to go back on her word,”
Taggart retorted.
“She’s not. Unless,” he added pointedly, “she
should find out it was given under false pretense.”
The doorbell sounded again, and Taggart trailed him
down the hall to the front door, still grumbling.
“False pretense is right. Seems to me that if
you’re so sure you’re doing the right thing, you shouldn’t be
afraid to say so.”
“I’m not afraid,” Hazard shot back, losing
patience. “We’ve been over this. She has no part in what I’m doing,
and I don’t think it’s fair that she should feel in any way
responsible for . . . whatever happens.”
“Humph,” Taggart said.
Hazard opened the door. And smiled.
Today she was wearing a yellow blouse—the hue as
pale as fresh-churned butter—with a black jacket and skirt. At
first, he’d wished she didn’t wear so much black, but he decided he
liked it because it made the bits of color she did wear appear all
the more vivid. And because it allowed her own colors to shine
through, the gleaming copper and cinnamon of her hair, and the pale
ivory and peach of her soft skin.
He took it all in now, still smiling.
Taggart stepped forward, poking him with his elbow.
“He means to say please come in.”
Hazard shook himself. “Yes. Of course. Forgive me.”
He took her hand to help her step over the threshold and let it go
reluctantly. Still standing in the front hall, he made
introductions. He wanted to bring her inside and spend more time
with her, an hour or even fifteen minutes, but he didn’t dare. Any
time he spent with her now would be too long, and not nearly
enough.
Pulling a black jewelry case from her purse, she
held it out to him. “Here you go.”
“Thank you. Taggart will return this to you as soon
as we’re through.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “Well, good luck.”
“Perhaps the lady would like to watch,” Taggart
suggested.
Hazard shot him a warning look.
Her green eyes brightened. “Well, maybe . .
.”
“No,” Hazard broke in. He quickly softened his
too-sharp tone with a smile. “Eve would rather not go up to the
turret. You haven’t changed your mind about that since the other
night, have you?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” Hazard caught himself. “I mean good because
I know you’ll be more comfortable waiting down here.”
“Why don’t we perform the ritual down here?”
Taggart asked.
“Because everything is set for us upstairs. It was
you who said the turret has the strongest residual magic in the
house.”
“The strongest, aye,” Taggart allowed. “But since
the whole place is steeped in magic, I don’t think we could go
wrong no matter where we do it.”
“Why take chances?” Unclenching his jaw, Hazard
turned to Eve in a way that deliberately excluded Taggart. “Please,
go in and make yourself comfortable.”
Taggart got the message and started up the
stairs.
Ignoring his own good sense, Hazard lingered beside
Eve for just a moment and even that was too long. His fingertips
itched to touch her, the temptation was too much to resist. He
brought his hand to her face and felt the quick jolt of connection
he’d come to expect, like oppositely charged magnets coming
together. Putting his palm against her cheek, he slowly coasted
down to cup her chin, his thumb moving back and forth over the side
of her jaw as that initial burst of feeling settled into a steady
current running between them.
Their gazes locked.
He could tell she felt what he felt, and his heart
pumped faster.
He bent his head closer to hers. “A kiss?”
His voice was low and just the tiniest bit
unsteady. Unsteady. He, who had stolen hundreds of kisses in his
time, stolen and seduced and beguiled kisses—and more—from women as
willing to give as he was eager to take, women who longed to be
conquered as surely as he’d been born to conquer. And now his
damnable need for this one kiss from Eve had him feeling unsure,
and desperate.
“A kiss for luck?” she countered, her soft, rosy
mouth curving into a small smile. “A bit ironic, don’t you
think?”
He stared down at her, puzzled. “Ironic?”
“A good-luck kiss to help you break a bad-luck
curse. It struck me as ironic.”
“Right . . . the curse. Then let it not be for
luck,” he said, savoring her nearness, the fresh scent of her hair
and the warmth of her breath on his cheek.
He felt her pulse skitter, and his heart thumped in
response.
“For what then?” she asked.
Hazard moved his hand to the back of her neck and
slowly pulled her closer. His fingers in her hair, he tipped her
face up to his.
“How about just for the hell of it?” He whispered
the words against her mouth in that last heartbeat before he
claimed it with his own.
When he kissed her, she kissed back, igniting an
explosion of sensation, hot and quick and dizzying. Something
powerful and unknown stirred inside him and then spread like fire
through his veins.
His mouth played with hers. He kept it gentle, as
gentle as he could, when what he wanted was to kiss her deeper and
harder and longer. He wanted to kiss her forever.
Forever. Now there was irony for you, he thought.
They didn’t have forever. And he didn’t have any right to make this
more complicated or difficult for Eve. He forced himself to stop
and gently disentangle.
She looked dazed.
Hazard took his hands from her slowly, regretfully,
sliding down her arm to catch her hand and lift it to his lips for
a final kiss. “Thank you.”
It was all he said before starting the long climb
to the turret.
Eve hung out at the bottom of the stairs, her heart
still beating wildly from his kiss, and watched him go. She ran her
fingertips along her bottom lip, replaying the kiss in her mind. He
was a good kisser, which is exactly what she’d expected. A man
didn’t look the way he looked and charm the way he charmed without
racking up a whole lot of experience in that department. What she
hadn’t expected was the sharp sense of loss she felt when it ended
and he headed upstairs to the turret. So sharp she’d almost called
out to stop him from going. Now that would have been
embarrassing.
She turned her thoughts to what was going on
upstairs and wondered how they would know if the ritual was a
success. Flip a coin and see if Hazard could call it in the air? Or
just wait and watch for changes in his life? He’d told her that
being cursed was like living in chains, that it caused him to keep
his distance from others for fear his bad luck would spill over and
bring tragedy or disaster to someone else. He didn’t say he felt
responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, but she
surmised he did, at least in part. Faced with the choice of being a
lonely recluse or a threat to anyone who crossed his path, he’d
chosen loneliness for himself.
When her knees no longer wobbled, she wandered down
the hall to the kitchen and looked around, peeking inside the
drawers and refrigerator, telling herself it wasn’t as tacky as
looking through someone’s bathroom medicine cabinet and lots of
people did that. Whether he preferred whole or fat-free milk and
owned matching pot holders wasn’t her idea of highly personal
information. It was a moot point anyway since there was no milk or
anything else in the fridge and not much in the drawers. Plates,
bowls, cups, flatware, that was about it. Plus a healthy supply of
white cloth napkins pressed and folded laundry-service style.
What did they eat? she wondered. Then she spotted
the containers neatly stacked by the back door, all with the
“Catering to You” logo on them. Catering to You was a pricey
catering service that specialized in delivering gourmet meals to
people who lacked the time or inclination to cook for themselves
and were rich enough not to have to. Most people she knew used them
only for special occasions. From the looks of it, everyday was
special at Chez Hazard.
The sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs and
a rowdy verbal skirmish in the hallway interrupted her snooping.
Taggart appeared first, his arms full of what could best be
described as stuff. Hazard was right behind him, a candle gripped
in each fist and a dark cloud hovering above his head.
Metaphorically speaking.
“We ran into a small glitch,” Taggart
announced.
Eve glanced from one to the other. “What sort of
glitch?”
“An imaginary one,” Hazard snapped.
“I didn’t imagine it,” Taggart said with a roll of
his eyes only Eve could see. “I tried to get it done.”
“You should have tried harder,” Hazard told
him.
“What sort of glitch?” she asked again.
“The sort where we need your help,” Taggart
replied.
“My help? Oh no.” She looked at Hazard. “I
told you I don’t do magic.”
Taggart snorted and jumped in before Hazard had a
chance to respond. “Do magic? Madam, you are magic. I saw
the rune stones out front and the ones at the other doors. You’re
an enchantress by birth, a mighty one . . . in fact, if you ask
me—”
“No one did,” Hazard broke in. “Can we just get on
with it?”
Taggart shrugged. “That’s up to the enchantress.”
To Eve, he added, “What we need from you is a power boost. All you
need do is focus on what it is we want to accomplish and then lend
your will to mine. Simple.”
“Reality bends to desire,” she murmured,
contradictory thoughts running laps in her head.
“For you,” Taggart told her. “Me? I’m but lowly
fae. I need the words and charms to bring my will about. But
together we can get this done.”
Again she looked to Hazard, undecided. “Is he
right? All I’ll have to do is focus?”
“Evidently,” he said tightly. “Taggart will be
doing the work; I’m the target. You just have to be present, an
innocent bystander.”
“Right . . . just your average, everyday innocent
bystander with a zillion-watt battery at her disposal,” quipped
Taggart. “So you’ll help?”
She hesitated for only a second before nodding.
“I’ll try.”
It sounded simple enough, Eve thought. Except for
the part where she didn’t have a clue what she was doing, and the
fact that it was a powerful bad-luck curse they were messing with,
and her unfortunate history with the house. Other than that, it was
as simple as pie . . . very complicated and dangerous magic
pie.
What could possibly go wrong?
Taggart prepared to attempt the ritual a second
time by rolling back the living room rug and using yellow chalk to
draw a circle on the wood floor. Eve stood out of the way and
watched as he arranged the items he’d brought down from the turret
inside the circle. She was more interested in details than her
small role required, and she wasn’t sure if it was because what
they were doing involved Hazard, or magic, or both.
When Taggart placed a pentagon shaped mirror at the
center of the circle and made a smaller circle on its flat surface
with what appeared to be dried herbs, she leaned closer to get a
better look at the pieces of leaves and stalks. Grand had grown
herbs as well as roses, and she’d taught Eve how to tell one from
another, as well as their uses and dangers. Grand had called it
folk medicine; her mother had called it madness and warned Eve to
stay away.
“Agrimony?” she ventured.
“Aye,” confirmed Taggart. “Some call it cockelbur.
For cleansing the blood. There’s belladonna and valerian root
too.”
Inside the smaller circle he placed a gold pocket
watch and candles bound with twine. The candles were standing
upright, with a single red taper in the center, surrounded by five
black candles and a ring of white candles on the outside. The final
item was a small silver pedestal. When it was in place, he removed
the pendant from its case and held it out to her.
“Would you care to do the honors?” he asked.
From across the room Hazard made a rough, impatient
sound.
Eve took the pendant and placed it on the silver
pedestal, noticing as she did so that the candles, the watch and
the pendant formed a triangle.
Taggart stepped back and considered his work with a
critical expression. Then he bent and moved the candles an inch to
the left, stepped back for another look and moved them back.
“For God’s sake,” snapped Hazard. “Stop fussing and
get on with it.”
“A bit touchy, aren’t you?” countered a blasé
Taggart. “These things can’t be rushed. It’s not my fault that
having time to think about what you’re about to do makes you
edgy.”
“I’m not edgy,” growled Hazard.
“Jittery then.”
“Or jittery.”
“Why would he be edgy?” Eve directed the question
to Taggart, but it was Hazard who answered.
“I am not edgy,” he snapped.
Taggart turned and rolled his eyes for Eve’s
benefit. “ ‘Not edgy,’ he says. What do you think,
Enchantress?”
“Please. Call me Eve,” she said to him. To Hazard
she said, “You do seem a little on edge. Are you afraid this won’t
work?”
“Or afraid it will,” muttered Taggart.
Eve frowned. “I don’t understand. Why would you be
afraid it would work? I thought you wanted to end the
curse.”
“I do,” responded Hazard. “I’m not afraid . . . or
edgy or jittery. I just want to get on with it. Can we do that?” He
glared at Taggart. “Or do you want to waste more time rearranging
the bloody candles?”
Taggart gave a lofty shrug. “I’m ready when you
are.”
“Finally,” muttered Hazard.
“You’re going to have to walk me through this step
by step,” Eve reminded Taggart. “Starting with where you want me to
stand.”
“Anywhere inside the circle will do fine,” he told
her, waving her forward.
Eve stepped over the yellow chalk line, and the two
men did the same. The circle was a snug fit for the three of them;
she was standing close enough to Hazard to smell him. He smelled
good.
“A few points before we begin,” Taggart said.
Hazard groaned with frustration; Taggart ignored
him.
“The ritual itself is simple,” he told her. “A
curse is really nothing but a spell with evil intent. Sometimes
it’s cast and done with, like when you curse someone to break a leg
or miss an appointment. Sometimes it’s meant to go on long after
the casting is done. What we’re dealing with here is a continuous
curse, one of those that goes on and on, and since magic—white and
black alike—needs energy to fuel it, something is fueling this
curse.”
“What is it?” she asked.
Taggart’s mouth quirked grimly. “Good question.
I’ve known of curses that tapped into ley lines, or particular
ceremonial rites, ones that could be counted on to reoccur
frequently enough to provide the energy needed to keep the curse
going.”
“Is that what’s happening here?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“What’s happening here,” Hazard chimed in, his tone
dripping sarcasm, “is that we have no idea what’s happening here.
And we’re wasting time. Just tell her what to do so we can get this
over with.”
“He’s right,” acknowledged Taggart. “We can’t say
for certain where the energy for the curse is coming from. But I
dare say we’ve found a way around it. Or rather he did.” He hitched
his head toward Hazard. “He’s moody but clever.”
He explained to Eve that regardless of what was
fueling the curse, stopping or interrupting that flow of energy
would cause the curse to fail and the natural order of things to be
restored. Since they couldn’t find the source of the energy, they
couldn’t stop it; so they were going to block the flow instead by
raising a protective shield around Hazard. The energy would hit the
shield and be bounced back to who knows where, and Hazard would be
free.
And that would be that and they would all live
happily ever after if only magic were a science instead of an art.
It wasn’t, and so they needed exactly the right catalyst to make it
work; in this case only the catalyst that had been used to cast the
curse could break it. They needed the pendant, and according to
Taggart, they needed her help. He had a lot more faith in her
abilities than she did. When she told him that, he assured her that
all she had to do was conjure an image of Hazard surrounded by an
impenetrable protective shield, one strong enough to deflect
whatever came at it, and then gather her power and focus it on
turning that image into reality.
“Do you think you can do that?” he asked.
Eve nodded, and he closed the circle. It made a
small snapping sound, like the magnetic clasp on a purse.
She linked her hands behind her and rocked back and
forth on the balls of her feet the way she sometimes did when she
was anxious. Hazard stood still and watchful as Taggart lit the
candles. His arms were loosely folded, his stance relaxed, but he
didn’t fool Eve. She was able to read him well enough to discern
the tension in his squared shoulders and the taut line of his jaw.
She could understand him being apprehensive; what she didn’t
understand were Taggart’s remarks suggesting that Hazard could
be—or should be—having second thoughts about what he was
doing.
Speaking in a quiet voice, Taggart moved the
lighting taper from wick to wick, starting with the red candle in
the center.
Flame of power, flame of might, flame of
magic brightly burn,
Let the wheel of fortune turn and grant this last desire.
Red for life, black for death, white for passage safe.
Let the wheel of fortune turn and grant this last desire.
Red for life, black for death, white for passage safe.
He switched to what sounded like Latin, chanting
briefly, and then calling out, “Tributo is votum.”
Instantly the candle flames flared higher and
brighter to form a single glowing sphere of fire. Using that as her
focal point and following Taggart’s instructions, Eve formed an
image of Hazard in her mind’s eye and envisioned a shield around
him.
“Rector succurro,” Taggart said.
The room grew warm, and the air seemed to vibrate
silently. Eve felt the power gathering inside her; it was a heady
feeling. She drew it in, focused on the image in her mind and
released it fully. She hadn’t sought to do this, but that didn’t
make it any less thrilling to see the shield, a translucent silvery
film, begin to slowly materialize around Hazard. So far so good,
she thought, envisioning it becoming stronger and harder,
impervious to everything but her will.
She continued to focus as faint tendrils of light
appeared above the silver pedestal, curling around the pendant like
ribbons of smoke. More continued to appear, bands of grainy gray
light, each about six inches wide; they drifted upward, spinning
and weaving into a column that grew steadily more solid and defined
until it had taken on the unmistakable shape of a man. No one had
mentioned this part. She glanced around to see if the others were
as surprised as she was and realized they were.
A sudden explosion of sparks filled the air with
smoke and sizzle. Eve squeezed her eyes shut to protect them and
when she opened them again, the swirling bands of light were gone
and a man she had never seen before stood in the center of the
circle and the receding smoke.
He was tall and thin, gaunt really, with a long
narrow face and a chin that jutted out of proportion. His mouth was
cruel, his eyes dark and angry. And he was gray. His skin was the
pale, fish-belly gray of someone who’d been living in a cave,
without sunlight, for a very long time. But none of those things
were as striking to Eve as the way the man was dressed. He was
wearing a dark brown cutaway coat over a striped silk waistcoat and
fawn-colored trousers tucked into knee boots. His white linen neck
cloth was elaborately knotted, and rode so high on his throat it
called even more attention to his prominent chin.
The entire outfit, right down to the watch fob
hanging several inches below his waist and the carved walking stick
in his hand, was very familiar to Eve. She might not be the diehard
romantic her sister Chloe was, but she had still seen every Jane
Austen film ever made, several times. She recognized classic
Regency fashion when she saw it, and although this guy was closer
to Mr. Darcy’s sickly grandfather than Darcy himself, he still
looked like a time traveler from nineteenth-century England. Which
made no sense at all.
For a second after he appeared, no one moved. Then
Hazard lunged at him, only to be stopped short by the shield, which
remained in place. That was probably a good thing, she thought,
because Hazard looked ready to kill. Incensed, he raised his arms
and pounded his fists against the shield, but nothing happened; as
hard as he hammered it, the contact made absolutely no sound at
all. Because, Eve realized, the barrier wasn’t material. It was a
magical construct of pure energy and will. And it wasn’t
budging.
It also wasn’t soundproof. She could hear Hazard
loud and clear and there was no mistaking the single word he
bellowed.
“Pavane!”
Pavane? Was this the jilted bridegroom who’d cursed
Hazard? A descendent, connected by blood and dark magic, to the
sorcerer who’d stolen the talisman and murdered poor Maura T’airna
over two hundred years ago.
At the sound of his name, Pavane spun around to
face Hazard, who looked like a caged animal without the cage. The
two men glared at each other through the barely visible shield.
After a moment, Pavane cautiously raised his hand and slid his open
palm through the air close to the barrier. Whatever he sensed must
have convinced him Hazard wasn’t an immediate threat, and with a
dismissive sneer he turned his back on him and walked away.
And ran smack into the chalk boundary of the
still-active circle.
Eve was torn between delight at seeing him trapped
inside the circle, and concern that they were trapped in there with
him.
Pavane glanced down and his startled expression
gave way to one of disdain; this time when he raised his hand, palm
out, fingers spread, the air in front of him crackled and shimmered
as he blew a hole in the circle. Free, he strode across the room,
his sharp gaze darting around, lighting here and there, the way a
bird flits from branch to branch on a tree. He hunched forward to
peer out the window, scanning the landscape in both
directions.
“What place is this?” he demanded. His voice was
strained and hoarse, like a rusty old pump needing to be primed
after years of disuse. “What city?”
“Providence,” Taggart replied guardedly.
Behind the shield Hazard was silent and still, a
coiled serpent.
When Pavane turned away from the window, his eyes
were full of wonder and questions. “What year?”
When Taggart told him, Pavane’s eyes opened even
wider. He pointed a gnarled finger toward the window beside him.
“Those carriages . . . what manner of—”
Taggart cut him off. “Sorry, old man, my turn. I
know who you are, so we can skip that one. Where the hell did you
come from?”
“From here. And then nowhere, and now here
again.”
“Here?” Taggart’s eyes narrowed. “You mean this
realm? The mortal realm?”
Pavane nodded. His chest rose and fell with a faint
wheezing sound.
“And nowhere?” Taggart persisted. “Where exactly
would that be?”
“Nowhere. The void,” Pavane retorted, impatient.
“That place which is not.”
“You mean death?”
He shook his head, his cracked pink-gray lips
curling back over his teeth. “Not death, fool. Death is the end. As
you can plainly see, I was not ended, merely interrupted. And now I
am back.”
“And who, pray tell, had the good sense to do the
interrupting?” inquired Taggart.
“Who would dare?” Pavane countered arrogantly. He
strutted a few steps, his walking stick clicking on the wood flow.
“I did it myself, of course. I hid my body and lulled my spirit and
sent it forth to wait.”
Taggart’s eyes narrowed. “To wait for what?”
His dark gaze honed in on Eve in a way that made
her shiver, but she refused to flinch or look away.
“For her,” he declared. “The Lost
Enchantress.”