The Lost Enchantress (29 page)

It would be easy—humiliating and disappointing, but easy—to conclude that she had misread things from the start and that he’d never been interested in anything more than the time-honored, adrenalin-fueled WBTM. Talk about a lack of truth in advertising. He appeared to be the antithesis of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type, but she supposed anyone could crack under pressure
.
They’d just been through a highly charged and stressful situation; he was wired, she was wired. Spontaneous combustion happens.

Except that wasn’t what happened.

There had been more to their coming together than a surge of unruly hormones. Much more. She’d felt it. What’s more, she’d felt him feeling it right along with her. For some reason he’d tried to hide the truth from her afterwards. Maybe because he was trying to hide it from himself. Maybe his way of dealing with complicated emotions was to deny them until they went away. That might be good enough for him; it wasn’t good enough for her.

Hazard was a fascinating man, on many levels, and Eve wanted to know more about him. Poking and probing and gathering information was one of her talents, but before she turned herself loose on Hazard, there were some things she needed to know about herself.

That’s where her grandmother came in, or should have. Eve shook her head in exasperation.

“
Oh dear?
That’s it? I tell you Phineas Pavane is alive and that he claims it was the talisman and me that returned him to this realm, and that he’s stolen the talisman for the second time and is right now off God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what with it,
and
that Hazard is two hundred years old and possibly also immortal, and you say
oh dear
?”

“Oh dear, that is quite an amazing tale. Better?” There was a faint glint of humor in her grandmother’s blue eyes.

“Amazing but true,” Eve countered. “You believe me?”

“Of course I do. I believe every word of it,” Grand assured her. “I’m just not as certain of what we should do about it.”

“What can we do?”

“Oh, there are a number of things. We could appeal to the High Council of Mages; the theft of a magical implement as powerful as the talisman would fall within their purview. The problem is they have limited recourse for dealing with anyone calling solely on dark magic, which I’m certain is the case with Pavane. And they’re slow.”

“Slow?”

“Yes. You would think that after countless centuries they would have streamlined operations, but oh, no, the council is ruled by conservatives. Not that I’m opposed to tradition, but there is such a thing as being too much of a purist. I mean, really,” Grand drawled in exasperation, “where is it written that council decrees must be done by scribe on parchment rather than computer?”

“Beats me,” replied Eve, reaching for her wineglass. Her grandmother did the same.

They were comfortably ensconced in the family room. It would be hard to be anything but comfortable sitting on the overstuffed cream suede sofa . . . or on any other seat in the house for that matter. It was the antithesis of Hazard’s place. For starters it was a home, not a home décor ad. The furniture was a casual mix of new and old, the overall look lovingly fine-tuned over the years and still an ongoing group effort. There were handmade pillows and bright jewel tones and offbeat pieces of art Chloe had brought home from all the exotic places she’d visited. And there were family photos everywhere, a happy hodgepodge of them, all in silver frames.

“You said there were a number of things we could do,” Eve reminded her.

“Yes. I have friends I could call on to help recover the talisman. Their methods can be a bit . . . unorthodox, but they work much faster than the council.” Her expression grew troubled. “There is great risk involved in confronting a dark sorcerer as experienced and ruthless as Pavane, however, and I would be asking others to assume that risk for what is really T’airna business. In the past, T’airnas have always prided themselves on dealing with these matters directly.”

Eve felt the weight of the unspoken word in her grandmother’s calm, unwavering gaze, and her chest tightened with a sense of foreboding.

“In the past, T’airnas had the talisman, and the power to get the job done. Do we?”

Grand expression was sphinxlike. “One of us does.”

Eve tensed. Damn, damn, damn. She had to go and ask. She’d thought she was ready to hear what Grand had wanted to tell her for so long, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was better to let some questions go unanswered. Life was certainly easier that way and maybe easier
was
better. After all, it wasn’t as if she could
unanswer
them if she didn’t like what she heard. Did she really want to know something that could complicate her life even more than it already had been complicated? Forget complicated, was it smart to go poking a stick at something that could
change
her life in ways she couldn’t predict, much less control?

Of course, a better question would be did she still have a choice in the matter.

The auction had bumped her off the neat orderly path she’d chosen to walk, spun her around and dropped her onto a new and unfamiliar path, one with sharp turns she couldn’t see around and no exits. She couldn’t get off and she couldn’t turn around and go back. She had to keep moving forward and find her way out as best she could. And now she had to do it knowing Pavane was lurking out there somewhere, waiting. His promise that she would see him again very soon had sounded more like a threat . . . a threat she doubted she could avoid or outrun.

So the answer was pretty much a resounding no, she didn’t have a choice; she had to take the threat seriously and act accordingly.

Part of her didn’t want to hear it . . . or hear what Grand had to say; it wanted to find the nearest bedcovers and hide under them until the problem resolved itself, for better or worse. But another, braver part had responded fiercely when Grand spoke of T’airna pride, and that part of her was feeling greater indignation and animosity toward Pavane with every passing minute. The man deserved to pay for the harm he’d done to her family, and to Hazard, and to who knew how many others. He was a predator, and she’d reported on enough predators of the human variety to realize that he would go on hurting others until someone stopped him. If that someone was supposed to be her, she at least ought to know about it. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

She might long for an easy way out, but it wasn’t in her to take it, or to run and hide. She was a survivor; she’d survived tragedies and crises before, and she would find a way to survive this one. She sighed, steeling herself, and surrendered to the inevitable.

“Tell me about the prophecy,” she said to Grand.

“I’ll do better than that,” her grandmother responded, slowly getting to her feet. “Come with me.”

Eve followed her to her bedroom.

Her grandmother waved her hand in the direction of the bed, a cherry four-poster with pineapple finials, one of which still bore teeth marks from the time Chloe had tried to take a bite.

“Sit,” she ordered.

Eve sat.

Grand lifted a box from the center of her dresser and joined her, placing it on the bed between them. The dark wood box had an intricate parquet band just below the lid and brass corner pieces. Eve looked on as Grand pressed two fingertips to the brass keyhole and murmured a few words in the language that flowed like honey from her tongue, and she heard the metallic click of the lock opening as smoothly as if Grand had used the key that had been lost years ago.

Her grandmother lifted the lid and removed the fitted tray inside, then carefully took out the items underneath and put them aside as well. Each of them was familiar to Eve, evoking happy childhood memories of being allowed to peek inside Grand’s treasure chest
.
There was a pair of combs that had belonged to Grand’s mother, with silver filigree as fine as lace; a locket that held a baby picture and lock of hair from Eve’s own mother; and a small stack of old letters tied with a faded red ribbon. The letters were from her grandfather, sent home from the region in France where he had fought and died. Before putting them aside, Grand gave the letters a kiss, the way Eve had seen her do so many times before.

When the box appeared to be empty, she did something Eve had never seen before: she ran her fingertip along the inside edges, her lips pursed in concentration. Curious, Eve leaned forward to get a better look just as Grand located a slender black cord and tugged on it to remove a panel Eve hadn’t known was there.

“A false bottom,” Eve exclaimed. “Very clever. But couldn’t you have just set wards to protect whatever it is you have hidden under there?”

“I used wards as well. I wanted to protect it, but I also wanted to be certain it was somewhere you would find it if this moment never came and I was no longer around to give it to you myself.” Grand held out a yellowed parchment scroll tied with a black cord.

“The prophecy?” Eve asked as she took it from her, a flash of excitement overriding her trepidation.

“Yes . . . gently, gently please,” she cautioned as Eve started to unroll it. “That scroll is at least four hundred years old, and very fragile.”

Now that it was actually in her hand, Eve was eager to see what it said, but she paused to give her grandmother a skeptical look. “Four hundred years old? Really? I would have thought something that old would be in worse shape . . . a lot worse. In fact, without any special preservation treatment, I wouldn’t expect it to be here at all.”

Grand’s shrug was philosophical. “It is what it is meant to be. The prophecy itself is far older than that scroll, and far more sweeping in its entirety. The original is locked away in the council’s archives; what you’re holding is a transcription of the passages that most concern our family. I hope it will answer the question you have yet to ask.”

“Don’t rush me,” Eve grumbled without any real rancor. “These things take time.”

“Would it pique your interest to know that the prophecy foretold the loss of the talisman and the magic it represented, and the long stretch of misfortune that followed? And,” she said and then paused a beat, to heighten anticipation, Eve was certain. “It tells that there is only one way for T’airna magic to be restored, and only one who can bring it about.”

“The Lost Enchantress,” Eve said, running her fingers over the parchment.

Grand nodded. “Yes. It says she will be both blessed and marked, and you are both, Eve.”

“Blessed?” Eve countered, trying not to sound cynical.

Again her grandmother nodded firmly. “You are blessed with innate magic greater than any I have ever seen. I recognized it in you from the time you were very young. And you are marked with the sign of the goddess. It cannot be happenstance that your birthmark and the markings on the talisman are the same.”

“Does it happen to say exactly how this blessed and marked woman will do it?” Eve inquired.

“It does indeed,” Grand assured her. “She does it by choosing to do it.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly why I hate prophecies; the instructions are always so damn vague. Not like the Ten Commandments. When something is carved in stone, you know exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

“Which I imagine is why prophecies are not carved in stone. They’re not commandments,” Grand argued. “They’re . . . possibilities. To be seized or lost as we see fit; it’s always a choice . . . or hundreds of small choices we make along the way, most without a moment’s thought. The talisman was lost by an enchantress who chose
not
to claim her power. Maura had no patience for magic; she considered it a burden and refused to be taught or trained to use it. She was very young; perhaps in time she would have changed her mind, but she never got that chance.

“The choices she made led to a devastating loss for our family, the loss of love and magic.” A current of raw emotion ran through Grand’s words. “They will only be restored to us when the one enchantress meant to claim the full power of the talisman freely chooses to do so.”

“And you really think I might be the one who can do that?” Eve asked her.

“I don’t think it,” said her grandmother. “I
believe
it. I always have.” She waited a few seconds for that to sink in before adding, “But what I believe is not important. The future depends on what you believe. And on what you choose to do about it.”

Eve shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t even know what to think about . . . all this.” She indicated the scroll.

“That’s why you must read it. Reading the prophecy will help you understand what is possible; you must choose for yourself if that is the path you will take.” She began to return things to the box, holding on to the letters just a little longer than anything else.

Observing her, Eve felt a rush of tenderness. “Do you ever read them, Grand?”

“The letters? Not as much as I once did. There’s no need; I know by heart most every word he wrote.” She pressed them to her chest, her lips curving in a gentle smile. “Your grandfather was quite romantic for a young man.”

“How old was he?”

“Barely twenty. I was eighteen when he went off. Officially, Ireland remained neutral during the war; it was even referred to as ‘the Emergency,’ as if not calling it a war made it somehow less pressing. But your grandfather would have none of it; off he went to join a British regiment.”

Eve turned her head to look at the sepia-toned photograph on the bedside table. In it, the grandfather she’d never met was a young man with wavy hair and happy eyes, a man clearly proud to be in uniform. “I suppose to a young man war can seem like an adventure.”

“That wasn’t his reason for going. He told me he did it because he was needed and he couldn’t turn away from what he knew in his heart was right. People were suffering and dying, and he was young and fit and brave. Liam Conor believed that if it was within your power to do good, you ought to.”