"I'm sitting in the heart of that joy and hope and fulfillment right now, with both of you." Zoe held her arms out to encompass the room, the whole of what they'd built. "I'm not leaving them out, but I need to be realistic. I have to be, because I want to believe, almost more than I can stand, that when I come to the end of this, with that goddamn key in my hand, I'm going to have a chance for… for more."
"What's next, then?" Dana asked her.
"I need both of you to think about it. You're the only ones who have actually held one of the keys. Dana, you and Jordan and Flynn know Bradley's house almost as well as he does. I'll take all the help I can get."
She pushed to her feet. "But right this minute, we'd better start answering those phones again."
There was only a sliver of moon left, just a thin slice of curve to float in the black sky. Though she wished, desperately, that a storm would blow in full of mean clouds that would cover even that, Zoe couldn't stop staring at the waning light.
She'd looked everywhere. There were times she was certain her eyes or her fingers had passed over that glint of gold. But she was unable to see or touch it.
Unless she did that within the next forty-eight hours, everything Malory and Dana had been through, all they'd accomplished, would be for nothing.
The Daughters of Glass would forever lie still and empty in their crystal coffins.
Bundled in a jacket, she sat out on the rear deck, trying to hold on to that last splinter of hope.
"It's here. I know it. What am I missing? What haven't I done that I'm supposed to do?"
"Mortals," Kane said from behind her, "look toward what they call the heavens and ask what to do, what to think."
As Zoe froze, he skimmed a fingertip along the base of her neck. She felt the touch like a line of ice.
"It amuses me."
His soft boots made no sound as he walked around her to lean casually back against the deck's railing.
He was so breathtakingly handsome, she thought. Made for the dark. For moonless nights, for storms.
"You've failed," he announced matter-of-factly.
"I haven't." The cold was creeping into her bones, so she had to fight the urge to shiver. "There's time left."
"It ekes away, minute by minute. And when that last sliver of moon is dark, I will have all. And you will have nothing."
"You shouldn't come here to gloat before it's over." She wanted to stand, to push herself defiantly to her feet, but her legs felt like rubber. "It's bad luck."
"Luck is a mortal belief, one of your many crutches. Your kind requires them." He slid his fingers down the silver chain of his amulet, began to swing it slowly side to side.
"Why do you hate us?"
"Hate indicates feeling. Do you feel anything for the bug you crush beneath your boot? You are less to me than that."
"I don't have conversations with the bug, either. But here you are." Irritation rippled over his face, and steadied her.
"As I said, you amuse me. You, particularly, of the three Rowena and Pitte set on this doomed quest. The first… she had style and a clever mind. The second, there was fire there and intelligence."
"They beat you."
"Did they?" He laughed, a soft, derisive sound as he swung the pendant. "Do you not consider that after so long I might wish some entertainment? To have ended it quickly would have been to deny myself the amusement of watching you, all of you, plot and plan and congratulate yourselves. To have ended it would have meant denying myself the pleasure of seeing you squirm, as you are now. You interested me simply because you lack the wit and style of your companions. Badly educated, poorly bred."
He shifted, lifting the pendant an inch higher. 'Tell me, where would you be if not for that invitation to Warrior's Peak? Certainly not here in this house, with this man. A man who will, when the… sparkle of this mutual goal has dulled, see you for what you are. He'll cast you off, as the other did. But you already know that."
The silver pendant's slow, steady movement made her head feel light. "You don't know anything about me. Or him."
"I know you're a failure. And when you fail in your quest, the others will know it as well. It was cruel of Rowena and Pitte to involve you in this, to expect so much of you. To toss you in with these people," he continued as mists began to scud—thin blue clouds—along the boards of the deck. "People who have so much more to offer than you. Cruel to give you a taste of what life might be so you'll spend the rest of your days thirsting for it."
"My friends—"
"Friendship? Another mortal delusion, and as false as luck. They'll desert you when you fail, and fail you will. A hand such as yours was never meant to turn the key."
His voice was soothing now as he straightened, as he stepped closer with the amulet swinging, swinging, a glittering pendulum. "I feel some sympathy for you. Enough to offer you some compensation. What, of the things Rowena and Pitte have so carelessly pushed into your life, would you like to keep? Your little business, this house, the man? Choose one, and I'll grant it to you."
He was hypnotizing her. She could feel herself drifting under, feel the mists crawling over her skin. So very, very cold. It would be so easy to slide down into those crooning promises, to take something . Her hands felt stiff and icy and useless, but she balled them into fists until she felt the prick of her nails biting into her palms.
With one vicious effort she tore her gaze from the pendant and looked into his face. "You're a liar." Her breath heaved out, ripped painfully from her lungs as she staggered to her feet. "You're a liar and a cheat."
He knocked her back. Though she didn't see the blow, she felt it like a strike of jagged ice across her face. Without thought, riding on temper, she leaped forward and raked her nails down his.
She saw the shock—one instant of utter disbelief that flashed into his eyes. She saw blood bloom in the grooves she'd sliced in his skin.
Then she was slammed back against the wall of the house, pinned there by a wild surge of wind so cold she saw crystals of ice, black as onyx, swirling through it.
And he stood, huge in his billowing black robes, with blood on his face. "I could kill you with a thought ."
No, he can't, he can't. Or he would have. He's a liar, she reminded herself frantically. And a bully. But he could hurt her, God, he could hurt her. And she felt the pain, tearing and bright, in her chest.
"Go back to hell!" she shouted at him. "You're not welcome here."
"When this is done, you will lose all. And I'll add your soul to my winnings."
As if a switch had been flipped, the wind died. Zoe fell forward on her hands and knees, gasping for breath, shuddering in shock.
She stared, baffled, at the wood of the deck and struggled to clear her mind. When she lifted her head she saw the night had turned into soft, misty morning. Through the dawn haze, at the verge of the trees, stood a buck with a coat that seemed to gleam gold. The jeweled collar around his neck shot fire through the mist, and his eyes burned green fire.
Those mists drew together, like a curtain, and when they parted again, he was gone.
"I'm not done." She spoke aloud for the comfort of her own voice. Kane had tricked her out of time, hours of precious time, but she wasn't done.
And when she got to her feet, she looked down at her hands, saw there was blood on them.
His blood.
"I hurt him. I hurt the son of a bitch."
Tears tracked down her cheeks as she stumbled toward the house. Her vision wavered. She thought she heard someone shouting, a threatening growl, a slam. Shapes and sounds melted together into one dark void.