There went her knees again. She was glowing, her breasts pebbled and aching. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted him to lay her down in her stone circle and not let her up until someone else was crowned Oldest Virgin in North America.

She was doing so well. Open-eyed and participating, pulling his shirt free so she could search out those taut muscles with her fingers. So she could explore the delicious terrain she’d seen from the top of a chifforobe. The feel of him was mesmerizing, the smell of him delectable. She could almost hear the racing thoughts in his head as he fumbled with the buttons Mare had tried to loosen no more than an hour earlier.

Yes, Dee thought, arching toward him, never breaking the kiss. Please. Just this once.

Her body felt incandescent. Chills chased down her spine and sapped her strength. Her heart battered at her rib cage, and she was pressing against him as if she could climb inside. She felt explosions of light in her very cells.

There will be disaster.

Danny slid his hand inside her blouse and cupped her breast. Dee gasped, lurching against him, struck by a bolt of pure lust from just the brush of his fingers. Dear God, what would happen when the rest of him was involved?

She might have made it. Might truly have thrown caution to the wind and consecrated her hill with a bout of lovemaking that would have gone down in the annals of lost virginity. But just as Danny bent to lay a kiss on her throat, suddenly in her mind Dee saw the face of a woman. Gray-haired and sad, with Danny James’s eyes.

Dee shoved so hard Danny almost fell down the cliff.

‘What the hell…’

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped, desperately fumbling with her buttons before her body could betray her. I… oh, I’m just sorry.’

Xan had been right. She was about to fail all over again. And she found that no matter what she’d thought, she just couldn’t bear what she would see on Danny’s face when it happened. So she ran. She ran all the way down the mountain and into the house where men weren’t allowed, and she hid beneath the black duvet in her room.

‘The cat has to go,’ Elric said, and Lizzie opened the door to shoo Py out, only to come face-to-face with Mare, home from work. She could feel the color drain from her face, but Mare didn’t even blink.

‘Hello,’ Mare said to Elric. ‘I was looking for Py.’

‘That’s Elric,’ Lizzie said and stood her ground, daring Mare to say anything about the taboo about men in the house.

Mare looked from Lizzie to Elric to Lizzie and back to Elric again. ‘How you doin’, Elric?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ he said. ‘And you?’

‘I’ve been better, thank you for caring,’ she said. ‘Come on, Py.’

She took the cat and retreated upstairs, and Lizzie closed the door.

‘Will that be a problem?’ Elric said.

‘If that had been a problem, there would have been blue sparks,’ Lizzie said. ‘So now what?’

‘Now we start…’ The loud thumping on the front door stopped him, and he said, ‘Sweet Jesus, is this Grand Central Station? Get rid of her.’

‘Her? It’s probably Charles,’ she said, resigned.

‘I don’t think so.’ He had an oddly smug expression on his face. ‘Hurry up. I’m getting bored.’

‘You can always leave,’ she pointed out, heading for the door.

It was Maxine from the diner, odd enough in itself, odder still because Maxine seemed to be twitching with nerves. ‘Hi, Lizzie,’ she said. And then she sneezed. ‘You’ll never guess what I’m here for.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ Lizzie said faintly. She glanced behind her. She could just manage to see Elric’s shimmering outline. A definite advance from earlier in the day, she thought.

I’m collecting for the Salem’s Fork Wetlands Project. We’re… er… planning an auction, and we’re looking for donations.’ She stumbled over the words, as if she’d memorized them.

Lizzie just looked at her. ‘I didn’t know Salem’s Fork had any wetlands.’

‘That’s an amethyst, isn’t it?’ Maxine said, her beady eyes focusing in on the pendant. ‘It’s new, right? You could donate that – I bet it would bring in a lot of money. And think of the poor frogs and salamanders.’

Instinctively, Lizzie wrapped her hand over the amethyst, shielding it from Maxine’s eyes, and it pulsed in her hand. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry, Maxine. Maybe Dee could write you a check-’

‘Don’t tell Dee!’ Maxine said, clearly worried. ‘I’ve never seen you wear jewelry before, wouldn’t you rather donate it-’

The door slammed in her face, and there was an audible click. Lizzie reached for the doorknob, but it was hot to the touch, and Elric was standing behind her shoulder, looking bored.

‘Sorry, Maxine,’ she shouted through the door. ‘The wind must have blown it shut. Come back tomorrow and we’ll give you a check.’

‘But I can’t…’ There was sudden silence on the other side of the door.

She whirled around to face Elric. ‘What did you do to her?’

‘Sent her back to work. Which is what we need to do. Come along. I’m not in the mood for any more interruptions.’

He motioned her into the workshop. ‘This is a fairly simple array.’ He began to draw a circular design on the rough wooden floor there. ‘Just enough to help focus the energy. When you get better at this you’ll probably tweak it a bit, find one that works better for you. There are thousands of variations, carried down through history – you’re bound to find one that’s just right for you.’

She looked at him, doubtful. It was late, and the wind outside was growing stronger. She could hear the creak of the branches overhead, the occasional rattle of the windows as a gust swept through. She’d spent the entire day listening to him, and she should have been tired and bored and restless. And in fact she was restless, though she couldn’t figure out why. Even Mare had been an intrusion, somebody to be gotten out of the way. Something was building inside her, in concert with the coming storm, and she kept thinking her life was about to change.

Of course it was. Elric was showing her the secrets of the gift she’d struggled with so long, hated for so long, and she soaked up every word with rapt attention, mesmerized by the sound of his deep voice and his magical words.

They’d been at it for hours, with only a couple of breaks for food and tea. She’d offered him wine, but he’d taken one look at the ordinary chardonnay Dee kept and shook his head. ‘Working with a gift like ours is tricky enough without throwing alcohol or drugs into the mix. If I were you I wouldn’t touch anything for at least five years, until you’re a master at transmutation.’

‘Five years without a drink?’ she’d replied. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘Is that a problem?’

In fact it wasn’t. Beer gave her a headache, wine upset her stomach, and the harder stuff made her shudder. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘Next you’ll be telling me I have to be celibate, as well,’ she shot back. Then strongly regretted it. Mentioning sex in his presence had the most unsettling effect. She glanced around to see whether any untoward shoes had popped up, but for once she was spared.

He pushed his long, dark blond hair away from his beautiful face, and the silver stud glittered. ‘It all depends. Sleeping with someone like your fiancé will dull your gifts. Eventually they’d disappear altogether.’

Her instincts had been right about that. Every time she was around Charles, the shards of magic faded, leaving her safe and quiet and dull. ‘Isn’t that what you’d like?’ she said. ‘Since you say I’m so dangerous?’

He looked at her, considering. ‘It would be a loss,’ he said finally. ‘You have more talent than I’ve seen in decades, and it would be a shame to waste it. Particularly on an oaf like your fiancé.’

‘Decades?’ she echoed, amused. ‘I doubt you were that aware when you were a kid.’