“I’ll be ready.”

*   *   *

She was as good as her word and rapped on his door closer to fifteen minutes than twenty. They went down, agreed to grab coffee, take it out by the pool so he could fill her in.

“First, just to get it out of the way, I’ve gotta respect you didn’t dive into the pool—and I don’t mean this one.”

“Sex?” He shook his head. “A man who’d take advantage of a dream-walker doesn’t have much respect for himself or the woman. Add in, if we’re in this together, we need some level of trust.”

“You’re right there. And I trust you’re not telling us everything about Bran Killian.”

“I’m not, Dr. Gwin.”

On a laugh, she toasted him with her coffee. “Googled me?”

“I did.”

“Only fair. I did the same with you. That club of yours—or clubs, because you’ve got another in Dublin—looks pretty kick-ass.”

“I like to think so.”

“I’ll have to check it out, next time I’m in New York or Dublin. But right now, we should probably get a table. Sasha strikes me as the timely type. Plus I’m starving.”

Rising, they strolled toward the open-air buffet with its billowing white curtains. “You got any ideas on who was at her window last night?”

“A few.”

“Funny, I have a few, too.”

After telling the waiter they’d be three, they got a table, waited for the coffee refill. Riley took a notebook out of one of the pockets of her cargo pants, tore off a sheet.

“You write down your first choice, I’ll do the same. And we’ll compare.”

“I don’t have a pen on me.”

“You can use my pencil in a minute.” Riley scrawled a name on her sheet, tossed him the pencil.

“Is this to make certain I’m not winding you up?”

“Let’s say it’ll show if either of us is full of shit.” She held her sheet out to him between two fingers, and he did the same.

“Nerezza,” he murmured.

Riley set his sheet down beside her, nodding to Sasha as she walked to the table. “Nerezza.”

“She’s the mother of darkness.” Sasha stared at the billowing white curtains. “She is made of lies.”

Bran rose, took her arm, felt her shudder. “Sasha.”

“Yes.”

“Sit down now. Will you have coffee?”

She slid into the chair, nodded. “Yes.” She picked up the two sheets of paper. “I know this name. I’ve heard it in my head. This was who came to the window. She was outside the window, a third-floor window. It wasn’t a dream, not really a dream. How can that be? Who is she?”

“It’s more what,” Bran said, shifted his gaze back to Riley. “Have you ever taken on a god before?”

“Can’t say I have. This should be fun.” She stood up. “I’m hitting the buffet.”

Sasha watched Riley stride off to one of the loaded buffet tables, lift the lid on a chafing dish, and begin to pile on food.

“If I had a million dollars, I’d give every cent of it to have her confidence.”

“You’ve got your own,” Bran told her. “You’ve just tucked it away here and there. We’d best get some breakfast before Riley eats all there is.”

*   *   *

Riley’s jeep, a rough, rusted-out red, was battered and battle-scarred and roofless. After a long study, Bran climbed in the back.

“Where did you get this thing?”

“I have contacts, worked a deal. Figured I’d need transportation.” She got behind the wheel, tossed a folded map at Sasha. “Shotgun navigates.”

“All right, but it’s helpful to know where we’re going.”

“North along the coast to start. It’s a big island, but my research leads me toward a coastal location.”

“Why?” Even as the question formed, Riley hit the gas.

It might have looked like it hovered one step out of the nearest junkyard, but the jeep had enough kick to leap forward like a panther.

“Why?” Riley shouted over the engine’s roar as she punched down a narrow road, the shops a blur at the edges, toward the coast. “What makes an island an island?”

Sasha wondered if a crash hurt less if the eyes stayed closed. “It’s surrounded by water.”

“So why choose an island to hide treasure if you’re just going inland? The coast—bays, inlets, caves. Most translations of the legend talk about the Fire Star waiting to light again, that it sleeps in the cradle of land beneath the sea. Some mythologists figure Atlantis.”

“That follows, as Atlantis is a myth.”

Riley flicked Sasha a look. “You’re here looking for a fallen star created by a moon goddess, but dissing Atlantis?”

“And hoping I don’t die in a car crash.”

“That’s what the roll bar’s for. I have a colleague who’s been searching for Atlantis for nearly twenty years now. I’m leaving that one to him.”

The road was like a speedway where every driver seemed determined to cross his personal finish line before the rest. Riley drove like a maniacal demon, barely slowing when they zipped through a village.

“Kontokali, if you’re checking the map,” she said. “It’s got one of the oldest churches on the island, and a castle ruin I’ll check out if I have spare time. How you doing back there, Irish?”

He’d angled sideways, propped his feet up on the second seat. “You drive like a hellhound, Riley.”

“I always get where I’m going. Seeing as there are three of us now, I had a thought. We can each keep shelling out separately for a hotel room, or we could pool it, rent a place. It’d be cheaper all around.”

“And more private,” Bran added, as he’d had the thought himself. “It gets a bit awkward trying to discuss hunting for stars and evading dark gods in hotel restaurants. What do you think, Sasha?”

She stared out at the sea, and the skier flying along the blue behind a bright white boat. “I guess it’s more practical.”

“Done,” Riley announced. “I’ll make some calls.”

“To your contacts,” Bran finished.

“Pays to have them. Gouvia,” she added as they came to another village. “Old Venetian shipyards. Multiple beaches and coves. May bear looking into.”

Sasha had time to consider the sun-washed color of buildings, pedestrians in holiday gear, a stream of coastline before the village lay behind them.

“You don’t appear to need a navigator.”

“Not yet.”

Sasha got used to the speed, at least used enough for her heart to stop knocking at every turn of the road. She soothed herself with the sea, the movement of it, the scent of it in the blowing air. The fragrance of flowers mixed with it as they bloomed wild and free on the roadsides, their colors more vivid and intense than any she’d seen. Madly red poppies springing out of a field, greedy morning glory smothering hedges in violent blue, the curving branches of a Judas tree bursting with searing magenta.

She was here, Sasha thought, to find answers to questions that dogged her. But she was here in such bright, hot beauty, and that alone was a personal miracle.

She gave over to it, lifted her face to the sky, let the warm, perfumed air wash over her.

Riley had some tidbit about every village they passed through. Sasha wondered what it was like to be a kind of human guidebook, to have traveled so widely, to actually and actively seek out adventure.

For now, she let herself be in the moment, one of sun, speed, scenery.

She could paint for years here.

Maybe her heart knocked again when they sped along a stretch with sharp turns, with the sea a breathless drop tucked close to the road.

Gradually they turned west, bypassed a large and busy town Sasha identified on the map as Kassiopi.

The road snaked again, skimmed by a lake she longed to sketch.

“Coming in to Acharavi. Originally called Hebe—probably after Zeus’s daughter—in ancient times. Then Octavian sacked it in like 32 BC, so the current name, which basically means ‘ungracious life,’ since being sacked and burned is pretty ungracious.

“We’ll take a pit stop there,” Riley continued as they flew by a water park. “And I’ll make those calls. Albania.” She gestured to the land mass across the water.