“You’ve seen this?”

“I dreamed it.”

“Which can be the same,” Bran repeated.

“They weren’t alone on the beach.”

“They weren’t, no, not alone. Another like them, but as unlike as white to black, wanted what they’d made, and what the queen had, which was power over worlds. The three knew her for what she was, knew as they tossed the stars toward the moon, and the other struck out at them with her dark, they would need to protect what they’d created, and all that lived.

“The stars would fall,” he continued, “the other had seen to that, and she could wait. So the three used what they had to see that when the stars fell, they would fall away from one another, as their full power is only reached when together. They would fall in secret places, hidden and safe until the time came for them to be lifted out, brought together, and taken to the next new queen.”

“It’s a pretty story, but—”

“Not all of it,” Riley interrupted. “Give her the other side.”

“If the other takes possession of the stars, all the doors on all the worlds will unlock. The dark, the damned, the destructive will spring free and devour all they can. Human worlds, and others as vulnerable, would not survive it.”

“Worlds.”

Smiling, he topped off her wine. “Do you ever wonder at the arrogance of men who think they alone exist in the universe?”

“Most native cultures and elemental faiths know better,” Riley commented.

“You’re a scientist.”

“I’m a digger,” she told Sasha. “And I’ve dug up enough to know we’ve never been alone. There’s a little more to the legend.”

“A bit,” Bran allowed.

“Those who seek it risk death—natch—but if they prevail, they save the worlds, which is pretty important. And each will find their own fortune.”

“Both of you believe this.”

“I believe it enough. I’ve been looking for them, off and on, for about seven years.”

“Twelve,” Bran told her. “On and off as well.”

“It’s been kind of a hobby for me, until now. Now?” Riley polished off the last of her wine. “I think it’s become my freaking mission.” She set the glass down, leaned toward Sasha. “Are we in this—the three of us?”

“Six. It has to be the six. I don’t think we’ll get far until it is.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start looking.”

“Where?”

“The mountains to the north, a lot of caves there. That might be a good place to start.”

“How do we get there?”

“I’ve got a jeep. That’ll get us somewhere. Got hiking boots?”

“Yes. I do a lot of hiking at home.”

“How about you, Irish?”

“Not to worry.”

“Great. So we’ll meet up in the morning, head out, what, about eight?”

Bran winced. “A morning person, are you?”

“I’m what I need to be.”

Sasha walked back with them to the hotel in a half daze. Too much wine, too much travel, too much stimulation. She’d sleep, just sleep, and sort the rest out in the morning, she told herself.

“What floor?” Bran asked when they stepped into the elevator.

“Third.”

“So am I.”

“And I make three on three,” Riley said.

“Naturally.” With a sigh, Sasha leaned against the wall, dug out her key.

When they got out, turned in the same direction, Sasha all but felt Fate’s sticky fingers pinching the back of her neck. She stopped at her door. “My room.”

“I’m across the hall from you,” Bran said, smiling now.

“Of course you are.”

“And right next door.” Riley strolled down to the door beside Sasha’s.

“Where else would you be?” she mumbled, and unlocked her door.

“Night, kids!” Riley sang out.

“Good night. Thanks for dinner,” she said to Bran, and closed the door.

Bran walked into his own room, switched on the lights. The evening, he thought, had certainly been more entertaining than he’d anticipated. He’d intended to wander out, maybe have a drink, take a solitary walk around to let himself absorb where he’d been driven to go.

Then the women.

He could admit here, alone, that seeing himself in that sketch as one of six had given him a jolt. But such an interesting jolt. As interesting as realizing the artist happened to be the same Sasha Riggs whose work hung in his New York home.

She’d claimed the scene had come from her imagination, and perhaps it had. But he knew that forest and knew it well. And he knew what waited at the end of the path in the shimmering light.

He got a bottle of water, and the tablet he traveled with, plopped down on the bed. And began to research the two women Fate had apparently dropped at his feet.

There were other ways to learn more about them, of course, but this seemed the most fair and aboveboard. He believed in being fair, at least initially.

He had no doubt they hadn’t shared everything with him—the adventurer and the seer—but he hadn’t shared all with them. So that seemed fair as well.

He took the adventurer first, because in truth he felt far too hard a pull toward the seer.

Not simply Riley Gwin, he noted, but Doctor Riley Gwin, who’d earned the title in archaeology and folklore and myths. Born thirty years ago—and two doctorates by thirty meant she was no one’s fool—to Doctors Carter Gwin and Iris MacFee, archaeology and anthropology, respectively, she’d spent a good portion of her childhood traveling.

She’d written two books and an assortment of papers and articles—publish or perish, after all. But devoted most of her time, from what he could glean, on digs or traveling on her own in pursuit of lost treasures and myths.

Searching for the stars certainly fit.

He switched to Sasha.

She was twenty-eight, he noted, only child of Matthew and Georgina Riggs, née Corrigan—divorced. She’d studied art at Columbia. Articles on her were few and far between, which told him she shied away from the media. But she was represented by one of the top artist agencies in New York. According to her official bio, she’d had her first major showing at the Windward Gallery, New York, at the tender age of twenty-two, and lived quietly in the mountains of North Carolina.

Unmarried, which was handy.

There was, he thought, a great deal more to Sasha Riggs than that.

So he’d have to find out the great deal more, one way or the other. But not tonight, he decided. For tonight, he’d let it all rest, and see what came.

He set the tablet aside, stripped down. He might have preferred the night to the morning, but since he had morning to face, he’d get a decent night’s sleep.

He left the curtains and windows open and, listening to the night, thinking of stars, of fortune, of women with secrets, began to drift off.

The knock on the door brought him out of the half sleep and into mild annoyance. Rolling out of bed, he snatched up his jeans, tugged them on.

It didn’t surprise him overmuch to find Sasha at the door, but it did to see her in the hallway wearing a thin white sleep-slip that barely hit the middle of her very pretty thighs.

“Well now, this is interesting.”

“She’s at the window.”

“Who would that be?” He’d started to smile, but when his gaze finally managed to travel from those thighs up the white silk, beyond breasts and throat to meet her eyes, the smile faded off.

Dream-walking, he thought. The trance glazed her eyes like glass.

“Where are you, Sasha?”

“With you. She’s at the window. She said if I let her in, she’d give me my heart’s desire. But she’s made of lies. We should make her leave.”

“Let’s have a look.”

He took her hand, led her back across the hall, into her room. Shut the door behind him.

She had it dark as a cave, he noted, curtains drawn tight across the windows. He added some light, and Sasha lifted a hand, gestured toward the curtains.

“There she is. I told her to go away, but there she is.”

“Stay here.” He walked to the window, yanked the curtains open. He saw a shadow pass—a bare flicker—thought he heard a rustle, like the dry wings of a bat. Then there was nothing but the sea under a three-quarter moon.