I jerked away from him, thrown out of the mad spell. “Don’t talk about my eyes.”

I’d stunned him. Even with my head floating somewhere above me body, I could tell that. People usually reveled in or laughed at cheesy lines about eyes. They didn’t get angry.

He laughed it off. “All right. So what is it about Kilkarten? It has to be something more than just research.”

How could I describe it? The green hills, the water, the sun spread across all of it... The draw of being somewhere else, somewhere beautiful and peaceful and not here, not with my parents and their vicious, vitriolic hatred.

I turned my glass in my hands. “Have you heard of the Iverni? And Ptolemy?”

He shook his head.

“Ptolemy was a second century Alexandrian who wrote about Ireland. Ivernis was one of the few cities he named, and the whole island used to be called after the people who lived there. Iouerníā—The Fertile Land. Pytheas, a Greek explorer, visited even earlier and called it Ierne.” There were barely any sources about Ireland and the ancient Mediterranean, but they gave rise to a contentious debate about whether Ireland and Rome had contact and trade. If the site I’d located was from the turn of the millennia, so many answers could be buried there. “I’m positive that the city of Ivernis is under Kilkarten. And I need to prove it this summer, while funding still exists. My advisor, Jeremy, can’t get any more money—he’s been unsuccessful for too long, and now most of academia’s decided he’s on a wild goose chase. Half mad with obsession to find a lost city. He’s not, of course. But I’m afraid that this might be our last chance to find Ivernis.”

Mike smiled slightly. “So you want to save your falsely ridiculed advisor. I definitely saw this miniseries on Netflix.”

I glared. “Don’t make fun. It’s all real. I’ve done the research, and the way the land was shaped, two thousands ago, made it perfect for Ivernis. The sources Jeremy’s dug up, notes in the margins of illuminated manuscripts about geography and location—we’re right. We’ve found it.”

“So it’s for fame and glory.”

I shook my head. “It’s for discovery. For knowledge. What greater motivator is there?”

He studied me. “Do you really believe that?”

I nodded emphatically. “That harbor can tell us things about a period of history, about a people, that we barely know anything about. I could bring that era back to life. Life from death. If that’s not magic, what is?”

He stared at me for a long, long moment. I had nothing left to say.

He stood abruptly. “I have to go.”

“Mike,” Rachael called out from across the room, and we both turned. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you get Natalie a cab?”

Apparently that was finally too much. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

And then Ryan Carter was there, drying his hands on a dishtowel, looking weirdly domestic and also like he would demolish anyone who hurt Rachael.

We took the elevator in silence. He walked out of the building ahead of me, and I had to hurry to catch up. I reached for his arm, hesitated, and then my hand fell away. Still, I couldn’t stop the words. “Mike, if you sign the papers, I will do anything.”

He slowed to a stop, and I stepped in front of him, beseeching him with my eyes and voice. He didn’t look away. “Please.”

His half-lidded gaze made me swallow. My toes curled in my boots while heat curled in my stomach. With his head tilted down like that, and standing so close, he took up my entire view. I could feel each breath he took, feel the heat in the tightly corded arm under my fingers.

And then he drew back. “Don’t ever promise anything.” He shook his head.

My shoulders tightened and I nodded, and then walked on. But everything moved too fast—the world, the lights—and I tripped and the sidewalk flew up toward my face.

Fingers wrapped around my arm and hauled me upright and against a warm, broad chest. “You’re drunk.”

Unable to deny it, I studied the way his head remained in focus while the world behind him danced. “Alcohol turns reality into avant-guard art.”

“Yes, and bad eyesight turns the world into an Impressionist painting,” he said. “Now what am I supposed to do with you?”

“You’re right!” I examined his eyes for a telltale ring of blue around his pupils. “Do you wear contacts?”

Then the warmth of his eyes distracted me, the way they weren’t really brown, but had depths that shone in the light. You couldn’t tell how long and curled his lashes were from far away, but this close I could see their bright shimmer in the lamplight. My throat worked and my tongue darted out to wet my lips.

He set me back. “Let’s get you a cab.”

“A cab?” My eyes widened to saucers, and I shook my head decisively. “I don’t believe in cabs. They’re for parents and rich people.”

“And drunks. Come on.”

I nodded, and then watched as he started away. I tilted my head back. In Ecuador, you could see the stars almost every night, scattered across the domed sky, but here everything was just a grayed out blackish-blur. I heard a sigh and found Mike back before me. He took my hand and tugged, so I obediently followed him. “Natalie. Look at me. Where do you live?”

I laughed. Who knew? In my parents’ house. At Cam’s. In the field. At Kilkarten. I wanted to live at Kilkarten. “Who cares?”

“I’m not taking you to my place,” he warned.

I barely managed a wave of scorn. “Like I’d want you to. No, I will sleep on the streets! I will wander the knolls of Central Park, beneath the stony stone-eyed poets—”

“And pickpockets? Or murderers?” He stretched one hand behind my back and lifted me up. Then we were moving, and then we were in a taxi.

The city blurred past in a streak of lights and colors. I think he tried to take my purse at one point but I yanked it back and buried it under me because only thieves took purses. The cab turned and here came Lincoln Center, bright and open, banners falling down the side of high white walls. People walked about in the carefully chic and cultured uniform of New York. We sped through the restaurants of Hell’s Kitchen, then that knot of congestion from Times Square to Penn Station. Out here on Tenth Ave, everything looked more industrial and rundown, and you got hints of the Javits center off to the right, the giant convention center that looked toward Jersey. Horses clomped along beside us, pulling their elaborate carts as they headed home for the night. I fell asleep watching a feather bob above a Clydesdale’s head.

I woke when the cab drew to a stop. When I opened my eyes, Mike’s face blurred above me, his hair shining even in the dim light. “You have pretty hair.” I reached up and ran my fingers through a curl. “Like fire.”

He blinked. “Thanks.”

My eyes closed again. “My mother has beautiful hair. She’s beautiful. Like a doll. I was always a bad doll.”

He didn’t answer, and so I peeled open a lid to see him. He frowned at me, a deep furrow etched along his brow.

My gaze dropped and I realized he was ransacking my purse. “What are you doing?”

The furrow vanished as he laughed. He held up his hands. “Relax. I was just finding your license so I could give the driver your address.”

“Oh. Right.” I leaned forward and told the driver myself.

Mike handed my purse back and put his hand on his door. “Well, then. See you.”

I caught his free hand and he stilled. “Have you ever been to Ireland?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” I sighed. “And I know it’s not magic.” I turned my head so I could see into his warm brown eyes. “I’m not crazy. Not Ireland or Ecuador or Greece. But I can pretend they are, see? At least for the weeks leading up and the first weeks there and then I can always go somewhere else, and who’s to know it wasn’t magic...”

Empathy flickered in his eyes. “I think you should go home now. He disentangled from my grip. “Goodnight, Natalie.”