Selected praise for Robin D. Owens

“Robin D. Owens…provides a wonderful, gripping mix of passion, exotic futuristic settings and edgy suspense.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz on Heart Duel

“Like a well-played symphony, Guardian of Honor resonates in the hearts of those fortunate enough to read it.”

—Huntress Reviews

“Fans will gobble up Guardian of Honor and still be hungry for more.”

—The Best Reviews

“Robin Owens blends medieval history, a richly layered magical world and fine characterizations to weave a spell-binding story in Guardian of Honor.”

—BookLoons

ROBIN D. OWENS
SORCERESS OF FAITH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Usual Suspects: Kay Bergstrom (Cassie Miles), Liz Roadifer, Janet Lane, Sharon Mignerey (www.sharonmignerey.com), Steven Moores, Judy Stringer, Anne Tupler, Sue Hornick, Alice Kober, Teresa Luthye, Peggy Waide (www.peggywaide.com), Giselle McKenzie

To Kay

Who encouraged and supported me from the

beginning and continues to do so—

my stories would be so much less without you

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

1

Boulder, Colorado

Late spring, early morning

She was running, running, running. Marian wished the passages were narrower, twistier, because the thing that chased her was huge and deadly. With each breath putrid air seared her lungs. The cavern’s corridors oozed slime.

She stumbled, clutched the plastic ball holding her hamster close. Looking down at her cross-trainer shoes in horror, she saw the laces were untied. She always tied them in perfect double bows.

A vibration hit her back. The monster’s breath. Stitch cramping her side, she used terror for a burst of speed and reached narrow upward stairs. Fresher air, laden with blood instead of poisonous acid, fouled her nostrils. She climbed, thinking the thing behind her could flow up the stairs. It wanted her blood, her guts, her brains.

Bumping from side to side, scraping skin raw, protecting her pet, she jumped up the steps and burst out onto a wide ledge of rock. With agility she didn’t know she had, she pivoted, avoiding the edge, hit the cliff face. Leaned into it. Gulping night air, she felt the thing brush past her, and fall screaming.

She couldn’t stop herself from looking down. Saw something worse than the huge shattered body of the monster that had hunted her. Her younger brother Andrew was surrounded by chanting black-robed druids who looked like death personified. Some of the druids held scythes, some gongs, some chimes.

Prone Andrew was, more pale than he’d ever been in life. Shrieking, “Nooooo!” she put the ball between her feet, lifted her arms as if she could call thunder that would set his heart to thumping again, push his blood; lightning that would nail his soul into his body, fire the spark of life.

A wet chuckle came next to her, freezing her blood. Slowly she turned her head to see a cowled figure with gleaming red eyes, a face not quite human but which might have been a man’s, once. He opened his mouth wide, and it got larger and larger, ready to swallow her whole. She raised her hands, fingertips arcing blue fire—

Marian Harasta jolted from the dream, covered in clammy sweat. Morning light streamed through the high windows of her garden apartment and she gasped in relief.

Before she could exhale, the chimes sounded, rippling through her nerves and echoing in her mind. Then the gong reverberated, arching her body off the bed. Her vision blurred and distant chanting rushed in her ears. She was bowed for one long moment before she fell back onto the bed, panting.

First the nightmare. Now the sounds. For the past months, dreams and auditory hallucinations had peppered her life—sleeping and waking. She steadied herself with even breathing. She would figure out what was happening to her. She’d had a full physical the week before, and a psychological evaluation, too. And she was perfectly fine.

The strangeness had started with sounds, then the dreams, then an itchy feeling as if she were a butterfly escaping from a constrictive cocoon, ready to stretch her wings. The notion was more than a little scary because her academic career was on track and her life tidy and under control. Except for Andrew, her half brother with progressive-remitting Multiple Sclerosis.

Brrrrinnng. The telephone. She flung off her covers and stumbled from bed, staggering to the phone charger on the kitchen counter. She had to blink a couple of times to read the caller ID. Her mother, Candace. Hell. The relationship with her mother, too, was out of Marian’s control. She let voice mail answer.

Marian wiped her face on the sleeve of her flannel nightgown, pondering options to understand, then fix, her problems. She couldn’t discuss this with her academic professors of Comparative Religion and Philosophy, or her advisor sheparding her through her doctorate. Her university profs would not understand. She didn’t want any oddness attached to her spotless reputation as she planned on a professional career.

Since the problem wasn’t physical or psychological, she’d considered psychic phenomena. Since she’d been fascinated by alternative spiritualities for years, she thought she might find help there.

She’d examined all the notes from all the classes she’d taken outside the university—New Age classes that fed her thirst for knowledge—searching for answers. Somewhere there was a solution for what plagued her and she would find it.

As she padded to the bathroom, she checked on her hamster, Tuck, curled in his cage in the alcove. A half-chewed piece of carrot was within paw reach. All was well in his small world.

Marian only wished it were the same for her. She worked hard to keep her life in order, and usually succeeded, but lately…

In the shower as water slicked away sweat, she decided to call Golden Raven. The lady leaned more to Native American beliefs than Marian did, but she was more open-minded than many and would listen without judging. She might know of instances similar to Marian’s experiences. That would be a good step in controlling the weirdness that had invaded her life.

“Yes,” she muttered as she dressed for her work-study job. “I need Golden Raven.” She went to the telephone. Should she call Golden Raven or Candace? Glancing at the clock, she thought it might be too early for Golden Raven. If Marian didn’t phone Candace back, her mother’s mood would turn nasty and her demands would escalate. Inhaling deeply, Marian called the residence of Candace’s sixth husband, a mansion in an old, upscale area of Denver.

Candace’s tone was sharp. “Well, Marian, it’s good you called.” Papers rustled in the background. Since Candace didn’t launch into speech, Marian figured her mother was multitasking.

Excellent. Maybe they could get through a conversation without damaging each other. “What do you want, Mother?” asked Marian.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, Marian. You must come down here to Denver for a fund-raiser tomorrow night, Friday, 7:30 p.m. Cocktails and dinner.”

“Why, Mother?” Marian was deeply entrenched in academia now; she’d never be a person who could enhance her mother’s status in any way. Thank God.

Candace heaved an exasperated sigh. “Trenton Philbert III remarried a month ago. A woman who runs one of the largest occult shops in Denver. Why he married such a creature, no one knows. I just learned he and his new wife will be at the benefit. Trenton dotes on the woman and his contribution is necessary for us to meet our goal.”

Ah, various cities competed to raise the most money and Candace intended to prove she was the best. Candace continued, “So I need to keep his wife happy to keep him happy.”

Instead of zooming in on the woman like a barracuda.

“I can’t imagine that anyone would have any idea what to say to her.” Creature was still in Candace’s voice. “Then, I thought of you, of course. With all your…experience in that area.”

Sounded like Marian attended seances and channeling every night.

Hooking up again with the Denver New Age community might not be a bad thing. In one way, Marian could even convince herself that her company would be beneficial for the unknown woman. And there were some good, kind people in Denver society that Marian would like to see again. Too bad her mother didn’t happen to be one. Despite her methods, though, Candace was great at raising money.

“I don’t think so, Mother.”

“I can make it worth your while,” Candace continued.

Marian waited for the bribe. Bribes sometimes worked. Marian had to know more about the situation to figure out whether the favor was worth whatever Candace was offering.

“I know you’re studying too hard. Having the rest of your college fund would make life easier.”

In Candace’s mind, Marian was always studying too hard. Candace didn’t understand that learning was a pleasure. Though she understood that knowledge was power, at least when it came to playing the Denver social game, using secrets.

“Marian, did you hear me? I told you that I could release the last of your college fund.”

Good bribe, and if bribes didn’t work, Candace used the threat: Withholding her college fund now, Andrew’s welfare when he’d been younger. He was twenty-four, four years younger than Marian. She’d tried to take care of him, since Candace was uninterested in her son.

“I’ll think about it,” Marian said.

“I need a commitment,” Candace snapped. “I’ll call Andrew. It may take some doing on his part, but he’ll come.”

“No, Mother, I don’t want you bothering Andrew.”

Candace ignored her. “Of course he’ll come. The Colorado Charities Fund disburses money to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation of Colorado. I always have an advantage when campaigning for the Chairmanship of the Fund drive—with poor Andrew being afflicted with MS, and at such an early age, too.”

Fury veiled Marian’s vision in a red haze. Good thing that the phone was industrial strength; otherwise it would have crumbled under her grip. How Candace could think of her own son that way…

“Andrew is a person with a challenging disease. Don’t define him as a victim.”

Candace sniffed. “Believe what you want. Now, about the fund-raiser, tell me whether the weather will be clear.”

Heat crept up Marian’s neck. She’d always had weather-sense. She shifted and felt the connection to Mother Earth, one reason she loved the garden-level apartment. “Clear and cool,” she said.

“Good. Your drive down from Boulder should be fine, then.”

Rubbing her forehead, Marian said, “I’ll be there.”

“I thought so, and bring that delightful Professor Wilse with you.”

Marian shuddered at the thought of Jack Wilse. Mistake. She admired his body but deplored his values. He’d manipulated and used her, too, before her mind got her hormones under control. It was inconceivable to her now that she’d had a brief affair with him. “He won’t be coming with me.”

“Marian, you can’t attend alone! How will it look? Speaking of looks, you have used that exercise club membership I bought for you so you’d lose those extra pounds, haven’t you?”

“My weight is my own business.” Candace would continue to comment on it anyway. “I will be coming alone—or not at all. If you want me there, deposit the rest of my college fund into my account and e-mail me the details.” Marian hung up.

Mistake. She’d allowed her mother to manipulate her. Would she ever learn? But this time, she’d gotten the last of her college fund. With chilled fingers she reached for her appointment book, flipped to the end where she’d listed her five-year plan. She inserted Friday’s date as the day she’d receive the money that would set her free from her mother, and launch her fully on her career path. Ahead of schedule, but right on track. She wouldn’t allow anything or anyone—especially her mother—to control her again. Her own mistakes might be bad, but they were hers. Hers to learn from.

She felt as if she’d been stung, and poison was spreading through her system. Like so many times before in her life. That’s what happened when you were raised by an unevolved Scorpio.

Grumbling, Marian stalked through her living room. A book from the bookshelf-lined walls thumped to the floor. She stopped and stared. There was a gaping hole on the second shelf where she kept her Wiccan books neatly alphabetized by author.

She swallowed. Even before she picked up the book, she knew what it would be: Craft Your Own Ritual, by a well-respected Wiccan. It was the third time this week that volume had fallen from the shelf.

As usual, the crisp pages fell open to a full-moon ritual. Rising anxiety made her pulse race. She closed her eyes and colors swirled behind her eyelids, followed by a flash of the image of Andrew from her nightmare.

Her eyelids flicked open. Her chest tightened. All the recent coincidental signs pointed to her conducting a full-moon ritual. Marian glanced at the yearly moon phase chart she’d framed. Full moon tomorrow night, Friday—the same night she’d agreed to attend Candace’s benefit.

A knock came at her door and a tingle ran up her spine. She pushed aside the curtain draped over the apartment door’s small window, looked out. Golden Raven stood on the threshold. She smiled until the lines deepened around her blue eyes and framed her mouth. Beyond her was an old van packed full of boxes, ready for a long trip.

With a sigh, Marian opened the door.

“I heard you call me,” Golden Raven said.

Jaquar’s Tower, Sorcerers’ Mue Island, east of LladranaLate spring, that same morning

Jaquar stood naked in the alcove that held his magical supplies and looked into the round ritual room of his tower. A faint blue-green steam eddied and flowed along the lines of the pentacle carved into the stone floor. His shoulders tensed at the thought of plane-walking—leaving his body behind to float astrally through different layers of existence. He was a Circlet—the highest rank of Sorcerer—of Weather Control and plane-walking, but he’d been focused on the second craft for the past three weeks.

Putting off the moment when he’d have to look in the Enhanced Mirror, the last step before the ritual, he turned back to the work counter and set his hand on the upper leaf in a huge book.

He’d made the book himself. Each sheet was a non-physical plane he’d traveled. Sheets were arranged in the same layers as the planes themselves. A being existed on many planes, but a good plane-walker like himself could separate himself from his body and explore one layer at a time.

The leaf he’d turned to was the plane he’d visit. One of seething, low emotions—evil emotions only. A plane for monsters, not humans. But he was tracking a monster. The monster that had killed his adoptive parents three weeks ago.

A chime notified him that the ritual should be started within the half hour. Jaquar inhaled deeply and went to the left end of the narrow alcove. There he unfolded the three-paneled mirror. To ensure he didn’t get lost amongst the planes, he had to know himself, and for that he used the mirror.

He scanned his physical appearance. He was taller than the average Lladranan male, had filled out in maturity. His strong body appeared nothing like that of the abandoned street boy Simone and Torrence Dumont had found and raised. But the awful inner loneliness of the boy before he’d known them filled him now. He’d once thought he’d never feel that desolation again.

His body showed a few childhood scars. His eyes were still the hated deep blue that made him an oddity in a brown-eyed culture. Some ancestor had not been Lladranan.

He’d lost weight since the deaths of his adoptive parents, but not so much that it would compromise his strength. His black hair touched his shoulders and looked limp, not as shiny as it should. The silver streaks denoting Power had visibly spread over the past three weeks as he’d searched for the evil thing that had killed his mother and father. Both had been powerful Circlets, yet the horror had sucked them dry of magic and energy and life.

As Jaquar had searched the planes for the killer, he’d grown in magical wisdom and Power, discovering new layers. These new planes would be valuable in tracking the horrors that invaded Lladrana.

The northern magical boundary of mainland Lladrana had been failing, gaping open so that hideous evil creatures could slither through to prey on the people. First the smaller horrors would cross, such as armored snippers. Then the greater monsters would attack in groups—renders and slayers and soul-suckers. And the sangvile. At the same time, frink-worms had started falling with the rain, affecting even the Tower community’s islands.

The horrors had never reached the Sorcerers’ town of Coquille-on-the-Coast where his parents had lived until Jaquar had led the sangvile there. He had answered the Marshalls’ call for a Sorcerer, given them information, then left. The sangvile had attached itself to the flying horse he’d ridden from the Marshalls’ Castle to his parents’ house. He’d left the deadly thing there, unknowing. Just two weeks past, the key to restoring the magical boundary had been found—too late for his parents.

He met his own hollow gaze in the mirror. “Mental,” Jaquar said. The reflection in the mirror changed and he saw the white sparkling of his brain, the waves of strong mental energy. The rhythm of his energy was good. His mind was clear.

“Magical,” he ordered. The mirror showed his Power radiating out in colorful bands from his body. Lladranans tended to judge magic by the tones and tunes it made, but the mirror reflected it visually. There were no breaks, no streaks of blackness. His Power had never been stronger. Good.

Jaquar hesitated. “Emotional,” he whispered, and saw his body shrouded in grief. Fury and vengeance glowed red in his eyes and heart. Not good. But he wasn’t going to travel to any plane that needed lighter, more uplifting emotions.

He’d be able to find that ugly lower plane easily, blend in, cruise through it.

“Spiritual,” he said. Again the darkness, nearly smothering the gold aura tracing his body. Ragged spikes showed how his spiritual health fluctuated. Perhaps when he’d destroyed the sangvile he would make an appointment with the Singer for a personal Song Quest. A Song Quest would tell him how best to manage his grief and guilt. Later.

“Physical.” There he was again, face strained, changed since his adoptive parents had died. He recalled his last leave-taking with his adoptive parents, no more than a month ago. Parents, they would have corrected him, not “adoptive parents.” They’d been right in that as in so many other things. Though they hadn’t birthed him, had only taken him off the streets when he was eight, they’d been his parents.

His last memory of them was as they laughed at some joke his father had told just before Jaquar left their home. They were framed in the golden light streaming from the doorway of their house. His mother, round of face and body, leaning into his father, the aura of love radiating from her….

Just the moment before, her sweet breath had caressed his cheek as she’d kissed him farewell. Her scent had wound around him—the flowery herb fragrance that had been his comfort from the moment she’d claimed him as her own.

His father had hugged him hard, as always, and Jaquar had felt the strength of Power and body that had always meant love and safety.

No more. Ever. All because of him.

He had brought their evil killer to them. The odd boy they’d saved from the streets had ultimately led their deaths to them, far before their time.

“Off.” His image faded and he was glad.

Unhurried, he walked to the pentacle, closed the circle with a hummed note, and settled into a soft pallet in the center to begin his quest to find and destroy his parents’ slayer. He sang.

When the Songspell ended, his astral shape slipped from his body with an easy pull and a tiny “pop.” Hovering over his physical form, he felt light and free.

He stayed in the same physical plane and rose above his Tower, his island, to orient and anchor himself. As was customary, his was the only Circlet Tower on the island, and the island itself was small. Most circlets lived on their own island in the Brisay Sea, east of Lladrana. He’d wanted one only a few miles from Coquille-on-the-Coast where his parents lived so he would visit them often.

On the physical plane, the sangvile had two forms: one, a black spiderweb, and the other, a manlike dark energy. Its rudimentary, nasty emotions were that of an evil predator. As strong as it was now, if spread out in spiderweb form, it would cover a house. The man form would be a giant.

The monster had gloated over the pain and fear it caused, laughed in malicious glee at its feast of Circlets and their Power. Those tainted emotions had leaked through several planes and led Jaquar to it. He had found the horror too late to pin it down, set it ablaze and watch it die.

Below, he saw his Tower, round and of red stone, with a flat roof and a walkway around it; Mue Island, looking like the blunted top of an archery arrow, slightly southwest of Coquille-on-the-Coast. He drifted even higher, until he could see most of Lladrana, the rocky hill where the Marshalls’ Castle sat—in the middle of Lladrana, far from the ocean, east and north of Coquille-on-the-Coast. He tugged on the cord between his astral self and his body. It held firm.

Then he plane-walked, searching for the sangvile.

He passed through several known planes to reach the one he wanted, tuning himself to its unique vibrations. Only on this plane could he pinpoint the hideous energy of the sangvile.

And there was the monster that had slain his parents. And Jaquar lusted to destroy the sangvile with all the fierce desire within him. Here, the sangvile was a gliding black smudge.

Jaquar was back on the hunt. Though this lower emotional plane was a gray nothingness, Jaquar could dimly sense the geography of the physical plane below, where the sangvile roamed. Here, the image of the sangvile was a gliding black smudge, traveling northwest from Lladrana. Jaquar followed.

No sights; worse, no sounds. The dreary atmosphere made his emotions all the more powerful.

The sangvile moved. Geographic familiarity, physical reference points, were gone. The sangvile was far outside the borders of Lladrana, flying north with information and energy and magic to give the Dark.

Jaquar’s astral self followed. As a mind-shadow, Jaquar had no eyes to weep or voice to scream his grief. The emotions that gave him the strength and cunning to track the beast scoured him, made him vengeance incarnate. He would kill the servant and destroy the lord. No price was too high to pay.

The thing hesitated in flight, then lashed out with a black-energy tentacle. Jaquar ducked, drew back. Was it aware of him? Aware of something as predatory as itself, as ruthless?

Coalescing into a streak of dark lightning, the horror sped up. The monster was near its…nest?

Ahead, the grayness of the ethereal plane changed. In the distance was a black point. Jaquar sensed something huge and vile and pulsing.

2

In front of Jaquar seethed a mound of evil so dark that it swallowed all light, all energy. The sangvile rounded itself into a ball and arced downward into a hole of red, with tentacles of gray and acid green and black. The mound radiated a loathsome, diseased feeling that seemed to coat Jaquar with slime.

The place was inimical to all humans. And it was hungry.

No price was too much to pay to avenge his parents.

Jaquar flung his astral-self into it.

And hit a magical shield. Rebounded, stunned and aching.

He spent his rage battering the magical barrier with all his might, all of himself. He shifted to planes above and below and struck the shield time and again, then returned to the first plane.

Jaquar Dumont. A sneering voice resounded in Jaquar’s head along with a hideous clash of notes. He stopped his fruitless assault. Hovered. Wondered whether to reply, if acknowledgment would make him vulnerable.

The great Jaquar Dumont, bastard with tainted Exotique blood, the voice continued, and Jaquar realized it was human—and male.

A human Sorcerer consorting with the horrors and monsters that invaded Lladrana? Had Jaquar been in his physical form he’d have been sick with revulsion. Did Jaquar know the voice? He didn’t think so. He did sense the Power of the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer was nearly a Circlet—but he wasn’t the true and ultimate evil. The man served another.

The Sorcerer laughed at Jaquar. So, you have found us, but only on this low plane. You cannot break the Dark’s shield, nor harm this nest. No Sorcerer or Sorceress of Lladrana can.

Come out and fight! Jaquar threw the mental call to the human.

The Sorcerer snorted. If and when I exit our nest it will be with an army, or allies so strong that no one will be able to stop us.

All of Lladrana will fight you! Jaquar shouted, trying to pierce the shield with Mind and Power alone. Futile.

More sneering laughter. The Marshalls have discovered how to raise the magical barrier against us. But in two weeks they have not done much. The Marshalls are few and slow. The boundary still has many gaps.

Wild shrieking came from the human. If he’d been sane at one time, he wasn’t now.

Gathering himself into a spear of Power, Jaquar arrowed to the red maw-gate of the pulsing mound. And was flung away.

The sangvile is safe from you, as are all the servants I control. You will never be able to pass the shield on any plane. No Lladranan with Power can breech this forcefield. No Lladranan can hurt this nest. The voice insinuated into Jaquar’s mind as he continued to batter at the gate. Since you loathe the sangviles so much, I will set more upon Lladrana. Soon. Aimed at Circlets.

Despairing, Jaquar continued the assault until his energy faded and he had only enough strength to return home. He awoke hours later, body stiff, psychically blind since he’d abused his Power. With croaking voice, he dismissed the magical pentacle.

Jaquar staggered to his desk and fell into his chair, ready to record all he knew of the sangvile, all he’d learned in his pursuit. His face was colder than the rest of him. He lifted his hand and touched his cheek. It was wet.

Boulder, Colorado

The same morning

Marian froze. “I didn’t call you.”

Golden Raven raised little penciled-in eyebrows and pushed by her to enter the apartment. “I heard you.” She tapped her head, glanced around and took a seat on the couch.

“I find that very strange.” Just as odd as everything else that was happening. Marian shut the door.

Golden Raven wore tight jeans and shirt that did nothing for her heavy figure. But unlike Marian, Golden Raven accepted her body. “I know you do, but just listen. My vision was of you and a young man who looked a great deal like you—except he had black hair instead of your red.”

Andrew. Marian had never told Golden Raven about him. Marian had met a lot of frauds while taking New Age classes, and Golden Raven wasn’t one of them. The woman was a brilliant forecaster.

Tilting her multi-shaded blond head, Golden Raven surveyed Marian’s apartment. “Very much like you, Marian. Books, papers, everything too neat and tidy. Still striving for perfection, I see.”

“Golden Raven, I’m running late for my job—”

“Our paths are not the same, but I had to tell you of the vision before Wood Elk and I left for the West Coast.” She looked at Marian, eyes narrowed. “You have a great deal of intelligence, and more—just plain magic in you, right beneath the surface. But you dabble. You don’t commit yourself to freeing your powers.”

Marian wasn’t accustomed to teachers berating her. She stood stiffly beside Golden Raven.

“You dabble, not taking what you learn seriously. Yet I feel a brilliant spark within you, humming just under your skin.” She tapped Marian’s chest above her breasts. “Strong magic.”

“Golden Raven, it would be interesting if that were true. But—”

“You feel your psi powers trying to break free and even now reject them. I heard you calling me this morning—can you deny that?”

“No.” But she wanted to. On the other hand, she’d always had an internal push to find…something…ever eluding her. Could it be magic? Could she have strong psychic powers? She’d only been aware of her weather sense and her connection to Mother Earth.

Golden Raven grasped Marian’s arm, then stilled, her eyes going blank and unfocused. “The full moon. Tomorrow night.” Golden Raven sucked in a breath and stepped back from Marian, breaking the physical connection. She shook her head, then met Marian’s eyes. “I don’t know what it means. I can’t tell you. Except that this full-moon ritual is very important for you. It will be life changing. For you and your brother.”

Her words were as fearsome as Marian’s nightmares, and seemed just as real. Believe, or not? Golden Raven had mentioned Andrew again, the bait Marian would always swallow.

She said steadily, “When I said your name this morning I wanted to ask if you knew others who had had experiences like these I’ve been enduring.”

“Your psi potential demanding to be fulfilled. Do the ritual, find one who will help you direct it. As for your brother, he is linked to you and I believe he will be…greatly affected in a good way by your psi development.” She opened her mouth, then shut it and shook her head again. “No, I should not tell you, even if I could. I’m sorry, Marian. I must go now, and Blessings upon you.” With a little duck of her head she turned and left the apartment. The door clicked shut behind her.

Marian barely saw her go as emotions churned inside her. She needed another shower, although a hot bath would be better to banish the sudden chill.

She might have shrugged off the continuing auditory illusions, might have ignored Golden Raven’s advice to find another teacher. Might have continued to “dabble” in New Age spirituality on her way to receiving her doctorate. But she would never ignore any threat to her brother. Andrew was the person she most loved. She’d do the ritual tomorrow night.

She’d anger Candace by not appearing on demand, couldn’t in good conscience take her mother’s money when she wasn’t going to follow through on the favor of the fund-raiser. That meant putting her career on hold, getting a job—leaving her college fund with her mother. Marian squared her shoulders. So be it.

If a full-moon ritual was important to understand the strangeness happening to her and if it could help Andrew, she’d do it. And take it seriously, by God—or by All the Powers that Were.

Lladrana

The same day

Jaquar had just finished recording his journey in his lorebook when a crackle of lightning had him jerking his head to the crystal sphere on his desk. He flicked it with his fingernail, ping, and accepted the sending of another Circlet.

Cloudiness filled the crystal, then dissolved to wisps. Two people finished the Songspell that allowed them to communicate with Jaquar and stared out at him. A shaft of pain speared through him. Jaquar was accustomed to speaking only with his parents this way, and they would never sing to him again.

Chalmon Pace and Venetria Fourney—on-again, off-again quarreling lovers—gazed at him. They both bore the mark of great magical Power, thick streaks of silver at both temples in their otherwise black hair.

The last Jaquar had heard, Venetria had been backtracking the sangvile. She’d lost an aunt in Coquille-on-the-Coast.

“Bad news,” Chalmon said gruffly.

Jaquar grunted.

“Venetria’s information, compiled with what I’ve gleaned from the oldest lorebooks, tells us that the appetite of the sangvile is exponential.” He cleared his throat. “And it prefers those with Power. The monster is directed at us, the Circlets of the Tower Community.”

With stiff lips Jaquar said, “We lost eight strong Sorcerers and Sorceresses in Coquille-on-the-Coast. That can’t be allowed to happen again.”

The other two nodded. “We agree,” Chalmon said. “We must protect ourselves from this horror. We’re sure you are right—the sangvile followed you from the Marshalls’ Castle.”

Jaquar laughed harshly. “I thought it was too weak to attach itself to me. I thought it would hide and garner strength in the Castle. Instead it knew I could lead it to a richer feast later.” He didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for that. “You said its hunger is exponential?”

“Yes,” sighed Venetria.

“It’s back at its master’s nest.” The words pulled jerkily from Jaquar, he didn’t want to think of his journey to the red maw, his vain assault, the gloating triumph he’d sensed. Nevertheless, he told Chalmon and Venetria.

They were both pale when he finished.

“It’s coming back, and not alone,” Venetria whispered. “More than one sangvile?”

“Yes,” Jaquar said. He’d be ready for the horrors, and he wasn’t averse to attacking. “We need more to find the nest, to understand what this ‘master’ is and how to battle it. I’ll organize the effort.”

Chalmon frowned. “I don’t know—”

Jaquar gestured, stopping Chalmon’s protest. “I’ve lost the most. Isn’t that the Tower Community tradition? The one who is most passionate gathers Powerful Circlets of the Fifth Degree and directs them?”

The two looked at each other again.

“We’re all concerned with the defense of Lladrana and now finding the master who directs the monsters to invade,” Chalmon said.

Smiling coldly, Jaquar said, “If anyone wants to challenge me for leadership, I’m available.”

Venetria dipped her head. “So noted.”

Chalmon shrugged, turned the subject. “No Sorcerer or Sorceress could pass. No Lladranan with Power could breech the shield. That means we use someone from the Exotique land. Someone for the Tower community. Our Exotique.”

“We could ask the Exotique Alyeka,” Venetria said.

“She’s one of the Marshalls. We can’t be indebted to them. We’d lose our independence,” Chalmon snapped.

“Summoning our Exotique is already planned,” Jaquar said.

“The master said, ‘No Lladranan can harm the nest,’ as if just the presence of one who is not Lladranan can hurt the Dark.”

“A natural weapon,” Chalmon breathed.

“Think what she’ll be like when she’s trained!” Venetria said.

Jaquar said, “The Summoning Song will bring to Lladrana a person who will work well with us.”

Venetria sucked in a breath. “Yes, but she must be strong if we are going to send her to the nest.”

Jaquar said, “Any Exotique the Marshalls can contact will naturally be strong. As eldest and most powerful of the Tower, I believe Bossgond sent the Marshalls a list of the proper qualities.” Jaquar felt his mouth twist. “Bossgond didn’t notify me, but I received an acknowledgment from the Marshalls.”

Frowning, Chalmon said, “Bossgond didn’t tell me, either. It is time he breaks this hermit existence.”

“I’m sure he’d be glad to hear you tell him so,” Venetria said sweetly.

Chalmon continued. “The Exotique must be well-trained before we send him or her to this master you discovered, Jaquar. He or she must at least be trained enough to report what is found in the nest.”

“We may not have that luxury,” Jaquar said. “Not if the maw spews out more sangviles, as well as the other horrors—the slayers and soul-suckers and renders.”

“And dreeths.” Venetria shivered. She’d barely survived a battle with one of the winged lizards.

Chalmon scowled. “Yes, we must be prepared to sacrifice the Exotique, for the good of Lladrana, for the planet Amee herself. Knowledge is more important than one life. If worse comes to worst, we could attach a reporting orb to her and send her with a destruction spell—perhaps she’d be able to untie that weapon knot you have.”

“I would go myself, if I could,” Jaquar said.

Venetria looked at him sharply. “You are the best plane-walker. You already tried. Do you think the shield applies to all planes?”

Again Jaquar’s laughter was bitter. “It applied to as many as I could reach within the limits of the spell—twenty or so. I’m not sure exactly where or what the physical location is, but it’s big.”

Making a note, Chalmon said, “Other things to research—the shield, whether it is only magical or is physical also. Where the nest could be. When the Exotique comes, I’ll train him or her.”

“No! If she’s female, like the last one, she will want a woman as teacher!” Venetria said.

“The new Exotique is mine,” Jaquar insisted.

Now Chalmon barked laughter. “All of us will want to work with someone so Powerful. This is exactly why we need the Marshalls to Summon her. We don’t work well together.” He shot a glance at his lady. “Sometimes not even those who are intimate with each other.”

Jaquar’s heart tore. His father and mother had been an excellent team, stronger together than apart. Perhaps that’s what had drawn the sangvile to them.

Chalmon and Venetria sniped at each other, then Chalmon faced him.

“We’ll call a Gathering for tomorrow at the Parteger Island amphitheater to discuss all this,” Chalmon said. “I’ll move the process along.”

Venetria sent him a fulminating glance, then looked back to Jaquar. “What is the Marshalls’ price for the Summoning?”

Jaquar said, “I promised them objects, not favors. Some books, most of which are duplicates in all our libraries. Whatever magical weapons we have. Old battlespells.”

“A price easy to meet,” Chalmon said.

Venetria nodded. “Yes. I think I only have two weapons in my Tower—what of you?”

“One,” Jaquar said, but it was an incredible one, something that perhaps only an Exotique could handle.

“I have four,” Chalmon said.

“Of course you must pretend you’re the best,” Venetria said. And then they were arguing again.

“I’ll coordinate with the Marshalls as necessary in the days to come,” Jaquar said. He wouldn’t lie to the Marshalls, but he wouldn’t welcome them unless he had a use for them.

With thumb and forefinger, Jaquar tapped the crystal and Chalmon and Venetria disappeared. An hour later he had sent the contract and books as first payment to the Marshalls for the Summoning.

Then he crossed to his armchair and sat again, letting the soft, old leather settle around his body. He wondered if the other Circlets had forgotten one very important thing, and if they had, whether he could take advantage of it.

The Singer, the Oracle of Lladrana, had prophesied that the next Exotique would be best suited for the community of the Tower. The Singer had also told them of the time of the next Summoning—when the Dimensional Gates between Lladrana and the Exotique land aligned. The Marshalls knew this. It was tomorrow night.

In all the history of the Tower, the Sorcerers and Circlets had never come to an agreement in a day. Chalmon was too optimistic. He wouldn’t be able to forge a plan amongst all the individual personalities of the Tower.

Jaquar sank back into his chair to sleep. It would be a long time before he could face his bedroom adorned with the quilt his mother had made and the landscapes his father had painted.

He would not argue with the rest of the Sorcerers and Sorceresses at Parteger Island, had no intention of compromising. The Exotique was his. For knowledge. For vengeance.

Colorado

The next evening

Power hung in the air like a fine mist ready to condense into dewdrops. It shimmered with every ripple of chimes, every strike of the gong—the music only Marian could hear, had heard for the past month. Now the sounds reverberated in a pattern that set her nerves humming as she finished taping a ten-foot red pentagram on her living room carpet.

She took a shaky breath as she connected the last line of the star-shaped pattern and sank back on her heels to calm her excitement. She wiped her damp palms on the sweats she’d put on after her bath. Biting her lip, she examined everything again. She’d had to scramble to craft the ritual, to get the herbs and tools. There’d been no time to practice.

No negativity, not now. No doubts. So she shoved them aside.

Soon the exact moment of the full moon would finally come and it would be time to act. To perform a ritual that would bring great change into Andrew’s life and her own. To ask for what she wanted most, a miracle—a healthy brother.

In order to clear enough space to tape the pentacle, she’d had to stack books around the edges of the room, evidence that her hunger for knowledge had burgeoned until it was nearly a craving. She felt like the Chinese Dragon, ever pursuing the Pearl of Wisdom. Someday she’d find just the right knowledge that would make her whole, or set her free: the key to herself.

Marian stood and put away the tape. She checked the alcove where her hamster Tuck sat blinking at her in a corner of his plastic cage. He seemed to feel something unusual, too, since both his cheek pouches were huge with food.

“Nothing to worry about, Tuck.” She smiled at him, then rubbed her arms. Crossing to the door of her garden-level apartment, she pushed aside the small curtain over the door’s window to look out. Twilight was falling.

Hands on her hips, she scanned the rest of her preparations; her altar was fine, the notes for her ritual were on her PDA in the pentagram. A small spiral of smoke from the incense burner twisted, sending lily-of-the-valley scent through the room. The smoke sparkled silver.

Marian blinked, narrowed her eyes and stared. The glitter in the powder shouldn’t carry up into the smoke, and she thought she’d seen a flash for an instant. Maybe. Maybe not. Tonight was a night for stretching all she was, experiencing all she could.

With a sigh she looked at her gray sweats, still wavering between doing the ritual in a gossamer crocheted cotton broomstick gown or nude. She should be less self-conscious, able to accept her plumpness as pleasing.

Just as she was about to shuck her sweats for the gauze dress, the telephone rang. She glanced at the clock and bit her lip. It was only an hour before the full moon and she’d wanted to be at the climax of the ritual when that occurred. She debated answering the call. Hesitated. Then she ran across the living room floor, hopping over the star-points to reach the kitchen and pick up the telephone.

“Hey, sis.” Andrew’s light voice floated across the line, and she smiled.

“Hey back.”

There was a heartbeat’s pause. “Is everything okay there? I had a feeling…” he said.

“Everything’s fine.” She eyed the red-taped pentagram on the floor.

“Candace isn’t giving you grief over anything, is she?” Their mother had asked Andrew at the age of four not to call her any variation of “Mommy.”

“She wanted me to attend a benefit tonight, but I…wanted to study.” She was studying, learning.

Andrew groaned. “Yeah, the Colorado Charities. Sent her a check for them, and one for the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation of Colorado, too. She didn’t say thank-you, but I believe she was pleased. I don’t have much contact with her anymore. Might be better for your mental health if you backed away, too.”

“I will, soon,” Marian said.

Andrew’s snort came through the phone line. “Wrong. You’re always trying to reconcile with her. It’s a girl thing. Or maybe it’s just that you think a perfect life should have mother-daughter happiness. Too bad your dad didn’t leave you as well off as mine did me—you wouldn’t be at her beck and call over that college fund.”

He didn’t offer her money from his trust fund, and Marian was glad. “How are things going with you?” she asked.

“I get it, previous subject closed. I’m doing good, sis. Turned in the new game project today and I’m going off on sabbatical.” He paused, then words rushed from the phone. “I’m in remission right now, but—uh—I’ve had a few incidents—”

“Andrew!” Fear spurted through her.

“—and I want to try out that program we talked about last year, the one set on Freesan Island in the San Juans. Sort of a retreat, and they want us to minimize contact with outsiders. The codependency thing, you know.”

“Andrew!”

“So I won’t be available or calling you for about six weeks.”

“Did you do another check on these people? The system?”

Andrew laughed. “You always have to be in control, sis. Not an issue I’ve ever had.”

No, Andrew had always been at the mercy of his condition, his workaholic father and a series of stepmothers, most of whom found him distressing.

He continued. “The camp’s A-Okay. I know you’re frowning—”

The warmth in his voice almost made her smile.

“But they aren’t after my money and won’t sell me to labs for experimentation,” he said. “Dr. Chan recommends the program and you know how much we both trust her. I also had my financial advisor and my private investigator check it out.”

“They’ll be careful with you?” Oops. “Tuck worries about you.” Now she knew he was rolling his eyes.

“Sis!” A slight pause. His voice deepened. “I’m a man. I know how to work around my health issues. I plan to live life, not merely exist.”

“All right, all right. You have my blessing. Go and enjoy yourself.” She didn’t know why those phrases rolled from her lips. But they both knew the day-to-day risk he lived with.

“Hey, I was the one with the funny feeling, not you. Make sure Tuck takes care of himself. Oh, and you take care of yourself, too. Uh—by the way, will the weather be good?”

A familiar feeling whispered through Marian. “It should be pleasant but cool to start off with, then showers. Take your rain gear.”

“Will do. Love ya. Bye.” He smooched into the phone and hung up.

When Andrew left Colorado for California, he’d made it clear that he wanted to live as much as he could on his own. He wanted her to pursue her studies in Boulder as she’d planned, so she’d made herself let him go. He had been as desperate to live independently as she had been. Currently he had a housekeeper, a nurse who specialized in caring for people with MS. The matronly woman had separate quarters in his home. Andrew had a car and driver.

Their sibling relationship had actually improved. If he wanted her with him, he knew all he had to do was call.

Tuck rattled in his cage and brought her back to the moment. She studied the pentagram and found her pulse thumping fast. Andrew had phoned just before the ritual. Surely that was a bit of magic in itself. Further, he was trying another new program—could this ritual influence that? She didn’t want to think about what Andrew would do when the disease became more debilitating.

Andrew’s telephone call had thrown Marian’s timing off. She’d have to hurry through the first part of the ritual, use her notes on her PDA. Not perfect. Perhaps she should delay the ritual until next month? She wanted to, to ensure it would go more smoothly, but she dared not.

She walked around the star to her bedroom, stripped out of the soft cotton pants and shirt and folded them. Then she freed her still-damp hair and fluffed it, enjoying the feel of the strands as well as the slight tugging on her scalp as she ran her fingers to the shoulder-length ends.

Returning to the living room, she lit the candles, drew the outer circle, summoned guardian spirits. Palpable energy charged around her. The chanting she’d heard in her dreams sounded as if it came from her stereo, until she couldn’t tell if it was real or only echoed in her mind.

At the last minute, on impulse, she put the plastic ball with her hamster into the center of the pentacle, too. After all, when Andrew’s and her own life changed, so would Tuck’s, even if he only dimly sensed the alteration. He was an essential part of her life, so he should be included.

She stepped into the center of the pentagram and lifted her voice in counterpoint to the music. Lightning flashed. Incredible. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Energy raced through Marian, making her feel powerful, like a goddess, and she laughed. A bright carnelian-red ribbon of light unrolled, then curled around Marian and Tuck. She stared at it in disbelief.

She grabbed Tuck’s plastic sphere. With one small tug, they were swept through a hole, like thread through the eye of a needle.

Power spiked and whirled and changed. She lost her connection with Mother Earth. That deepest connection she’d felt all her life, snipped.

They were somewhere else, in a wind-whipped corridor of dust brown. A corridor to where?

Tuck’s ball was torn from her grasp and she screamed. She looked, listened, reached with all of her senses, flailed arms and legs and couldn’t find him. He’d been her companion for two years. She cried and grieved.

Adrift and alone in pummeling, whistling winds, she felt terror rip through her. Felt no links to anything. Not the earth, not the trees, not the moon or stars. All that she’d recently realized had spoken to her of her place and her life had vanished.

She reached mentally, emotionally for Andrew. Screamed and heard silence again.

Nothing.

3

She found herself on a cold floor.

Marian didn’t believe her senses. It felt as if she was on stone, not the threadbare carpet in her apartment. The scent of the room changed from lily of the valley to jasmine and sandalwood. As she inhaled, the air felt more humid. The space around her seemed larger, sounds echoing.

When she heard ragged breathing not her own, she squeezed her eyes shut, sure she was dreaming. Maybe experiencing out-of-body travel, though that had never happened before. She must be safe in her apartment. She didn’t want to think otherwise.

People started talking—not in English but in what sounded like mangled French. As part of pleasing her mother, Marian had learned French and spoke it like a native. This wasn’t true French. She thought her heart would jump from her chest it pounded so hard. This couldn’t be happening. If she kept her eyes closed, it would all go away and she’d be home and safe and never dabble with magic ever again.

With one singing ripple of chimes, her whole body arched involuntarily. Despite her will, her eyelids flew open.

A circle of faces peered down at her, all slightly Asian in appearance with dark eyes set in golden-toned skin. Marian gaped. An older woman with golden streaks of hair at each temple and compressed lips held up both hands palms outwards.

“Vel coom,” she said.

With only a little deciphering, Marian translated the word into “Welcome.” She wasn’t sure what to do. She still couldn’t connect to Mother Earth, let alone Andrew. Of course this whole thing could be a hallucination, or worse, madness.

What should she do?

“Vel coom!” the woman shouted, gesturing for Marian to get up.

Why didn’t the woman help her? Marian squinted and saw flowing lines of—energy? electricity? the Force? between her and the circle of richly robed figures. There were at least sixteen people surrounding her, evenly spaced along the large circle, pairs dressed alike. Swords were sheathed at their hips. From what she could see, the figure on the floor beneath her was a huge pentacle—a star in a circle—larger than hers, about fifteen feet.

She licked her lips and felt the dampness. The floor was cold flagstones under her, not carpet. Her breath caught in her throat as her mind spun with possibilities that she really didn’t want to consider, sorting and analyzing. Her brain told her she wasn’t on Earth, and she was in the midst of strong magic.

And she was lying in a big circular stone room, with wooden rafters and high windows around the top.

She wanted to think of anything except that she was in a different place. Naked.

Just the thought of her nudity made her flush—probably from her toes to her hairline.

The people continued to stare.

Since it didn’t look like they were going to approach, it was time to put reality to the test and rise and—she gulped—pretend she wasn’t ashamed of her body.

Marian stood with shoulders back, hips tucked, stomach sucked in, hoping her blush wasn’t as red as it felt. Keeping within one point of the star, she walked about five feet to where the others stood, outside the circle of flowing red energy-lines. Visible magic. If she weren’t so scared, she’d be impressed. Everything looked fascinating, would be fascinating, if she could engage more of her mind than her emotions. But dreams ran on emotions. This had to be a dream.

Her brain said it was, but her senses contradicted that notion. Her emotions spiraled out of control until she controlled the panic gritting her teeth. Act logically! Observe, at least.

The women were all as tall as she—at least five foot eight—the men taller. They all had black hair, dark eyes and golden skin—and silver or golden streaks of hair at one or both temples.

Marian pointed to a gray cloak a woman wore and made the motion of swirling it around her. Unfortunately, in response to her actions most of the men’s gazes locked on her breasts. She wanted to melt into the floor.

Marian cleared her throat. Was this real? Why were so many people here if she’d only needed one teacher? “Where? Um—when? I don’t know—May I have the cloak, please?”

The woman who’d spoken earlier stared at her, frowning.

All she wanted to do was find a corner and hide. That thought reminded her of Tuck and she forced back tears. He was gone. What chance did a hamster in a plastic ball have in the winds of that corridor?

This experience had already cost her more than she’d expected, Tuck.

But she’d stood around long enough. She’d act as if this was real, try and figure out what was going on, get her act together. Be bolder, take action. Take control.

Ka-Boom! Thunder rattled the silver gong at the edge of her vision. The gong responded with a low echoing tone. A flash of light blinded her. Heat and vibration struck her, sent her flat to the pavement again.

She blinked but could not see. She rolled to her side.

Arreth! The word rang strange in her head, but the image of herself, still on the floor in the point of a carnelian-red pentagram, teased her mind. Stay? Cloth brushed against her ankle—someone was in the pentacle with her!

Swords rasped from scabbards.

A scream bubbled from her lips but emerged as a weak cry. So much for being bold. She’d try again in a minute. Strong fingers curved over her shoulder, squeezed in simple comfort, almost she thought she heard a tune. She sat up, choked, coughed. The hand moved from her shoulder to her nape, patted her upper back, then left, taking the funny music in her ears with it.

Arreth. Stay, the masculine voice whispered in her mind. Telepathy. She believed in magic, sort of, she’d just never experienced so much of it.

Then his hands closed around her upper arms, and she was lifted and pulled back into the center of the pentagram. Her ears rang. Again the hands fell from her and the music stopped.

Her vision began to clear. Beyond the afterimages of floating neon blobs, she saw the rich robes of those surrounding her. They held swords pointed at the man standing beside her.

But their gazes slid over to her. She got the idea they were fascinated by her pale skin that turned pink, red, then back to white.

She blinked, then looked up at the man. He was about six foot four. His face was broad at the forehead, with wide streaks of silver at both temples, emphasized by the golden headband he wore. His lips were full and mobile and dusky. He smiled down at her and offered his hand. She met his eyes. They were deep, deep blue in a tanned face.

A jolt of prophetic foreknowledge sizzled to her center. Uh oh. Major, major MISTAKE!

This wasn’t her teacher. This was her doom.

The wide eyes of the Exotique woman drew Jaquar. They were a lighter shade than his own and for the first time in his life he found blue eyes beautiful.

A flicker in her gaze and the Power pulsing around her were signs she was experiencing a vision. His touch on her mind was too superficial to share her natural melody, but it was sweet.

The Exotique’s full mouth lured him as much as did her soul-tune. He shook the sensual thought from his head, strove to ignore her nudity. She looked delicious, but he had a use for her and it wasn’t as a lover. Still, he smiled his most charming smile, hoping she’d trust him.

When he’d touched her, a lance of pure desire from their mingled energies had shot straight to his groin. No. Despite what his body wanted, he could not allow himself even affection for her. If he had sex with the Exotique, there was a chance they’d bond. He couldn’t risk that. She was the weapon of vengeance he’d set loose on the Dark like a blazing arrow. For his own peace of mind, he dared not become attached to her.

“Jaquar Dumont,” Swordmarshall Thealia Germaine said flatly from the circle of Marshalls surrounding them, obviously unhappy that he’d shown up uninvited.

He paid little attention to the Marshalls, watching as his Exotique crossed to the pentacle, squatted and touched the flowing magical red lines. Sparks flew, and she recoiled.

Standing, she slowly extended her arm through the barrier of magic. It didn’t hurt her. Jaquar let out a relieved breath. The Summoning had worked, bringing an innately powerful mage from the Exotique land to Lladrana. A woman whose power would be potent here.

She tugged on the gray cloak of one of the female Marshalls. With raised eyebrows and a smile, the Marshall gave it to the Exotique. She donned the cape, then looked around, very serious, examining the circular Temple, scrutinizing the altar with the rainbow crystal lamps that also served as chimes, and the huge silver gong beside it.

With narrowed eyes, she gazed at him and where he stood in the center of the pentagram, the place of Power. She gestured for him to move away. Demanded something in a language close to, but not Lladranan. “Leave…go…home.”

Jaquar smiled and shook his head. She scowled and marched back to stand in the center of the pentacle with him, muttering what seemed to be her own words of Power. But they would do no good. The Marshalls had closed the hole between worlds.

She was still close to him and Jaquar had trouble ignoring her softness, warmth and unusual fragrance. Her nudity under the cloak was impossible to forget.

“Dumont!” Thealia snapped. “We did not expect anyone to use this pentacle today except the Exotique. You of the Tower should leave the entire Summoning to us.”

He inclined his head and took the offensive. “Greetings, Swordmarshall. We of the Tower Community thank you for this Summoning. However, we thought Exotique Alyeka would be leading this ritual.” He was friends with the other Exotique—he might have been able to persuade her to release the new lady into his care.

“The Singer foretold that the second Exotique is to bond with someone here and it should not be Alyeka. She should not be present. Even she listens to the Singer, now.”

“Ah,” Jaquar said, smiling and gesturing to himself. “Well, I am here and the lady can come with me.” Time to get out of here, before any other Circlets showed up to try to take the woman for their own apprentice. He’d paid for the Exotique, now he should take his prize and leave.

He strode to her and curved his right arm around her. The quiet notes stringing between them deepened and took on a richness. The Exotique took a step away, but stumbled, so he kept his hold. Her blue eyes narrowed and her mouth thinned. Her innate, powerful magic flared and set the gemstone lamps on the altar chiming. She stared at them and shivered.

Bong! The gong thundered, announcing another presence traveling into the closed sphere of the pentacle.

Venetria materialized inside the star, along with a pile of books and two magical weapons. She glared at Jaquar. Though his ears still rang with the sound of her arrival, he heard her shouting.

“Jaquar Dumont! You will not claim this Exotique as your apprentice. Doubtless she will relate better to a Sorceress.” Venetria tossed her head, gave the woman one quick, penetrating look, then offered her hand to the Exotique.

Eyes wary, the woman touched Venetria’s fingers. A clash of tones echoed in the round Temple as the women’s hands met. Venetria dropped the Exotique’s hand, flicking the incompatible energy from her fingertips, then converted the gesture into a wave as she spoke to the Marshalls.

“The books you requested—the ancient spellweapons at my disposal, and instructions to use them.”

Clang! This time the altar crystals rang and the sound ran around the outstretched steel of the Marshalls’ swords in a bone-shivering scale.

Inside the pentacle, the two women stumbled against Jaquar. Chalmon appeared in the north point of the pentagram.

Jaquar set his teeth, shouldered Venetria aside and steadied the Exotique, enduring the sensual and powerful string of notes rapidly deepening into a melody. They were already forming a connection.

Chalmon glared at them. Beside him was a stack of books and four weapons.

“This is ridiculous,” Swordmarshall Thealia said, sheathing her broadsword. The other Marshalls followed suit. She studied the gifts in the pentacle and her smile was as sharp as her sword. Her lip curled. “I see that those of the Tower are cooperating as usual, which is to say, not at all.”

Jaquar grasped the Exotique’s arm. “As you can see, our energies do not clash. I sent payment for the Summoning yesterday. On behalf of the Tower, I again thank the Marshalls.” He glanced at Venetria and Chalmon, who stood in opposite points of the star. “I claim this Exotique woman as my apprentice.”

Chalmon scowled. “No.”

No price was too much to pay to find and destroy the master and avenge Jaquar’s parents. “Then you challenge me. Tests of Power or a duel of sorcery. The Marshalls can set up a procedure and officiate.”

Swordmarshall Thealia made a disgusted noise. Chalmon stiffened in outrage.

The Power in the pentacle was incredible, radiating from four strong mages. Jaquar sensed that the Exotique was merging all the energies, changing them until they melded into a single Powersong that he could use easily. She was inherently a strong Sorceress. He couldn’t wait to mold her raw power into focused magic.

Sunlight shafted through a high stained-glass window, framing the voluptuous woman by his side in a pointed arch, painting the pale skin of her face, hands and feet in jeweled colors, illuminating her like a fine vellum manuscript. Her aura glowed vibrant silver and turquoise, indicating strong and unusual Power. The tune between them was distracting. She was beautiful beyond compare in body and spirit.

A pity she might have to be sacrificed to stop the sangviles from leaving the Dark’s nest.

Time to leave. Jaquar looked around the large round stone room of the Temple—at the Marshalls who seemed to be communing and approaching a decision; at Chalmon and Venetria who stood in the pentagram with him and the Exotique woman, but in opposite points; at the Exotique herself who appeared less dazed.

Definitely time to go. He began gathering Power.

Bong, Bong, Bong! Suddenly the ringing of all the glass in the room—from the windows, the storage crystals in the rafters and chandeliers, the chime crystals on the altar—resonated through his head.

A few seconds later his ears stopped buzzing and he saw the oldest and strongest Sorcerer of them all, Bossgond, holding a satchel. Chalmon went to Venetria, protectiveness radiating from him.

Jaquar’s stomach tightened and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl as he anticipated failure. There was no way he could best Bossgond. Disappointment seared him. He wanted the Exotique, he had plans for her.

What Bossgond’s plans were, he couldn’t imagine.

The greatest Sorcerer wore a stained, shabby robe that didn’t disguise the sticklike, knobby bones of his body. His full head of hair was golden except for a small streak of black in the middle—denoting his great Power.

He put his satchel down. Ignoring the rest of them, he bowed slightly to the Exotique, then touched his fingers over his heart. “Bossgond,” he said in a deep, rich voice that sent a small hum through the gong.

He took two steps and held out a swollen-jointed hand. She placed hers in it. A white flash of their auras merging sent a single, resonant note from the silver gong. The Exotique blinked, then her lips curved. The Song between the old man and the young woman must be comforting to her.

Jaquar ground his teeth. His prize was slipping from his grasp.

With gentleness and grace the old man raised the Exotique woman’s hand to his lips, then loosed it. Jaquar wondered what sort of music had spun between them—notes, or more. Then he remembered the songs that had linked him and his parents, resonant from the moment they’d found him. He’d been their apprentice, too. Grief gripped him. To distract himself, he watched the Exotique.

Standing close to Bossgond, the Exotique was his height. She wet her lips, then placed her hand above her breasts and said, “Marian.”

It was a good name—a name everyone could pronounce, unlike the first Exotique’s, Alexa. Jaquar wasn’t the only one who released a soft sigh.

Bossgond reached down and took a large crystal orb from his satchel. He sang two notes and color whirled inside it, forming a picture.

The scene in the sphere-crystal solidified into Alf Island, Bossgond’s home, and his tall, stately white Sorcerer’s Tower. A small image of Bossgond walked with Marian, obviously instructing her. Marian was dressed in a beautiful velvet robe and carried a staff of deep mahogany inlaid with twining silver and gold leaves.

Then the image turned to night. The tower’s outer wall disappeared, showing the top ritual room as dark; the level beneath was Bossgond’s suite, lit with mellow crystal lights. He worked at a desk. The next floor down was richly appointed for a woman. Papers, books and jars of herbs cluttered a beautiful desk. Marian sat at it, looking intense. Her staff leaned against the wall, glowing the same deep red as her hair.

With a hum from Bossgond, the scene inside the globe faded. He set it back into the satchel, then spoke one carefully pronounced sentence. It wasn’t in a language Jaquar knew.

Marian did. She smiled at him. A sincere smile. She looked around the room, her expression turning wary. She nodded stiffly to Chalmon and Venetria. Marian studied the Marshalls who stared back at her but she didn’t move from the center of the star or indicate she wanted to be with them.

Jaquar thought she meant her glance to slide over him, but it snagged and they gazed at each other. Her blue eyes held intelligence, focus, determination. She would have been perfect for him—no, for his purposes. No chance of wresting her from Bossgond, even if she’d been willing.

The old Sorcerer looked at Marian and repeated his line.

“Yes,” said Marian, and it was close enough to the Lladranan ayes for Jaquar to know she agreed.

Bossgond turned to the rest of them. “The apprentice, Exotique Marian, is coming with me. I anticipate that she will graduate from apprentice to scholar in two weeks.”

Venetria gasped. Bossgond sent her a chill look and she made a strangled noise. Chalmon set an arm around her shoulders. Now they looked like a couple again.

Bossgond met Jaquar’s scrutiny. “Does anyone here in this Temple challenge me?”

4

Silence filled the Temple at Bossgond’s words. The old man grinned. “I didn’t think anyone would want to engage in a sorcerous duel with me.” He held the gaze of Swordmarshall Thealia. “Please open the pentacle so the others can leave.”

Swordmarshall Thealia drew her baton from her sheath, stepped to the Power lines and sang an opening spell. The flow of Power bent back on itself, allowing egress from the pentacle to the rest of the Temple.

“Clear out of the star and circle,” Bossgond ordered.

Chalmon strode out, head high, body tense. Venetria followed, and from the sour look on her face as she glanced at the new Exotique, Jaquar knew she recalled that Marian’s energy didn’t mesh well with hers.

Neither Chalmon nor Venetria had suffered anything except a little scraped pride from this debacle. Unlike himself—his plan was a shambles.

Bossgond stared at Jaquar and raised an eyebrow. “Go,” he repeated.

Slowly, Jaquar complied.

“We would like the additional books and weapons,” Thealia said. “The Summoning was not as hard as that of our Exotique Marshall Alyeka, but it was done at our risk and with our Power and in our Castle Temple.”

The old man inclined his head. “Agreed. If the Tower Community was disorganized enough to pay you three times, then you should take advantage of it.”

Jaquar stood outside the circle and watched helplessly as the old man handed Venetria’s and Chalmon’s offerings to the Marshalls. He’d wanted to ensure the new Exotique was trained in plane-walking, focus her studies on what he needed her to do, and what she would have to learn to make the journey and, if possible, return.

Thealia glanced dubiously at the six weapons. “All the spellweapons of the Tower Community were promised.”

“I have no weapons.” Bossgond stared at Jaquar. “I trust you will ensure the Marshalls receive the remaining payment from the rest of the Towers.” He examined the two swords, three knives and a pair of gauntlets the Marshalls claimed from Venetria and Chalmon. “I believe the last inventory of all the Towers stated we had twenty weapons.”

So the old Circlet had been studying the reports after all, just not commenting.

Swordmarshall Thealia laid a hand on her baton of Power.

Jaquar nodded shortly at her. “As Bossgond says, I’ll ensure the delivery of all the weapons, except…” He glanced from Bossgond to Thealia and swept a quick look around the rest of the Marshalls. “I was gifted a knot-weapon when I raised my Tower, too powerful for me to handle.” He grinned with all his teeth. “Should you wish to send someone for that weapon, I’ll be pleased to relinquish it.”

“Not me,” said Bossgond.

Thealia fingered the end of her baton but stepped back. “I’ll discuss it with Marshall Alyeka. We know nothing about knot-weapons.”

Bossgond reconnected the pentacle’s Power lines with a small wand of polished turquoise. He raised his head and sniffed, as if testing the flavor of the Power. “Very good,” he said, raising the Exotique’s hand to his lips.

After he’d finished the elegant gesture, Bossgond placed Marian in the center of the pentacle and began the chant that would whisk them from the Castle Temple to the pentagram in Bossgond’s Tower on Alf Island.

Marian listened to the old magician sing what she thought was a spell. It was amazing. She drew the cloak around her. Her hands and feet were cold. She’d agreed to go with the old man and it looked like she was going by magic.

Still, she could feel the pressure of energy, magic, whatever, gathering. Was there any chance that it might send her back home? Was this a dream about how to find her teacher? She’d like to believe it, but the bruises she had on her body ached with all-too-real pain. In an hour or two the marks would show on her skin.

With every moment that passed, Marian felt her hope fade that this was a dream.

She looked at the oldest mage again. She should have been watching her new teacher all along, paying attention to what he was doing, but there was too much going on. And he’d made it clear he would be her mentor, she’d learn. She hoped.

“I would be honored to teach you to use your Power,” he’d said. The cadence of his words had hummed through her, feeling right. She felt inherently she could trust him, unlike everyone else in this place. There was a smoothness of the energy of his intentions toward her that didn’t come from anyone else in the room.

Every other person who had touched her had snags in their Power flow toward her that she’d recognized as self-interest, specific goals in their minds as to how to use her. Bossgond hadn’t.

She understood now that the circle of people who’d brought her to this place were called Marshalls. She’d picked that word up. She’d always been a quick study and didn’t think the language would pose much of a problem, especially since it was close to French.

The Marshalls still ringed the pentacle, grouped in pairs and watching with interest. Since they’d been chanting when she’d come here, they had to be the ones who’d burdened her life over the past month. Their music was unique. The crystal lamps made of great gemstones and arranged in the colors of the chakra were the chimes she had heard. And she knew the sound of the silver gong.

Yet she didn’t feel at ease with those pairs dressed in matching colors, clinking with chain mail under their rich robes and carrying weapons. She didn’t care for this enormous, echoing Temple. Something about the atmosphere raised all the fine hair on her body.

Then there were the other magicians. The handsome Jaquar scowled at her from outside the pentagram, almost vibrating with intensity. Oddly enough, she could hear a stream of melodious notes coming from him and it lured her. No. Absolutely not. That wasn’t right. She trusted her instinctive impression of him as someone who could harm her deeply.

These people seemed to use music in their magic, but it was still difficult to believe that the trickle of tunes she heard from them was anything but her imagination.

She usually soaked in and analyzed everything around her, but all the new experiences demanded that she shut down the overflow of sensory information for self-preservation. She stepped closer to Bossgond.

Marian clutched the cape. The lining was soft and warm. She swayed to the chant. Bossgond had a fabulous voice. She’d enjoy listening to it, learning from him.

Slam! The huge door to the Temple hit the stone wall and a small woman shot into the room, followed by a big man who was reaching for her.

“Alexa!” the man called.

Unlike everyone else, the woman was pale-skinned, with a white scar on one cheek, short in stature, and though she had silver hair, she appeared young.

The Marshalls started to surround her.

“Wait!” the woman called. In English.

Bossgond gripped Marian’s upper arm hard and sped up his chant, the rhythm now almost syncopated, making her dizzy with the energy surrounding them.

The Marshalls’ protests drowned out most of the woman Alexa’s words. Marian heard, “Wait! I came as soon as I could. You need to know, you’re in Lladrana—”

Magic coalesced around Marian and Bossgond, a huge pressure of Power. She tried to take a step forward, but was held in place by an invisible force.

“Can I go home?” Marian cried, straining to hear.

“Not yet,” Alexa called.

“How soon?” Marian yelled.

Alexa shrugged. “Maybe a month!”

Marian bit her lip. What if Andrew returned earlier or had an exacerbation during his retreat? She could lose him! She would definitely lose her college fund…and her job.

What should she do? What could she do?

Her ritual had been in part to find help for Andrew. These people might be able to cure him. She’d just have to find the information and get back to him fast.

The man who’d followed Alexa plucked her from an irritated circle of Marshalls. Holding her protectively, he ran with her to the edge of the pentacle.

Alexa met Marian’s gaze. “Make sure you ask about Pair-Bonding. And the Snap!”

Bossgond intoned, “Vont!”

The room disappeared. Vertigo hit Marian, and in the next instant she fell onto a thick rug into which was woven a red pentagram.

“Gagghhh,” she croaked. Brilliant. Wonderful impression to make on her teacher—and now the man whose power she was under.

Surely she could beat him physically if she had to, couldn’t she? Heaven knew she had heft.

But he sat next to her, watching with concerned eyes, then stooped and brushed back her hair. Then he took her hand and helped her up with unexpected strength, banished the flowing energy lines around his pentagram with a whistle. Then he led her to a soft chair that looked a lot like a fancy outdoor lounger. A series of velvet pillows was attached to an adjustable wooden frame; the back was set in a reclined position and the footrest was elevated.

Marian sat, leaned back and arranged the cloak in folds around her. She’d kept a good grip on the front since receiving the cape and it had only flapped open a little now and then, but had saved her modesty.

In Lladrana.

Alexa had called it Lladrana. Who was she, and why wasn’t she the one helping Marian?

Bossgond, who’d gone to a sink on the far side of the Tower, came back with a goblet of water. From the sprig of leaves that floated on top she guessed it wasn’t just water. She picked the greenery out of the cup and sniffed. Minty. She dropped the leaves back into the drink and, keeping her eyes on the old man, swallowed a bit.

He smiled in reassurance, took the cup from her, drank some himself and handed it back. Had she looked that suspicious?

Bossgond went to a large cabinet and opened it. Out floated a sphere the size of an exercise ball. Large and blue-green-brown, it rotated slowly. Marian’s stomach tightened when she realized it was a globe, but that the oceans and continents were unknown to her. She looked away.

“Amee,” Bossgond said.

First things first. Finding out how time passed on this new world was of the utmost importance. All around her and through her, magic surged like electricity. She should be able to master it and use it to help Andrew, but how much time did she have?

She stood and moved closer to the globe, saw three large continents and a countrylike portion outlined in black.

When the globe completed one full rotation, she said, “One day.” As it continued to move, she ticked off the days on her hand.

Feeling a little foolish, she continued with her mime. She drew a pentagram, then sat on the floor. “Earth!” she said.

With skinny little brows raised, he said, “Exotique Terre.”

“Terra.” She nodded.

His eyebrows rose higher. “Exotique Terre.”

Marian sighed and repeated, “Exotique Terre.” With whooshing sounds and wide gestures, and more noises to indicate the gong and chimes and chants, she acted out her trip to Lladrana.

Then she went to the globe again and counted days as it rotated, tilting her head in a question. Was any of this getting through?

Bossgond frowned, then crossed his tower room to more shelves and cupboards. He returned with a crude globe of Earth, about five inches around. When she took the heavy ball of metal, she sensed someone from her own world had made it. The echoes of the Song of Mother Earth lingered. She could do better.

Narrowing her eyes, she concentrated, reaching deep inside her for the Earth-song. While she was at it, she visualized the continents and oceans as best she could. Not well enough. She closed her eyes and thought of space shots of the earth, radar and Doppler weather maps, especially of the United States, and Colorado.

The metal in her hands warmed. When she opened her eyes, the globe looked a lot better, the land masses and oceans well-defined. She scowled at the eastern coastline of the United States. Something was definitely off there; Australia and Asia weren’t as sharp as on a regular globe. Not perfect. Her shoulders slumped.

Bossgond’s bony fingers closed over her shoulder and squeezed. Catching her gaze with his own chocolate-brown one, he gave a little bow. “Thank you. You have increased my knowledge of Exotique Terre tenfold.”

He was trying to drive another point home. She was well aware of a teacher’s body language. Cradling the Earth globe in the crook of his arm, he touched the much larger orb with his index finger.

“Amee.” He glanced at her, eyes piercing. “Thay parfay.”

Ah, the words were close enough to French. The image of planet Amee wasn’t perfect.

So he could sense her emotions, or perhaps he just read her dissatisfaction with her construct in her face.

She sighed.

Bossgond released the Earth-globe and it hung next to the large one of Amee. Earth rotated slower, in sync with Amee’s days and nights. Amazing that the days were the same—or perhaps this was an alternative earth—but with different continents? Maybe all the planets with similar rotations were reached by one dimensional corridor….

Marian’s head hurt. She had too little information for hypothesis, and so much was happening.

All the tension in her body at the thought of being trapped here and Andrew worrying himself into seizures released in a long shudder. Weary, she swallowed hard, walked stiffly back to the lounge chair and sank into the pillows, closing her eyes.

When she opened them, she gazed up at Bossgond, feeling lost. He urged her to drink more of the herbal liquid, and she did. Her stomach calmed.

Bossgond touched her shoulder. “Marian,” he said. Tapping his chest, he said, “Bossgond.”

He was encouraging her, emphasizing how much she’d already learned. That she was learning with every breath, with every glance.

He took her hand and linked their fingers. She sensed great age. Vitality, isolation.

Looking down at their hands, she saw a white aura, heard chords forming into a song. He smiled, and she found herself smiling back. Bossgond patted her hand and rose.

He went to the pentagram and fished out the large crystal ball from his bag, then returned. With a little tune, mist swirled inside the sphere, then solidified into the image of the handsome magician who’d first entered the pentacle with her.

“Jaquar Dumont,” Bossgond said.

Marian remembered the older woman who’d spoken for the Marshalls calling him that, in flat tones. Jaquar.

“Chalmon Pace,” Bossgond said, and the other mage’s face replaced Jaquar’s.

He looked like a pompous associate professor, ever conscious of his status and sure of his worth. Still, there was something in his eyes that made Marian think he could be a good friend. His image faded.

The female magician appeared in the sphere. “Venetria Fourney,” said Bossgond.

The strikingly beautiful woman was easy to recall. They’d both received shocks when the woman touched her. Marian rubbed her fingers and grimaced at the memory. She’d liked the look of Venetria, but since they’d shocked each other and Bossgond and she meshed, if the conflicting energy was any indication, they wouldn’t work well together.

Marian caught her breath as she reran the thought. Wasn’t she being cool and analytical about all these strange and wondrous things? Perhaps it was a dream. When she went to bed and woke up, maybe everything would be fine. Tuck would wake her up in the middle of the night by running on his wheel or rattling in his cage, rearranging his hoard….

Right now, all she knew was here. She licked her lips. Marian wondered about Alexa. She’d liked the look of her better than the rest. Marian tapped the ball with a fingernail.

“Alexa?”

The woman’s image formed. To her surprise, Marian saw the small figure dressed in jeans and a down parka with knit hat, scarf and mittens, trudging through snow in the mountains. She recognized the parka as one she’d admired in a local boutique. Colorado? Was Alexa from Colorado, too? Excitement flooded Marian and she nearly missed seeing Alexa enter a silver arch.

Several seconds later, the woman appeared in the same pentacle as Marian had, except that the energy lines of this one glowed green.

Her parka was ripped, her hat gone, and her hair was brown. Not silver, as Marian had seen. Something had turned Alexa’s hair silver since she arrived. Some experience here in Lladrana.

Jaquar wanted to leave the Temple, fast. Since the Marshalls were dismissing the pentacle, none of the Circlets would be able to leave that way.

His mind raced, considering plans to retrieve the new Exotique. He ignored Chalmon’s and Venetria’s recriminations. Unlike them, he had friends in the Castle.

He also ignored most of the Marshalls. Jaquar immediately went to Bastien Vauxveau, who was talking to his wife, the Exotique Alexa. Jaquar tapped Bastien on the shoulder. “Come along, I have some propositions. One for you and one for Alyeka.”

Bastien turned to Jaquar with gleaming eyes. “We’ll be glad to negotiate.” He sent a glance to the other Marshalls. “They don’t need us.”

Alexa sighed and spoke in heavily accented Lladranan. “I got here too late.”

“You weren’t supposed to interfere at all,” Bastien scolded. “I don’t mind flouting the Marshalls, but the Singer knows what she’s doing and she said not to take part in the Summoning.”

“Huh,” Alexa said, glancing around as if she was afraid the Singer was watching. “We weren’t part of the ritual, but I did want to help her understand. It was miserable for me.” She set her mouth and swept out of the Temple.

For a small woman, she moved fast. Jaquar thought her locomotion might be aided by her great Power. Alexa wanted to hurry, thus the Song swept her along.

When Jaquar exited, he stopped under the Temple’s portico to let his eyes adjust to the moonlight. It was a beautiful spring night and the Marshalls’ Castle looked magnificent, as always. But Jaquar sensed a distinct change in the atmosphere since he’d last been here. At that time, under all their trappings of Power, the Marshalls had been fearful. The magical boundaries of Lladrana were falling and the Exotique they’d Summoned to reverse this had just left. They’d discovered the sangvile in their walls.

Just that easily, remembering the sangvile dimmed the evening for Jaquar. Alexa, who’d been waiting for Bastien and him, put a hand on Jaquar’s arm.

“I heard about your parents.” She pronounced every word carefully, clearly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jaquar grunted.

Bastien threw an arm around Jaquar’s shoulder, squeezed and let go. “You have propositions for us?”

If he wanted vengeance—justice, he’d need help from these two. He twisted his mouth into the semblance of a smile. He must not have done too well, because Alexa took a step back and her hand fell to the Marshall’s baton she wore on her left hip.

Jaquar switched his gaze to Bastien, who was shorter than he and more solidly made. “You have the best stable of flying horses. I want a volaran, preferably one you raised from a foal.” It seemed he’d be doing a lot of traveling and volaranback would be the easiest, least energy-consuming way.

Now Bastien clapped a hand on Jaquar’s shoulder. “We’ll deal.”

“And I want to talk to Alyeka about the new Exotique….” Jaquar noted Alexa’s scowl at the word and corrected himself. “Marian. I want to consult Alyeka about Marian.”

Alexa sent him an approving look. “Let’s discuss this in our suite,” she said. With a whirl of blue-green robes she took off down the cloister walk.

Renewed hope filled Jaquar. He wasn’t finished yet. Somehow he’d get the woman back.

5

Marian awoke to the sound of waves pounding against rock, different from her white-noise machine. Opening sleepy eyes, she stared at a rounded stone wall—not white plaster. She shot up in bed and memory rushed back. She was not home in her apartment, not in Boulder, not in Colorado, not in the United States of America. She wasn’t even on Earth—she reached for that basic connection…and felt nothing.

She’d had no nightmares, but shivered as she recalled the ones she’d had in the past month. The druids could have been the Marshalls. Other parts of those dreams could happen here on Lladrana. Could they possibly have been more than dreams—like a foretelling of the future? Fingers clutching her blankets, she stared around her.

A beautiful, stained-glass partition showing flowers in a meadow stood a few feet from the end of the bed. To her right and left, the stone wall curved out of sight. She was in a tower room of the Sorcerer Bossgond.

“Lladrana,” she whispered, and the word seemed to sink down, down, echoing through the floor, through the two stories beneath her, into the ground—and sent a resonance back. The faint, broken notes of a beautiful, sad melody rose to strum in her mind like a sobbing violin. She shook her head, but the song remained, hovering in the back of her brain.

Inhaling deeply, she tasted the faint tang of salt, and noted the waves again. She was on an island. Beyond the glass partition she saw bright sunlight from the windows on the far tower wall. She’d traveled through a wind-whistling space, but not outer space—another dimension?

Her stomach rumbled, and she focused on her hunger…and finding a bathroom. Last night she’d merely stumbled into the room, found the bed behind the glass partition. Letting the cloak drop where she stood, she had crawled under the covers. She’d shivered, then visualized heat surrounding her body and it had happened. Magic? Maybe.

She hopped from the bed and her feet sank into a luxurious rug of jewel-toned colors. The long gray cape she’d borrowed from one of the Marshalls who’d summoned her lay like a dark cloud against the carpet. She frowned as she picked it up. Though it had braided frog-fastenings all the way down the front, she didn’t consider it viable clothing, but since it was all she had, she swirled it around her, pushed her arms through the slits and looped the frogs. Feeling a little better—and warmer—she noticed shelves on the far side of the bed where a stack of clothes were folded. She’d investigate later.

Though the glass partition didn’t rise as far as the stone ceiling, it ran along this portion of the tower ending at the wall to her right. To her left, there was space enough for a doorway. When she walked around the partition, she saw that the bedroom was approximately a third of the whole room. The other two-thirds looked like a study, except for a small, carved wooden closet protruding halfway down the round wall in front of her. The closet door faced her. She hurried to it, opened the door and sighed in relief at the sight of an old-fashioned toilet with the tank near the ceiling.

When she was done, she left the closet in search of a sink and found multiple ones behind the closet. On the far side of the sinks was a counter that held glassware, like an old alchemist’s setup.

Then came the door to the stairway and, after the door, a huge desk. Shelves lined the room, except for the three large window embrasures and a fireplace. A small grouping of two chairs and a love seat sat in front of the fireplace close to the stained glass.

It was charming, but not home. How long would she be here? She only wanted help for Andrew, then she’d leave.

A horn blew and Marian jumped. Bossgond’s voice came to her. Breakfast and lessons in fifteen minutes. None of the words were hard, so she grasped the meaning and hurried back to the clothes shelves in the bedroom.

She touched the yoke of a royal-blue velvet garment, then lifted it and found herself holding a long gown with embroidered yellow birds. It seemed to be her size.

Additionally, she had a green dress, a maroon one and a black gown—all with little yellow birds and narrow three-quarter-length sleeves.

Though the blue robe had looked and felt heavy when she held it, the minute she put it on it seemed like gossamer. It molded around her breasts and lifted them, and Marian squeaked in surprise. Built-in magical bra! This would take some getting used to. The gown sent warmth to her skin—reflecting her own heat?

Marian looked dubiously at the one pair of footwear on the floor, tucked under the lowest shelf. They appeared more like pouches to put over her feet than actual shoes. Picking them up, she found they had soft leather uppers and springy insoles. When she turned them over she saw a material that looked like fine scales. Snake? Dragon?

Anyway, they looked far too big for her, and the uppers stuck up in folds. She couldn’t see any laces.

Bracing a hand against the wall—it was warm to her touch—she slipped on one of the shoes. It felt lined with fur and she hummed with pleasure at the soft silkiness. Then the pouch tightened, molding to foot and ankle. She tottered, stumbled, took a few steps to regain her balance and fell onto the bed. She stared at her foot. Not only had the slipper conformed to her body, but it had turned the same color as her gown and now had little yellow birds all over it. She wiggled her feet—one shod, one bare. The one with the shoe felt better. Magical shoes.

Her heart jumped. What if she couldn’t take it off? “Off!” she ordered.

Nothing happened.

She hooked her thumbs inside the shoe and pushed down. The shoe slid off her foot, tickling her sole, and plopped to the floor.

All right; one of them could come off. But if she put on both, would she dance to her death? There were plenty of folklore stories about shoes and mutilation, like Cinderella.

For a moment she just stared at the shoes, realizing that she was in a place far, far different from home. That it seemed somewhat like Earth accentuated her shock—she judged this place by Earth experiences, concepts, standards, and they might not apply. Any move she made, thinking she knew the outcome, could be wrong and lead her to her doom.

She fell back on the bed, hands over pounding heart, touching the cloth that seemed like velvet but could be anything—fur, skin, plastic wrap for all she knew. Even her senses could be lying to her. Perhaps nothing here was real.

And if she continued to think that way, to challenge everything—her senses, her mind, her experiences—she’d go mad. To her horror, tears dribbled from her eyes.

This should be such an incredible, fascinating experience for a true scholar! A whole new world to learn, a new aspect of her own self—and magic!—to explore and master. She should be thrilled.

Instead, she wanted to curl up into a fetal position and pull the covers over her head.

Bossgond was waiting for her. With breakfast. Even the thought of food couldn’t move her.

She was flipping out over a pair of shoes.

They were magic shoes.

Now her nose was clogged. She’d need to go to the toilet closet and get some tissue-stuff she’d found there. It was in a roll and had felt like regular toilet paper. She’d just used it, not scrutinized it. Who knew what it was?

Was she going to let panic over the thought of a new world, a magical world, paralyze her?

Wrong question.

The right question was, How long was she going to let panic paralyze her?

Marian had always thought of herself as willing to learn new things, explore new ideas—perhaps she’d even been snobbish about that quality. In fact, she was a coward.

But her full-moon ritual had been about discovering why she’d experienced odd sounds and nightmares. Now she knew. Golden Raven had said she’d meet a teacher. She had. Now she had to figure out how all this could help Andrew.

“Marian.” The rich, deep voice of Bossgond seemed to echo around the room. It certainly reverberated inside her mind. She turned her head to see a tube running down the wall next to her bed, with a flared opening like a trumpet.

“Marian, the oeuf is cooling.”

She struggled to one elbow, then the second. “I’m coming,” she replied in French—the language she’d been speaking for hours now—except for that tiny exchange with Alexa.

Alexa! While wallowing in her own fear she’d forgotten Alexa—someone who’d already come from Colorado, had experiences she could share with Marian. She was pitifully grateful that she didn’t have to take everything on faith, walking into a fog without a clue as to the landscape around her. Alexa would help her. Marian was not alone.

Just the thought of the other woman energized her.

“I’ll be right there,” she called out to Bossgond, a Sorcerer who would teach her magic.

She stretched, feeling her muscles pull, feeling something inside her that had been squashed and cramped, unfurl—a butterfly-breaking-open-her-cocoon feeling.

She would practice wonder, learn all she could of magic, in relation to herself and to Andrew. He’d expect her to live life in the moment, wring everything she could out of each experience, good or bad, not worry about being in control or making mistakes.

So she put on the shoes and forced herself to admire the feel and look of them. Then she marched to the toilet closet and took some tissue and blew her nose, washed her face with water from a tap.

Then she went out her door to find out if “oeuf” meant egg.

She ascended the stairs to Bossgond’s quarters one floor above her own. When she reached the door there was something like a harp hanging on it. She pondered for a moment and decided it must be a doorbell or a knocker. Running her thumbnail over the strings released a ripple of sound that echoed through the tower and plucked a couple of strings inside her, too—excitement and anticipation.

Bossgond opened the door, wearing a short tunic that showed his bony knees, a large yellow bird embroidered on the front. The garment was cut so full that it hung on his slight frame. He stood aside and Marian entered.

His space looked much like hers—windows letting in spring sunlight, shelves all around the room, a desk, bathroom closet and a partition hiding the bedroom. But it was as warm as a summer’s day—and the warmth felt more natural than the central heating she was used to at home. Perhaps it was the humidity, or the scents the air carried—fading spring blossoms and the start of summer.

The word oeuf meant omelette—a mild cheese omelette along with croissants and hot chocolate with whipped cream. They ate at a table near his fireplace. The fire flickered rainbow flames and Bossgond let her watch them, examine the room and eat in peace.

When they finished, with a wave of his hand the dirty dishes disappeared. If she were on Earth she could have marketed that for a fortune—but where did the dishes go, and would they return? If they returned, would they be the same dishes, but clean? How clean would they be? Would bacteria still live—

Bossgond chuckled. “I see many questions in your eyes,” he said, enunciating each word.

Marian nodded and he nodded back. Apparently that was the same, too, nodding as agreement.

He rose slowly and his joints popped. She frowned. He could make the dishes disappear but had trouble rising? With motions and two or three attempts at rephrasing the question, she made herself clear.

“I have great Power,” he said, rubbing his fingers together in a gesture like the one that meant “money” back home. “And my will and the Power make magical tasks easy, but my body is old and physical tasks are not easy.”

Marian wanted to know how old he was, but it was rude in her culture to ask and she didn’t know the rules of this society. She just looked concerned and nodded again.

He pointed to the center of the room where three thick oriental-looking rugs were layered. Huge pillows lay atop them along with several small tables that held objects: odd bottles—and were those wands?—and a couple of knives.

Marian hoped the knives were used ritually and practically, like in Wicca, and not for bloodletting and sacrifice. From the corner of her eye she studied Bossgond. She could take him in a physical fight, but if he used magic she was sure she could be bound and gutted in the blink of an eye. She shuddered.

The old man chuckled again and went to lower himself to the rugs. He sat cross-legged, palms up on his knees and sent her a quizzical glance.

She squared her shoulders. There was nothing she could do this minute except scream and fight for her life if he meant her harm. So she sank down across from him. To her amazement, her gown needed no adjusting: it flowed out of her way when she sat.

“First we’ll determine how strong your Power is and whether you will be a good apprentice for me,” he said, lifting his arms shoulder height, hands angled up as if pressing against an invisible wall. “Do as I do.”

Marian mimicked him, putting her hands up. There was enough space between them that they had a few inches between their hands and didn’t touch.

Bossgond hummed, and invisible pressure against her palms snapped Marian’s hands back to her shoulders. He smiled, but kept the pressure steady.

Magical arm wrestling? Marian narrowed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath. She felt her own will, and something else—Power?—surge through her body, tingle through her hands, leave the hollow of her palms to push against his, be stopped against a barrier.

She concentrated, found a pool of energy within herself, drew it up and sent it out in a ragged stream against his Power. His hands trembled. Marian set her teeth, visualized a river of force inside her, welling up from the deep pool, turning into a torrent pouring from her hands to crash against Bossgond’s wall. His hands snapped back to his shoulders.

Looking surprised, he frowned, then pushed back at her. She kept the Power steady against the strong force of his for what seemed an eternity that drained her and started her panting—perhaps only a minute. Then she slumped back against the pillow. Bossgond’s Power followed her, taking her breath, then vanished.

“Extraordinaire,” he said.

She heard his voice around buzzing in her ears. Gentle, inexorable fingers clamped around her wrists and brought her upright again. Her lungs pumped and the dress seemed to soak up her sweat and release a floral scent. Huh. Wriggling her legs and bottom, shifting her shoulders, she stared at the man from under lowered lashes.

He was inscrutable. Like a certain little green, pointy-eared Master of the Force.

Her own personal taskmaster. Great. She knew now that she hadn’t given the green guy’s students the sympathy they had deserved.

“Next test,” Bossgond said, raising his hands, palms vertical again.

Marian didn’t think she could twitch a finger, but managed to tilt her hands up from her wrists.

“To see how well we will do as Circlet and Apprentice,” Bossgond said.

Marian suppressed a grimace. She knew the word “apprentice.” It made her feel like she was ten again—maybe younger, just starting elementary school—though, she was a beginner at magic.

She didn’t even have the basic socialization of any child brought up in this culture—what constituted rules of magic?

But Alexa seemed to have managed a position of high status, and in a relatively short a time, if Marian’s recollection of the coat Alexa had worn in the vision was right. It was last winter’s jacket, so she would have purchased it no earlier than the fall….

A sting against her palms brought her back to find her teacher frowning at her from under silver eyebrows. Her cheeks flamed. She’d let her attention wander! Oh yes, just like a kindergartner. Heat flushed her neck, too. She’d disappointed a prof—not good. She prided herself on being an exceptional student.

So she dipped her head in apology. “Excusez moi.”

Bossgond nodded solemnly. “Attencion,” he said.

She nodded again, kept her gaze fastened on his face, her mind on what would come next. Her stomach tightened. She hated pop quizzes. How could you get a perfect score without practice?

“Follow me,” Bossgond said. He moved his hands far apart, cocked his head.

Intent on him, she moved her hands apart, too. Then he began gesturing, doing odd things with his hands, arms, face.

Marian mirrored him, watching. Finally, he returned to his original position.

“Now you move and I will follow,” he said.

This was the strangest activity Marian had ever done with a teacher. Tentatively she set her hands together as if in prayer. He did the same. A little bolder, she tilted her head, grinned. He did the same. So they continued, Marian leading, until he said, “Fini.”

When her eyes met his, he said, “Now we move together, but neither of us leads.”

That sounded very strange. So she watched him and when he moved his hands a little she followed, but leaned to one side, and he did so, too. It was…balance. More than that, it was a connection, knowing how they should move together, and in her mind she began to hear a stream of musical notes weaving into a melody. A couple of minutes later, they brought their hands together, palm to palm, and a huge flare of energy burst from her, dazzling her with its lightning brightness, its orchestral chord thundering in her ears, her mind.

She spun free. Suddenly she was looking down on her body, hand-to-hand with Bossgond, in a round tower room. Then she was in the room above them, where she saw the star pentagram that had brought her. She rose above the tower to see a large island, the green coast of an unfamiliar land, then drifted even higher until she saw how the world curved.

Free.

Terrified. There was nothing to hold her here—no bond with this planet, this land. She still couldn’t feel any link to Earth or Andrew, and wherever that corridor was that she’d entered Lladrana from, it didn’t seem to be a physical place she could find.

Marian floated, unable to control her magic that had pushed her from her body. The Power was so strong she was unable to move her spirit-self even a smidgeon.

A slight breeze could blow her away.

6

Bossgond’s strong hands squeezed hers. “Come back!” His resonant voice trembled through her wavery self and she plummeted into her body. She clung to his hands, stared at his homely face with her physical eyes. Her body trembled.

“You have returned,” Bossgond said. “Good.” He separated his fingers from hers one by one and stood up stiffly. “I will get you hareco—a drink to help you settle.”

Leaning back on the huge, firm pillow that braced her, Marian hoped it wasn’t some pitiful herbal tea. Good black tea would be nice, or—

She smelled it. Coffee! And she murmured a prayer of thanks. Bossgond handed her a mug and she inhaled the fragrance. Hot, dark coffee. She drank greedily, while he sipped from a matching mug. The pottery had a big yellow bird emblazoned on it, but she was too shaken to ask about the icon.

“Your first lesson will be in grounding.” He frowned, and the small black streak in his golden hair seemed to darken, or perhaps the rest glowed.

Marian pressed her lips together. She understood what he said well enough, and she wasn’t that much of a kindergartner that she didn’t know what “grounding” was—making sure you were solid in your body before doing magic.

Keeping her voice even, she set aside her mug and said, “This will be hard. I do not have a link—” she hooked her two index fingers together “—to Amee. My link to Exotique Terre is broken.” Her chin wobbled at the thought. She grabbed her mug and sipped again—something she could understand, coffee.

Bossgond patted her shoulder awkwardly and took his place again. “From my observations, it seems as if Exotique Terre has little magic,” Bossgond said, as she drained the last, lovely gulp from her mug.

Exotique Terre was what he’d called the globe of Earth the night before. Marian didn’t know what to say, so she shrugged.

“A Power like yours would not have been so stifled, so bound until it struggled to get free, here on Amee.” The old man’s tone was laced with disapproval of her previous world. “You are far beyond the age of the standard Apprentice.” He snorted. “But perhaps it is good that you are an adult. I have little patience.”

He’d been fine with her so far, but she sensed she was a novelty to him.

The meaning of his words sank in. “From your observations? You can see into my world?”

“Indeed,” he said, and waved to something that looked like an enormous set of binoculars on a stand, aimed at a series of mirrors that reflected infinitely. She couldn’t figure out how the device worked, didn’t know if she dared to ask to see her old world.

She yearned to know that Andrew was all right.

Bossgond came and took the empty mug from her, offered his hand to help her up. As she took it, the song between them uncurled again. He nodded.

“We have a small bond, which will grow. It is good.”

After she was on her feet, he released her. “Come, we must remedy your lack of a link with Amee as soon as possible.” He held out his hand and a walking stick flew into it.

Marian gulped.

Nodding to the table holding the wooden wands, he said, “Choose a walking stick.”

His words made her uneasy, but she walked to the table and picked up each in turn. The dark red one felt the best, as if it were an extension of her arm. She repressed the urge to wave it and say “abracadabra” or “kalamazam.” Instead she handed it to Bossgond.

He grinned in satisfaction and said, “Staff!”

The wand grew into a walking stick as high as her head—looking like a rod or wand from a tarot deck.

Bossgond handed it to her, and when she grasped it this time, a low note sounded and the thing vibrated. Small twigs appeared, then sprouted greenery, then ivy twined up the staff, spreading silver and gold leaves. She stared at it open-mouthed, and again her memory was prodded—by the vision Bossgond had shown her in his crystal ball when they’d first met. She’d had a staff just like this. No wonder he smiled—either he’d foreseen this, or he had deduced her Power correctly. What else wasn’t he telling her?

Many things, she thought. The old sorcerer wasn’t revealing anything he didn’t want her to know, and he probably thought she knew more than she did. Her ignorance would impede them both.

He took her hand and led her to the stairs, and they wound their way down the tower to arched, double wooden doors. Marian watched intently as he slid the bar on the door to the side and into iron brackets attached to the stone wall. She’d be getting more than magic lessons, more than the sociology of a new culture—she’d learn more about architecture, too. So much to learn! It excited her.

Bossgond shoved open the door and they walked out into a small area paved with large gray flagstones, then into springy green grass. The wind whisked their garments around them, tugged at Marian’s hair. He set a hand on her head and said, “Alam,” and her hair settled around her head. Neat trick, but she rather missed the fingers of the breeze caressing her scalp.

The sunlight was yellow, clouds wispy white against a sky not quite as blue as a Colorado spring sky. Marian shifted her shoulders as she saw forested hills rolling to the horizon. She was used to a view of the Flatirons and Rocky Mountains. She was accustomed to a campus full of buildings, professors and students, not a lonely island tower with one brilliant Sorcerer.

Bossgond pulled on her hand and they circled the great tower, over bony rock, slippery moss and sweetly scented grass, until they were almost halfway around. He stilled, closed his eyes, cocked his head, then opened his lids and nodded once. “No one watches.”

That was good to know—another trick Marian would like to learn. A person couldn’t depend on atavistic itching between the shoulder blades. Bossgond squatted, gestured to her to do the same, then indicated the top of a stone at the bottom of the tower wall that looked well buried. He licked his finger and wiped off some dirt, and Marian saw a tiny outline of a bird. Bossgond’s heraldic bird—she’d figured that much out. He whispered a word that was taken from her ears by the wind and a cube of moss and earth around the stone lifted as if cut. Another sighing two-note whistle and the stone removed itself. Bossgond waved for her to look into the darkness.

She had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust before she could see a rough pyramid point inside the hollow.

“The keystone of the tower,” Bossgond said. “The proof that a person has become a Circlet Sorcerer or Sorceress is when they raise their own tower with their Power.”

Marian swallowed.

He reached in and caressed the keystone, smiling as if he petted a beloved animal.

Marian thought of her lost hamster Tuck and sniffled. What on Earth—on Amee—did these people do for handkerchiefs? And where would they put them? She hadn’t noticed any pockets—but as she thought of them, four flapped against her skin. Interesting.

“If this stone is found and destroyed, my tower will fall. I may or may not be hurt, depending on whether I am in the tower and how much of my Power I have invested in my tower at the time. At the moment you are not Powerful enough to do me harm, and when we Bond by Blood as Master and Apprentice, we will be incapable of harming each other. Any secrets will never be able to pass our lips.”

Blood-bond. Right. The idea should have deterred her, but it didn’t. Blood played a large part in various cultures’ rituals to symbolize a connection between people. She considered it a small price to pay for knowledge.

“You understand?” asked Bossgond.

Marian nodded, tucking the information and ramifications away to consider later. She reached in and touched the keystone. A little current ran through her—not soothing like her connection to Mother Earth had been—and she twitched. She couldn’t imagine grounding herself with this rock; there was too much energy.

Bossgond sighed, shrugged. “Not a good stone for you to link to.” With a wave of his hand the tower stone and the cube of sod settled back into place, looking as if they’d been undisturbed for centuries. “This is my Tower on Alf Island. But it is not the first Tower. We will walk to old Mortig’s Tower. Perhaps that will be better for you.”

They set off briskly and a minute later Marian bumped into a sizzling invisible barrier. She yelped and jumped back.

On the other side of the…forcefield, Bossgond smirked at her. Then he stepped up before her, touched his index finger to the barrier and “cut” a door for her. She lifted her chin and swept through past him.

“When we bond you will be able to enter or leave at will. I will also show you the courtesy portal for well-intentioned visitors.”

After a quick walk away from the sun—west, then—of about a half hour, they reached the remnants of tower walls about five feet high. Bossgond showed her the hidden keystone to this, too. She started to touch the thing and electricity zipped between her fingers and the stone, shocking her. She fell back on her bottom with an outraged cry.

Bossgond creaked a laugh, helped her up, dusted off her seat and strode off in another direction. As they walked, Bossgond told her about his island.

He had demonstrated the strongest Power in several generations when he was a youngster and had piqued the interest of the Powerful Mortig. The choice of islands was always given to the most Powerful first. Bossgond had held Alf Island for many years.

Alf was about a hundred miles across and had everything a person would want—fresh streams full of fish, hills, forests, glades. His tower was near enough to the coast and a small harbor to appreciate the waves without being threatened by any flooding or crumbling ground. A paradise to Bossgond.

It sounded pretty good to Marian, too, though she was sure she’d miss mountains.

She thought back to when she’d hovered over the island. The shape was a little like Australia.

After an hour-and-a-half walk they came to a depression in the ground, too close to the rocky edge of the island to be altogether stable. The circle of flat stones was barely visible, but Power still radiated, drawing her.

Bossgond stood back and watched, but she strode to the hidden keystone with confidence. This one didn’t vibrate quite right, either, but it felt better than either of the others.

Bossgond shook his head. “You are not of Amee, so no previous keystone will tune to you easily. Perhaps you will find a better place than this as you range the islands. For now, let us do the grounding here.”

To Marian’s embarrassment, she found herself lying on her stomach, arms angled down a few feet to the keystone. When she curled her hands around the pyramid-shaped rock, Power shot through her, erasing any exhaustion, starting a tingle racing in her veins.

Bossgond sat cross-legged beside her and placed a hand on her back, rubbed it. It felt nice, gentle, avuncular. She closed her eyes and let her mind sink into a quiet pool, only feeling—the warmth of the ground beneath her, the small breeze around her. And with three hummed notes, Bossgond sent her into a deep trance.

Distantly she heard his voice instructing her. Under his spell, she sang to the stone and it reverberated one note, two, three back to her, and she felt a small tether to Amee.

With a soothing chant, Bossgond lifted her from her trance, brought her into clear-headed wakefulness. Again she felt energized. She laughed in delight at the connection with a world-song again, though this particular planet-melody was heart-wrenchingly sad.

She stood and stretched, limbering up after her time lying so still on the ground.

Bossgond looked at her, then at the circle of grass and stones. Then he gazed out to the sea, his face impassive. “If we do well together and you do not want another island or a manor on the mainland, I will grant you the right to raise another tower on the island.” The corners of his lips curved slightly upward. He gestured. “You may choose where you please, as long as it is outside my protective ring around my tower.”

The forcefield they’d crossed. She nodded.

His expression turned grim and he raised a finger. “If we do well together.”

His tone was that of a man who’d been crotchety for decades.

When they returned to the Tower, Bossgond led her back upstairs for lunch. She sat at the table and he set a plate and silverware for them both. Then he put a few empty platters between them. He went to a cupboard and came back with a box.

Taking a crumb of bread, he put it on one platter, then added a bit of dried fruit, a few strings of jerky. As Marian stared, Bossgond passed his hands over the dishes and sang a long Songspell. The breadcrumb turned into a large loaf of bread dusted with flour, the jerky became four thick slices of roast beef, the fruit plumped into apples.

Under Marian’s fixed gaze, Bossgond cut a piece of each and put it back into the magical box, then returned the box to the cupboard.

When he returned, he sang a little blessing, then made a sandwich and dug into his reconstituted meal.

Hesitantly, Marian sliced a piece of bread—wishing there was some Dijon mustard—and put a slice of roast beef on it. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed.

The food was plentiful but tasteless. The victuals had to be nutritious because Bossgond was still alive and he’d probably been eating this way for years. No wonder he was so scrawny.

After finishing off an apple and half her sandwich, Marian said, “Don’t you cook?”

Sandwich at his open mouth, Bossgond’s eyes widened. He put down the bread and meat.

“Do you?” His voice was hoarse, his gaze gleamed with hope.

“Of course.”

He stood up so fast that his chair rocked. “Come with me!”

Nearly running to keep up with him, Marian followed him out the door, down the stairs past her own suite and to the level below her room.

Bossgond threw open the door. A gleaming kitchen took up most of the space, along with an empty pantry.

“Cooks were too much bother,” he muttered. “I can fish,” Bossgond said eagerly. “I can draw a deer to us and butcher it.”

Ick. Marian was a civilized supermarket predator; she couldn’t imagine such a thing. It was enough to make a person a vegetarian.

She crossed her arms. “I don’t intend to be here very long. My priority, and what I want to spend my time doing, is learning from you, not cooking.”

He looked torn, then tried a pitiful look, but he was too arrogant to do pitiful well.

“I would, however, supervise a cook.” She liked her food, too—all too much.

Bossgond’s lower lip stuck out.

“How long has it been since you had a cook?”

“Fifty years,” he muttered.

“You need a little pampering. You’re too thin, you need good food. You deserve it. I’m sure you could afford a cook.”

“They are impossible to work with, men or women. They pry. They talk too much. They don’t like living on the island.”

So he wanted an unambitious introvert who liked solitude. Marian wondered how to advertise the position. “Let me think about this.” She wouldn’t be able to eat Bossgond’s rations for long.

He nodded, but his expression eased. He climbed the stairs back to his chambers with a spring in his step.

Bossgond banished the food and dishes with a wave of his hand, then they both returned to the center of the room.

Scowling, he said, “You plan on leaving soon? We paid the Marshalls for your Summoning.”

Marian lifted her chin. “My brother is ill, he needs me. My ritual was to find answers to strange things happening in my life and how to help him. I’m hoping that Amee will have information about his disease and how to mitigate it. I intend to take that knowledge back to him. I’ll try to repay you.”

Bossgond snorted, then studied her with narrowed eyes. “We will speak of this later. First you must study.”

Within a few minutes, Marian had mastered the art of grounding herself, and the small, invisible thread spinning between her and the ancient keystone had thickened to a braided strand.

He taught her to light the fire with her mind, to levitate a book, to “call” her walking stick. Energy drained from her with each task, and a slight film of sweat dampened her skin. Her dress gave out the scent of herbs.

Then Bossgond rose and offered both his hands, beaming. “You have mastered the first level of Apprenticeship.” He bowed.

Already? She dropped a little curtsy and a bubble of triumph expanded in her chest.

“To celebrate we will have another cup of hareco.”

Oh boy, if coffee was so rare that she had to pass tests to get it, life was going to be tough.

He poured them each another cup of coffee and settled into the middle of the room with his mug. He gestured around them. “Survey the room, touch what you like to discover your particular vocation of study.”

Marian blinked at him. “How?”

One corner of the man’s mouth crinkled upward. “You will know. It will hum in your mind.”

Marian had always loved music as much as books, but this aural culture made her feel alien. Still, she smiled, drained the last, delicious sip of coffee and set her mug aside. She looked around.

Bossgond leaned back against the pillows and sipped, staring out the window. Without his penetrating gaze, Marian felt able to act more naturally and to concentrate on exploring the room full of fascinating objects. She looked at the huge binoculars, but didn’t cross over to them. When she moved away from the instrument, Bossgond grunted in approval, and she decided to save the binoculars for last if she didn’t find anything else that struck a chord.

She scanned the shelves. The books intimidated her a little since she couldn’t read the fancy cursive lettering. She leafed through one and jolted when a couple of the pictures became three-dimensional. Then she put it back with a sigh. She wouldn’t be in Lladrana long enough to learn how to read the language. A pity.

For an hour she indulged herself with the treasures crammed on the shelves—boxes and bottles, rugs, goblets and instruments, and art objects of all kinds. She found an elegant, gold-etched bottle that held all the scents of summer, a flying carpet for short trips around the island, models of castles and people and animals. Bossgond only stiffened twice during her explorations: once when she picked up something like a wand, but longer, heavier, and feeling like blood and death; again when she reached a big, open book that looked like new pages had been added.

She moved on to another table with a series of glass jars that looked a little like terrariums, increasing in size from a large mug to a great globe of about two feet. She touched the top of one in the middle and a sharp ping sounded in her mind. Static electricity—from glass?—shot up her arm.

In an instant Bossgond was beside her. Grinning.

“Very good,” he said, rubbing his hands.

Marian wet her lips, stared at the jars. Now that she’d touched one, they all sang to her, like a series of glass windchimes. “What does it mean?”

7

Bossgond smiled. “You are a Weather Mage.”

Her pulse quickened. “Weather? Are you sure?” She’d always had that odd sense….

He chuckled. “Very sure.” Taking the largest globe with both hands, he walked to the conversation pit and set it in the middle. “You must start with this one. When you reach Scholar status, you will be competent in modifying the weather in the midsize jar. Your Circlet Test will be of fire, wind, wave and earth in the smallest jar.”

The one with plants and trees and tiny bugs. Marian gulped, knowing instinctively that she could kill them all.

She sat cross-legged in front of the large sphere.

“Look into the glass,” he said.

She did and caught her breath. There was a world down there! With continents and oceans, mountains, streams, vegetation.

Bossgond sat behind her, his skinny chest to her back, his legs framing hers. Marian tensed.

He clucked his tongue and placed his knobby hands on hers. His chest expanded behind her as he inhaled deeply. “I was no better than average at this task,” he murmured. “But I can show you how to direct your Power. Concentrate on the world below. Do you see the clouds?”

Marian frowned and narrowed her vision, and a portion of one continent seemed to enlarge. “I see…buildings! There aren’t really people down there, are there?” Her voice trembled in horror. She couldn’t do this, wouldn’t do this if she might harm anyone! Mistakes would be terrible.

“Look closer,” Bossgond said.

Marian did. Concentrating, she focused her gaze until she saw a city of stone and wood, with winding roads to manor houses and two castles on a hill. They were all perfect little models, but they were models—as were the trees and animals. There were no fake people. Her breath rushed out.

“Now, back to where you see clouds,” Bossgond said.

She “zoomed out,” noted fat cumulus clouds and some wispy ones. She hadn’t taken any science courses in years, wished she recalled more about weather. She smiled. Weather, with a capital W, was now her focus of study. She was a potential Weather Magician. How cool!

“We will try to move the clouds.” Bossgond’s hands tightened over hers. “Feel the essence of the clouds, their density and shape.”

Was that like the exercise of “be a cloud” that profs in the Drama Department taught? Bossgond’s mind led her to a cloud that showed gray at the bottom, yet puffed up white and pretty near the top. It was humongous.

She shut her eyes and focused on sensation. She seemed to be floating in the sky, but not as she had before, not herself, Marian, but Cloud. She floated stomach-down, and the portion of her body closest to the ground felt heavy and full of liquid. For the first time in her life her ass felt airy. She couldn’t prevent herself from thinking of it as a huge billowing cloud, and giggled.

Bossgond hissed. His irritation nudged her, and control of the cloud slipped from her grasp. It rained. Thankfully nothing happened to her real body.

“See if you can move the cloud,” Bossgond said, disapproval clear.

She pushed her cloud. Nothing happened, except that she got a visual of her hands penetrating cool air. She tried something different. She was now separate from the cloud and grappled to encompass it. With her mind she formed a tiny membrane from air molecule to air molecule of the cloud, then pushed. It moved. She pushed again, and it slid rapidly through the air. Having fun, she set her mind against it and shoved. It turned into a streak of white.

“Whee!” Marian cried. She was flying, chasing a cloud.

Bossgond made a strangled sound and fell backward, away from her.

She stopped, withdrew her consciousness from the weather globe and shifted around to see what was wrong.

He was holding his head as if he had a migraine.

“Bossgond?” she asked.

The mage winced. “You are Powerful. I didn’t expect you to be able to move the cloud so easily, so fast and far. I never could,” he grumbled.

“You have other talents.” Marian scooted behind him and started massaging his temples, wondering why she felt compelled to reassure him. He grunted, then sighed with pleasure.

“Of course,” he said, but he didn’t sound as sarcastic as she’d expected. He huffed out a breath. “You are a naturally gifted student in Power. It happens sometimes, that there are geniuses.”

An inner glow of pleasure lit her. Of course, she’d been a professional student all her life and knew she learned quickly…not that this was learning so much as revealing, discovering something deep inside her, something she was meant to be.

Bossgond said, “Naturally the Song would bring someone innately Powerful to the Tower Community.”

That evening after another mediocre meal, Marian joined Bossgond in the ritual room. He began to Sing the blood-bond ceremony and she joined in when she could. When he picked up a small, sharp knife and strips of linen, she froze. What was she getting into?

Bossgond smiled reassuringly. “We will be bound together for four hours—the correct amount of time for a bond between Master and Apprentice. There are both lesser and greater bonds, depending upon the length of the binding. A Pairing-Marriage bond is a full night and day.”

She nodded and tried to relax as he took her arm and shoved up her sleeve, concentrating on something else—like how glad she was that neither of them had drunk a lot at dinner.

His voice deepened with mystery, with mastery as he cut her arm. The pain was slight, but she yelped and stared as he inserted a little tube in her arm. It looked as if he’d encased a whole vein. Then he slit open his own arm and captured a vein.

Exactly how much blood would they be exchanging? This whole thing involved a lot more than she’d realized.

After they were linked, they finished Singing the ceremony, Marian in a low tone, experimenting with using her voice and Power. Even before they snuffed the last candle, she could feel his blood inside her, weighty with age, with Power, but also…murky.

With his blood came memories, strange and distorted and flickering too fast before her mind’s eye for her to catch and analyze them.

As the minutes passed, through Bossgond, Marian’s small tune merged with the planet’s. Wonder grew inside her.

She found herself panting, and regulated her breath—yoga breaths. Slowly, they left the top ritual floor and descended to Bossgond’s study. He’d placed a small desk and chair next to his larger one, along with the big glass sphere that contained Marian’s planet.

His mouth moved and a second or two later she heard his distorted voice, not beautiful now, but beating at her ears.

“Study the continents, the contours of the land, and especially the weather.”

Marian stared at the sphere, but minutes passed before her eyes focused. She swallowed. Everything was so overwhelming! She chose a cloud—studied it as it floated over the continent, changed shapes, absorbed other clouds and became a weather front. Her heart pounded dully in her chest.

Bossgond fiddled with lenses on his desk. Glimmers of his thoughts came with the flow of memories.

A few minutes after the second hour, Bossgond abruptly quit his work and they went back to the ritual room, where they relaxed in lounge chairs. This was easier, as she didn’t have to struggle with the input from his mind as he worked.

Slowly, slowly, without the distraction of her studies or his, relaxing in the chair, Marian regained her equilibrium and could snatch bits of Bossgond’s knowledge, process it, understand it. Comprehension of the language came first, and she smiled faintly. Lladranan culture celebrated the Singer—a prophetess oracle—and the Song, what they called the Divine. It made sense that she “heard” the language in her blood, trickling to her brain, opening new paths.

Too aware of her own memories flowing to Bossgond, Marian let Bossgond’s most personal ones zoom past her. She knew he’d had two long-term lovers, that the relationships hadn’t been totally satisfying. He probably learned all about her mother—and Andrew. Perhaps he could help with Andrew. At least Bossgond now knew how much she loved her brother and why it was imperative for her to return to Earth.

Then Marian “saw” the northern boundary of Lladrana, the fence posts and magical forcefield boundary strung between them. The fence posts blackened and fell, the border gaped. Monsters invaded. Horrible, hideous, evil-looking things that brought nausea, so she pushed the thoughts away.

She experienced worms in the rain. Most died when they hit the ground, some tunneled into the earth. Frinks.

Some people opened mouths to the frinks, were consumed by them inside until they turned into monsters within a human skin. Mockers.

From a colorful whirl of views through the binoculars, Marian picked out Alexa—at a graduation, at a funeral, hiking up a mountain trail at night, walking through a silver arch.

Alexa choosing a baton. Alexa in battle—grisly images…Marian shook her head sharply, no! She didn’t want to see that. Not now, not yet.

A new fence post—Alexa grinning, holding a helmet under her arm.

Marian herself at her work-study job in the Engineering Department. On a date with Jack Wilse. Talking to her mother. Hugging Andrew.

She pulled her thoughts back to the here and now—to the shrouded room around her, the cupboards that held the globes of Amee and Earth she’d seen the night before. The clock showed three hours had passed and seemed to tick with her heartbeat.

Bossgond made a strangled noise. She glanced at him—a gray tinge had crept under his skin. His breath was ragged.

“I can’t bear it,” he mumbled. “Your world is too difficult to contemplate. Too harsh.”

Marian thought that being invaded by terrible monsters was worse than Denver traffic, which she’d been thinking of. But she reached for the linen strips that bound their arms together.

“No!” Bossgond cried, sitting straight up. “This needs a delicate touch.”

She understood him much better now, so she leaned back. As he began to chant over the bindings, her blood slowed and dizziness hit her. He carefully separated their arms. The tubes had dissolved. A hollow sigh of relief escaped him.

After a few more chanting words, his hard fingertip ran up her arm, sealing her wound and leaving cold fire in its wake. Bossgond wrapped one strip along her arm and sang a simple healing tune that made Marian smile. She was feeling sleepier and sleepier. Had Bossgond siphoned her own energy into himself, thinking it was his right as her master? She didn’t like that thought or the dark parade that followed. Maybe he’d been acting all day, and now she was about to become a sacrifice. Bad. Very bad. How could she have been so gullible?

Darkness swooped down on her.

Maps tucked under his arm, Jaquar followed Chalmon up his Tower stairs to his study. The other Sorcerer radiated irritation, probably still upset at Jaquar’s behavior in claiming Exotique Marian the day before. Or perhaps it was that Jaquar had gathered a circle of Sorcerers and Sorceresses to watch the Dark’s nest, and they were reporting to him.

Before Jaquar’s parents died, Chalmon had considered himself the leader of their generation of the Tower Community. Jaquar, like most, had gone his own way and done small tasks for Chalmon as requested, and if they cost little.

That had changed. Jaquar had never wanted to be a leader, barely had the patience to deal with the idiosyncrasies of a group of individuals, but he hungered for vengeance.

When they reached Chalmon’s tidy study, Venetria rose and came forward. Jaquar sensed she’d been with Chalmon since the debacle at the Marshalls’ Castle the day before.

“Salutations, Venetria.” He bowed and kissed her hand. “How did you two get here?”

Chalmon waved a hand as if impatient with the question, any small talk. “I bought a coach and Venetria bespelled it to fly. It will be a welcome addition to my household.”

Venetria frowned. “It’s my coach.”

“I bought it.” Chalmon scowled at his lover.

“But my flight spell is much more costly than the coach itself.”

“Why didn’t you settle this between the two of you before?” asked Jaquar.

Chalmon reddened. Venetria smiled in satisfaction. “Chalmon was in a hurry to get into the coach. All that Power compressed in that pentacle yesterday was so invigorating.”

Venetria heaved a sigh, which raised her chest. She did have beautiful breasts. Almost as beautiful as the Exotique’s, though Jaquar had no business thinking such thoughts.

He strode to the center of the room where a study table and several chairs sat, unrolled one of the large sheets of paper he’d brought with him and placed it on the table. “This is a diagram and map of Plane Eighteen. I’ve found it to be the best for observing the nest. The master and monsters don’t sense us because it is a few levels more spiritual—more good—than what they can achieve.”

“They are too destructive for Eighteen?” Venetria asked. “I don’t do well in any Plane lower than Twenty-four.” She slid Chalmon a glance. “Unless I’m angry at Chalmon.”

Jaquar’s mouth twisted. “I’ve reached upward to Eighty-two, as low as Eleven—which is the Plane the horrors use most often.”

Chalmon grunted. “Is that other roll level Eleven?”

“Yes.” Jaquar moved the first map to one side of the table and set the second down.

As he unrolled it, Chalmon placed a paperweight on each of the four corners and studied the musical notation at the bottom of the chart. His nose wrinkled as if smelling a bad odor.

“Foul,” Chalmon said. He tapped the music and a low, grating hum and clashing notes reverberated through the room. Venetria jumped and put her hands over her ears.

“You probably shouldn’t have done that,” Jaquar said mildly.

Greasy smoke hovered in the air. “You’re right.” Chalmon scowled. “Now they could become aware of me, might have a direct path here. I’ll have to do a Ritual Cleansing.” He glanced at Jaquar. “How do you make such maps without alerting the monsters, the Master, the Dark itself?”

“Very carefully.” He had no intention of revealing his secrets.

For an instant, Chalmon’s face lightened with humor, then he sobered again and nodded to chairs near the fireplace. They were simple and covered in royal blue, Chalmon’s color. He waited until Jaquar and Venetria were seated, then said, “I am not comfortable with your previous plan to train the new Exotique and use her to infiltrate the nest.”

Relief eased Jaquar’s tight muscles. Despite his lust for revenge, he’d had qualm, too, since he met Marian. Her personal Song was so lovely.

Chalmon continued. “I studied the information you sent regarding the recent observations of the Dark’s nest. The Sorcerer who was watching last night said there was a great stirring when Marian was Summoned. The Dark obviously knows she’s arrived. We may not have time for her full training.”

Venetria pursed her lips. “True. I hope Bossgond teaches her rapidly and well.”

Chalmon said, “The Sorceress watching the nest this morning stated there has been increased activity, as if more monsters would soon be released.” He squared his shoulders. “I contacted the others. We—the group of us—agree that we may have to move faster than anticipated.”

Anger stirred inside Jaquar. “Sounds as if you were busy during my trip from my island this evening.”

Eyes steely, Chalmon said, “From the Power I felt surrounding the Exotique, she is strong enough and Exotique enough to penetrate the magical shield keeping the rest of us at bay.”

“I want her trained up to Circlet status first,” Jaquar insisted. “It would be foolish to throw away such a fearsome weapon as Marian without learning all she is capable of.” He stood and paced. “Has it occurred to you that the Master is baiting a trap? And he wants us to do just as we planned—send the new Exotique Marian to her destruction instead of guarding her and using her? She’s Powerful and could be the worst danger to him if she develops into a Circlet, unites us and fights with us and Exotique Alyeka.”

Chalmon shifted his shoulders. “That may well be true, but I’m sure she could hurt the nest, and you saw what one sangvile did. Its damage is exponential. If the Master releases several—”

“We are watching. We will know when the horrors leave the nest maw. We know how to defeat all the monsters we’ve encountered so far, including the sangvile, including the dreeth. I do not want to act in haste!”

Venetria and Chalmon exchanged glances.

“We should definitely spend more time with her and learn her Powers before we solidify our plans,” Venetria said. She grimaced. “I suppose we should visit Bossgond.”

“He’ll probably be having many people dropping by—Circlets of the Tower and Marshalls, too. Nothing will stop Exotique Alyeka from greeting another from her old world.” Jaquar smiled as he recalled the small woman’s excitement the previous day. “And since Alyeka doesn’t fly well, her husband, Bastien, will bring her. As a black-and-white, Bastien has a wide streak of curiosity himself.”

Jaquar chuckled. “Yes, Bossgond’s Tower may become a busy place. Enough to make him cranky. I plan to go see him and Marian myself.”

Venetria and Chalmon watched Jaquar leave. As they stood at the top of the tower, Chalmon’s fingers tightened on hers, his profile went stern. The Song between them was rough and uneven as their thoughts and desires conflicted. As usual.

“I didn’t ask to be jolted out of my complacency and into the knowledge of great danger.”

She jerked her hand from his and turned away from the window. “I’m sorry I burdened you when my aunt died, made you face what the sangvile could do to us,” she said stiffly. “I must go.” She’d wanted to stay, had felt protected and warm here, even though his furnishings were not to her taste. He’d never noticed that, of course. She digressed from the topic he’d introduced, but she didn’t want to think about what plans he might propose.

He grasped her, both hands on her shoulders. “Jaquar is deviating from his original tune in this.”

“Easier to consider harm to an unknown person than someone we’ve met.”

“A very beautiful woman who has an intriguing Song. Who he held in his arms, who spun notes with him even during a short interval.” Now Chalmon gazed beyond her. “But if Jaquar retreats from this plan, I will not.” His hawkish stare met hers again, pinned her. “What of you?”

“I don’t know.”

Marian woke at the feel of a cool, damp, herbal-scented cloth wiping her face. Bossgond stared down at her, concerned.

“It’s only been a few minutes, and is still evening,” he said in a raspy voice. “Let us adjourn to my chambers.”

Testing her arms and legs, Marian stretched. Her limbs worked fine, though her insides felt a little hollow.

She took Bossgond’s hand and rose, stood a moment, but no dizziness occurred. Smiling at her master, a man whose bark was worse than his bite from all she’d learned of him, she went with him back down to his study.

It seemed even more comfortable since Marian had experienced the Power it had taken to raise the Tower, the money—known here as zhiv—to furnish it.

Attentive, Bossgond settled Marian in the nest of pillows in the center of the room, then brought her coffee. She’d discovered through their bonding that coffee wasn’t rare—not as rare as tea—but Bossgond considered it a treat.

He sat opposite her, his wrinkled cheeks faintly flushed. “We are bonded, but not as deeply as usual between Master and Apprentice. To compensate for my failure to complete the full bonding I will show you something special tomorrow morning.”

Marian stared at him, recognizing that his self-condemnation at such a “failure,” wasn’t attractive. He’d done his best, hadn’t he? They did have a bond, a Song, and it felt strong to her. He’d done neither of them harm. In fact, harm to him had been averted, since the strangeness of Earth had threatened his sanity. Yet he expected her to condemn him? She didn’t know what to say.

He waved a hand irritably. “You may go.”

So she curtsied and left. Head crammed full of the day’s experiences, she wound down the stairs thinking that she should keep a journal. She entered her room in full dark, but before the door closed behind her, a soft light flickered on.

A lantern atop the large desk glowed—bright on the first blank pages of an open book. Marian’s mouth dropped open, but she was too tired to make a sound, too weary to mess with the feather pen sitting in the pretty gold-edged glass inkwell.

Instead she went behind the stained-glass partition to her bedroom and removed her clothes and shoes, folding her dress up as she’d found it. Not a wrinkle or a speck of dirt marred the cloth. On one of the lower shelves she found a pile of pale gowns that looked like nightwear, and drew one on, sighing with tired pleasure as the soft material whispered over her skin. When she climbed into bed and found the sheets warm, she chuckled. Magic could provide incredible luxury.

Trying her own Power, she said, “Lights out,” and smiled as darkness enveloped her loft.

Just before she fell asleep, a thought occurred to her: all her skill in being able to shape weather would not help Andrew.

In the morning Marian found a little golden tattoo of a bird on the inside of her left wrist, but no other scar. When she tried to converse with Bossgond at breakfast, he replied in grunts, and she decided he was naturally a grumpy old man who’d tried to tone down his manner for the past couple of days. She much preferred his slight deception to her mother’s hypocrisy. They ate another bland cheese omelette and coffee.

She must remember to get them a cook.

After breakfast her heart pumped hard as he gestured to the oversize binoculars—the ones he used to watch Earth. They had their own stand of polished brass. The instrument itself was of copper-inlaid brass and shone—obviously Bossgond’s pride and joy. The eyepieces were the right size; it was the other end that held great lenses, each about three feet in diameter.

Bossgond went to the stand and adjusted gleaming gears. “I’ve been observing your Exotique Terre for half a year now—as soon as a Circlet reported that destiny tunes indicated more Exotiques would be Summoned.”

“Oh?” Marian encouraged.

“Then the Marshalls Summoned the first Exotique as expected, to keep and train as one of their own, and indications appeared that we, the Tower Community of Circlets, should accept the next Exotique as one of us.”

He was leaving a lot out, Marian was sure, but right now all her attention was focused on the binoculars. She bit her lip, waiting impatiently.

Bossgond tapped the fancy brass instrument. “This is still focused on your former abode. See for yourself.”

8

Careful not to joggle the binoculars, Marian bent to peer through the eyepiece.

Her breath caught as she saw the gray carpet of her apartment, the taped red star. The incense smoke had long since dissipated, but the little power-light for her sound system was still on. Her PDA was in the middle of the pentacle.

Drawing back, she nibbled her bottom lip, glanced at Bossgond. “I know it’s been only two days, but my brother is very sick. Could I check on him?”

He stared at her in silence, and she wondered how much he’d received and understood about Andrew. She kept her eyes on his. She wouldn’t back down. Bossgond’s eyes narrowed.

“How far away is your brother?”

Marian spread her hands. “Across the country from me. My home is in the middle of a great land mass—”

Bossgond nodded.

“—and my brother is on the West Coast.” What was that island’s name? She’d researched the program when Andrew first considered it a year ago. Freesan!

“You know the geography of your land and where to find him?” Bossgond’s eyes shifted, and she sensed excitement flowing from him. He’d have someone to help him tour Exotique Terre.

“Yes,” she said.

He pointed to a couple of great gears with knobs and calibrated markings. “This will distance you from the scene, and this gear will bring you closer.”

One eye at the lens, Marian turned the biggest gear. Her living room shrank and was replaced by her apartment building. As she kept turning, she saw her street, the city, the state. It was brown—much drier than Lladrana, even in the spring. With a gentle touch she angled the viewing field until she saw northwest Washington State, moved the binoculars again to focus on the many islands. Freesan was small and undistinguished—long and narrow. She recalled that the center sat on the north end of the island. Finally, she found the main structure. She zoomed in, but couldn’t see Andrew. A fine tremor started within her.

“You are blood. Think of his Song,” Bossgond murmured near her ear.

That didn’t help. She hadn’t ever noticed a Song coming from Andrew. She set her teeth, drew in a deep breath. Her magic was strong here in Lladrana. If she couldn’t hear him, perhaps she could sense him or see his aura—or something. She mentally reached for Andrew, visualizing him. For a moment she touched him, then lost him. She muttered under her breath, reached again—and there he was! Quickly, with fumbling fingers, she narrowed the scope of the binoculars and saw him. Her heart clutched. She hadn’t seen him for a couple of months and his recent exacerbations had taken a toll. He was very thin, as if his will sustained him more than his body.

Bossgond nudged her aside, but kept a hand on her upper arm as he looked through the binoculars. “Ah yes, I hear your family melody.”

He did?

He glanced up at her and clucked his tongue. “Listen!”

So she did, with her heart and imagination, more than her mind, and caught a brief series of notes. She did hear that while her own portion of the twined melody was strong, Andrew’s was arrhythmic and missed beats.

“He does well,” Bossgond said. “He is active.”

The old man stepped aside, allowing Marian to peek again, and she saw Andrew laughing in a group as they picked up packs and walked from the building.

“That is enough,” Bossgond said, drawing her away. “You used much Power for this session, but the worlds of Exotique Terre and Amee draw apart, and every day it will cost more energy to view. You have much to learn, and need your strength to do so.”

“I want to check on Andrew at least once a week.”

Bossgond raised his brows. “We will discuss a price for this.”

“How about finding and supervising the cook, as we spoke of?”

His eyes went calculating, as if pondering whether she could survive in his culture, outside his Tower. She wondered, too, but she’d think of something.

“Very well,” he agreed.

Light-headed with relief, she took a couple of paces to the wall and leaned on it.

Bossgond smirked. “You don’t know how to restore your Power yet.” Then he bent and adjusted the gears. “They are focused on your former rooms again. ‘I am a Circlet, behold,’” he said.

He whistled—sharp and nearly at the edge of her hearing—and made an intricate, swooping gesture. Then he held her PDA in his hand.

Marian gasped.

He bowed, grinning, and offered it to her.

She snatched it from his hand, clutched it to her chest. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” he said austerely. “Consider it payment for my failure last night to complete the blood-bond to its proper strength.”

“You retrieved my…little machine book. Could you possibly find my pet? He was lost in the corridor when we came here.”

She thought of a pocket in the green gown she wore and one appeared, perfect to hold the PDA. She put her possession—her only possession from Earth—into the pocket.

Waving her hands, she tried to describe Tuck. “He’s a…a mousekin in a clear ball.”

Bossgond shook his head. “The corridor between worlds is inexplicable. The winds can be absent or like a hurricane. Monsters…”

“No!”

“I saw you come through, but only glimpsed your pet at that time. I have not seen him since. The binoculars are not designed to explore the corridor. I’m sorry.”

Marian bit her lip. “Thank you, anyway.”

At that moment all the chimes in the open window sounded.

“Visitors come.” Bossgond scowled.

“A boat?”

“No.” He flicked his fingers to the window. “Go see.” He looked as if he suppressed a smile…at her expense? She crossed to the window.

A flying horse carrying two people circled the Tower, then descended to land in front of the main door. Marian found herself leaning out of the window to stare at the Pegasus. It was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen, and she’d never been a girl fond of horses. But this beast was different. It glowed with magic.

“Hey!” someone called. “Hey, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Marian choked and tore her gaze away from the winged horse to narrow her eyes at the small woman at the bottom of the Tower. Alexa—the other Earth woman, the first Exotique in centuries.

“Will that grumpy old man let us in?” Alexa called, and Marian was torn between laughter at Alexa’s words and surprise that they’d both called him the same thing.

“I’ll ask,” Marian shouted back in English, then turned to Bossgond. “Will you allow Alexa to visit?”

“I let the volaran through my shield, didn’t I?” he snapped, and Marian sensed he’d learned enough English from her to know “grumpy old man.” She flushed but didn’t apologize.

“I have not spoken with the Exotique Swordmarshall Alyeka yet.” With little grace, Bossgond tromped down the circular stairs, grumbling under his breath.

Marian followed, excitement fizzing through her. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Bossgond ordered, “Light.” The lowest round chamber, which Marian hadn’t seen before, lit with a mellow glow.

The room was so beautiful that Marian gasped: the walls were paneled in rich wood, carpets covered the stone floors, two large fireplaces with sculpted marble surrounds held crackling fires. Several tapestries hung on the walls. There were no windows. A defensive measure?

Ripples of sound came from the entry doors—a scale rising and falling, rising and—

“Will you stop that!” Bossgond yanked open one side of the doors, letting late-spring sunlight flood into the room, and faced a woman smaller than he. Alexa.

She wore thick tights and a tunic that came to mid-thigh. And chain mail, with sheaths for sword and her wand—baton. Grinning at Bossgond, she said, “Shalutashuns, Bossgond.”

Marian realized several things all at once: Alexa was about Marian’s own age, small for an Earth woman—about five foot even—and very small for a Lladranan. And she had a terrible accent.

“Shalutashuns, Marian,” Alexa said, sounding drunk. She sighed and switched to English. “It’s the accent. I’m not good at languages and Lladranan still tangles my tongue.”

“Kind of you finally to visit me,” Bossgond huffed. “I’m only the most Powerful Circlet on Amee.”

Alexa blinked at him. Her next words were carefully pronounced. “I had no idea you wished to see me. You could have invited me, or come to the Castle.”

Bossgond drew himself up so he could tower over the smaller woman. It didn’t faze her. “I do not travel.”

“Huh,” said Alexa. “Sounds like you were just as interested in me as everyone else in Lladrana and irritated because I didn’t come and satisfy your curiosity.” She grinned widely. “As a matter of fact, I’d never heard of you until a couple of days ago.”

He narrowed his eyes and looked like an evil mage. “Th-those arrogant Marshalls. Those impertinent younger Circlets…” he sputtered.

“I’m sure you’re right.” Alexa nodded. “Sometimes prying information out of them is like pulling teeth.”

He looked horrified.

Alexa glanced at Marian. “You think they use that idiom?” she said in English.

“It doesn’t look like it. I think you’ve shocked him to his core.”

“Hmm. I haven’t had any dental problems since I’ve been here.” She ran her tongue around her teeth. “I wonder what they do. I hope it’s better than on Earth. I hate dentists.”

“How long have you been here?” Marian asked.

“Nearly three months. The weeks and days are about the same as on Earth, you know.”

“Yes.”

Alexa heaved a sigh. “I suppose we’d better find out what you know and what you don’t.”

“A good idea.”

“You must have a million questions.”

“Somewhere around that.”

“Did the feycoocu come with you?” asked Bossgond.

“What?” Marian didn’t catch the word.

“Fey-coo-cu,” Alexa said slowly. She fingered the baton sheathed at her side. “She’s my sidekick.” Alexa grinned. “A magical shapeshifter.”

Marian stared. “If you say so.” But a little thrill went through her.

Alexa laughed. “Yep, we have plenty to talk about.” She turned to a simmering Bossgond. “I am not proficient on volaranback. My husband brought me. The feycoocu accompanied us in her hawk form.”

“Husband?” Marian asked. “Did two of you come from Colorado?”

“Nope, I met him here.” Alexa shifted, flushed slightly. “I know it’s been quick, but you know that old saying about extreme circumstances and love. You don’t get any more extreme circumstances than these on Lladrana.” All humor left her face, and she rubbed at the scar on her cheek. “Let’s walk and talk.”

“I think we’d better,” Marian said, swallowing apprehension. On the whole, she’d been treating this lightly, but there was no denying that if a bunch of people summoned you from another world, they were probably desperate and wanted something from you.

Alexa made a half bow to Bossgond. “May I visit with your Apprentice, Circlet Bossgond?”

He nodded regally. “Send the feycoocu to me if you see her. I have never met one.” His lip curled. “And if you don’t see her, I will talk to your Pairling. I’ve heard he is a black-and-white. We need to study those unfortunates more.”

“I’m sure he’ll be glad to let you examine him,” Alexa said dryly.

“Pairling?” asked Marian.

“Husband, partner.” Alexa frowned. “Isn’t there a word ‘shieldmate’?”

“Yes,” Marian said.

Alexa nodded. “Then he’s my shieldmate. We fight together.”

A chill slithered down Marian’s spine and she glanced at Alexa’s sword out of the corner of her eye. It appeared well used, with plenty of nicks on the fingerguard. Marian couldn’t imagine fighting with a sword or shield. A hint of the dreams she’d had at home drifted through her mind. She’d fought, though, with magic. This was feeling more and more ominous. She ran her hands up and down her arms.

“You may go, Apprentice,” Bossgond said in a tone he hadn’t used before with her.

She stiffened and frowned at him. But that made her think, too. Alexa apparently was a Marshall, which Marian had deduced was a powerful elite. She was stuck as an Apprentice.

Alexa jerked her head to the door. “You should have seen the horrible Tests the Marshalls put me through the minute I arrived,” Alexa said under her breath.

She shuddered, and Marian knew the woman was utterly sincere.

Marian followed her. “Bossgond showed me an image of you walking in the mountains. Colorado?”

“Yes.”

“You had brown hair.”

Throwing open the door, Alexa stepped into the sunlight. It gleamed on her silver hair. She looked back at Marian. “It was one of those turn-white-overnight deals. The night I came.”

“Really?” Marian’s mouth had dried. As she went through the door she welcomed the cheery warmth of the sun.

“Yeah, and my eyes deepened in color, too,” Alexa said, her curled fingers showing white knuckles as they clasped the top of her baton.

The door slipped from Marian’s grasp and slammed shut.

Alexa smiled at Marian and switched to English again. “You know your way around here?”

“Not much.”

Chuckling, Alexa said, “It’s only been a couple of days since you arrived—but I’m sure they’ve been jam-packed with experiences.”

“Oh yes,” Marian said fervently. “I remember a nice forest path and a peaceful meadow a few minutes away—will that suit?”

“For sure.” She tilted her head. “I’m connected mentally to my husband, Bastien. He’s giving us privacy and hiding from Bossgond. He says he’ll talk to the old mage when he’s ready.”

Marian led the way from Bossgond’s Tower. They paused at the forcefield for Marian to open a “door” for Alexa. Outside Bossgond’s sphere of influence they stood in the sun and studied each other.

“I like the looks of you,” Alexa said.

Marian felt relief from an anxiety that she hadn’t known she was feeling. “I like the looks of you, too.”

She held out her hand and they shook, then Alexa turned Marian’s arm over to see her wrist. Alexa’s eyes sharpened.

“You’ve blood-bonded with Bossgond?”

“Yes, as Master and Apprentice.” Marian pouted a little.

“Won’t be long until you’re a Circlet,” Alexa said casually, confidently. “The Song only Summons the best.”

Marian liked her more and more.

Alexa held out her left arm and pushed her sleeve up, showing her own tattoo: crossed wands. One was green with flames coming out of the top, the other black with silver twined around it. “This is my Pair-bond with Bastien—it’s a blood-bond, sex bond, love bond. We haven’t had a formal ceremony—like a wedding—the full binding—yet, though. We’re both a little nervous about that.”

Then she flipped open the short sheath and drew out the green stick shown on the tattoo. It looked like jade.

“It’s my baton—do you want to see it?” The offer was cheerfully made, but her gaze watchful.

As soon as Marian touched the cool jade, a hard shock jolted up her arm. She hung on as the energy—Alexa’s energy—whirled through her, then settled, itchy, under her skin. As she stared at the baton, carved figures appeared, and the flames at the end danced.

Alexa’s eyes widened and she nodded incisively. “Good. I thought you might be able to handle and use it. My husband, Bastien, can hold it for a couple of minutes, use it once, but that’s all. It’s good to know that you could wield it in an emergency.”

“What emergency?” Marian said faintly, her stomach tightening, watching mercury flow viscously in a glass tube under the flames.

“On the battlefield, if I fall,” Alexa said.

Marian dropped the baton. Alexa caught it—or rather, it flew into her hand. Marian stared at the woman, fit and strong, with the scar running down her cheek and somber eyes. Alexa heaved a sigh.

“I was afraid that they’d leave this to me. That miserable old man. But maybe you won’t be fighting. Many Circlets don’t.” She shrugged, but her voice was faintly condemning. “Let’s walk and talk.”

“I’m not staying here. I have a life back home.”

“Which is?”

“Boulder.”

“Ah.” Alexa’s smile was quick and charming, but she covered the ground rapidly. “Thought I pegged you for an academic.”

“I’m working on my doctorate in Comparative Religion and Philosophy,” Marian said stiffly.

Alexa halted in the small meadow. A couple of large rocks graced the center, looking like seats. She turned to Marian and tapped herself on the chest. “Swordmarshall Alexa Fitzwalter, Esquire, Attorney at Law.”

“You’re a lawyer?” It was the last thing Marian would have guessed.

“Was.” Alexa hitched herself up on one of the rocks and wiggled to get comfortable. “Nice seat, warm from the sun.” She smiled serenely at Marian. “Now I do all my fighting on a battlefield, not in a courtroom.” A shadow lingered in her eyes.

Marian wasn’t ready to hear her story. She had to make something else very clear, first.

“I’m not staying. I can’t. I have a life I must return to.”

Alexa lifted her chin. “I have a life I crafted here.”

“I have a brother with MS.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Alexa held out her hand, and Marian took it—this time a sweet comfort flowed between them.

“It’s progressive regressive MS, so it comes and goes. I’m hoping to find a cure to take back. Maybe I can become Powerful enough to cure him with magic?”

Alexa just shook her head. “I’m not sure how healing magic works here. I’ve seen great wounds healed.” She grimaced. “But it usually takes more than one person and some serious spellchants. For a disease, I just don’t know.”

“My mother is back home, too,” Marian said. She ran her hands through her hair as she took the rock seat next to Alexa. It felt as if many had sat there before—to talk, to eat, to watch the stars at night.

They sat in silence for a moment before Alexa spoke. “I suppose you’ll return to Earth when the Snap comes, and stay. To be honest, I don’t know how much of our magic here will translate to magic there.” She waved a hand. “I never made it all the way back home during the Snap—”

“The Snap?” Marian asked.

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

Marian sighed. “All right.”

Alexa’s hazel eyes appeared greener. “I didn’t have any family at home, nothing much to go back to, not compared to what I have here.” She shrugged and her smile quirked. “Though a vision I saw indicated I’d become a federal judge if I went back.”

Marian didn’t doubt it. The woman was walking determination.

“I can’t stay,” Marian said. “I can’t leave my brother.”

“All right. But I’d better tell you what’s going on, anyway.”

“That’s a very good idea.”

9

“Let me tell you why you were Summoned,” Alexa said.

“As long as you don’t expect me to stay,” Marian cautioned.

“Too bad. Lladrana needs all the help it can get, and I can tell by your aura that you’d be a lot of help.” Alexa slipped from her rock to sit on the sun-warmed ground.

Marian did the same and tried not to think about bugs.

Her expression completely serious, Alexa said, “The fact is, Lladrana is in deep trouble. There are monsters invading from the north.” She shot Marian a glance. “I’m not talking about other people with differing belief systems, but real, live, evil monsters. The Lladranans usually call them ‘horrors.’”

Bossgond’s images of monsters came to Marian.

Alexa frowned. “Watch.” With a sharp indrawn breath and narrowed eyes, the air between them hazed. A huge, vicious-looking creature hulked into view. It had long, sharp teeth that dripped saliva. Curving, knifelike claws extended from its lifted forepaws.

“Render,” Alexa said. She kept the image up and rotated it, until Marian had to swallow hard.

The second monster was worse. Bigger even than the render, it had putrid yellow fur, horns and spines along its arms, head and back.

“Slayer. It can shoot the spines. They’re poisonous, of course.”

“Of course,” Marian said faintly, wondering if she was turning a shade of green.

The slayer vanished and a third horror appeared. Worse. This one had lizardlike gray skin, a round knobby head with burning red eyes and a hole for a nose. Each shoulder sported an arm and two tentacles with suction cups.

“Soul-sucker,” Alexa said. “But it really just drains your life-force.” She waved a hand.

Just? Marian thought she squeaked, but Alexa showed no evidence of hearing her.

The next horror that appeared metamorphosed between two shapes. A black weblike substance and a dark manlike thing with rudimentary head, arms and legs.

“It has a penis, too,” Alexa said unsteadily. “Sangvile. One tried to rape me as it sucked my Power from me.”

The thing turned its head and its burning gaze struck Marian like a blow.

This vision disappeared once quickly, as if Alexa didn’t like remembering it. Marian couldn’t think how anyone could survive an attempted rape by the hideous being.

“Dreeth,” Alexa said on a sigh, and something Marian recognized formed. At her exclamation, Alexa smiled.

“They look like pteradons, don’t they?” Alexa said.

“More like a quetzalcoatluses with big bellies.”

“Quetzalcoatlus. That sounds like the Aztec god.”

“Yes, they were the largest of the flying dinosaurs.” In her studies, she’d found that many cultures had stories of dragons.

“Okay. They’re dreeths here, as big as a house. A couple of them nearly fell on me as they died. Bad,” Alexa said so casually that Marian stared at her in pure amazement.

She sorted out the implications. “You battle these things?”

“Pretty much every week.” Alexa stroked the scar on her face.

Marian couldn’t imagine it. “You?”

Alexa met her gaze with fathomless eyes. “The Marshalls Summoned me to be one of them, the best magical warriors in the business.” She shrugged. “Like Joan of Arc.”

“Must have been a shock.”

“Yeah. In Denver I’d taken one personal defense course from the free university, several years ago. Big change in lifestyle.” Now she smiled. She waved a hand down her body and suddenly Marian saw a rope of purple and silver. The link throbbed with life and vibrated with a pretty melody. “But I’m well compensated. This is my bond with my Shield, Bastien. As for financial reward, I have wealth and an estate—you’ll get your pick of land, too, if you stay. And Bastien—” she grinned “—he’s rather like a certain rogue mercenary with a spaceship in the movies.” She sighed. “I miss the movies.”

“You—they—the Marshalls, don’t expect me to become one of them, do they?”

“Nope. The Marshalls Summoned you for the Tower Community, the Sorcerers and Sorceresses—the major ones are called Circlets.” Alexa grinned again. “No wonder they reached Boulder. Mostly scholars, I think. Though Jaquar is one prime man.”

Marian hadn’t forgotten the hunk who’d appeared in the pentacle with her.

“He’s had it rough, lately, though. The sangvile ate his parents.”

“Ate his parents!”

Alexa waved her hand. “Okay, to be exact, the sangvile drained his parents of their Power, turning them into husks that crumbled into gray dust.”

That didn’t sound any better.

“He’s really grieving. I’m sorry for that,” Alexa said quietly. “I know what he’s feeling.”

Not wanting to think about the man or his hurt, Marian said, “So the Tower Summoned me.”

“The Tower had the Marshalls of the Castle Community Summon you,” Alexa corrected. “The Circlets do not play well together.”

“What do they expect me to do?” Marian asked plaintively.

“I don’t know. But there’s plenty of work. The Marshalls are just dealing with the monsters as they invade. That doesn’t address the underlying problem of where they’re coming from or why, or how to stop them.”

Another image coalesced between them, this one of a topographical map. “The country of Lladrana. Note the northern border,” said Alexa.

Marian studied it. Bright yellow glowed at points, and between the lights wove a blue line.

“Magical fence posts and shield along the boundary,” Alexa said, explaining further Marian’s vision from Bossgond. She always preferred the maximum amount of facts, and appreciated Alexa’s visit. “The old fence posts were wearing out, the shield failing, and the Marshalls didn’t know how to make new fence posts or power the boundary. That was my task.”

“Sounds incredible.”

“Yup, but I did it.” Alexa beamed with pride. “Now we know how to create fence posts and the boundary, but it isn’t easy or quick. You can see we still have big gaps in the border. Thus the continued fighting—building up the army, which consists of Marshall Pairs and Chevalier Pairs—Chevaliers are like knights, or singletons. We’re equal-opportunity employers. There are fifteen Marshall Pairs now.”

“So few!”

Alexa glanced at her. “There were six when I came a couple of months ago. We’re ramping up as fast as we can. But we lost three Pairs before and during the first big battle.”

There wasn’t anything Marian could say. She stared at the tiny glow of the fence posts and boundary line. So fragile to keep a land safe. Magic and muscle, physical courage and a willingness to fight were the only weapons being used to defend Lladrana now.

“It sounds to me,” Marian said carefully, “as if the Lladranans are missing a lot of knowledge.”

Nodding approvingly, Alexa said, “That’s right. They’d depended on the boundary for centuries, killing the monsters as they straggled over or through weak points. The Lladranans didn’t find their enemy, learn its flaws, formulate a plan to defeat it, or destroy the threat once and for all.”

Marian closed her eyes. “That’s exactly what must be done.”

“Yup,” Alexa said with an exaggerated Western twang. She stood and brushed off the seat of her pants, but since the leather looked as if it would deflect an oil well, no dust or grass had stuck to her. Old habits, Marian mused. No matter that she’d become integrated into Lladranan society, much of Alexa would always be pure Earthling.

She held out a hand to Marian. Marian put hers in it, her fingers far larger than Alexa’s. With a smooth pull, the smaller woman drew Marian easily to her feet.

“Um, Marian.” Alexa colored.

“Yes?”

“I think it would be good for both of us if we—uh—had a closer connection so we could call each other mentally if need be, for instance.”

“A blood-bond? Like I have with Bossgond?”

“Yes.”

“About that bond with Bossgond. Do you think it was the wrong thing to do?”

Alexa shrugged. When she met Marian’s eyes, hers were serious. “I’ve relied heavily on my instincts here. I think it might serve you well to do the same. After all, the Song sought you out, so you have what is needed to mesh with the Tower, to stay here on Amee.”

She lifted her hand before Marian could speak. “I know, I know, you need to get back to your brother, but I have the feeling that the Song—that’s fate, God, Goddess, whatever—doesn’t make mistakes, and it chose you.” She hesitated. “Be careful of the Singer—the oracle—though. She’s a sneaky old witch.”

Apparently having said all she was going to on the matter, Alexa withdrew a wicked-looking dagger from her boot. She turned over her left wrist and nicked the vein, then glanced at Marian. “You ready?”

No. But she held out her arm anyway.

Alexa was quick and careful. The knife had little bite. Marian watched blood well from her wrist. Alexa took Marian’s arm and held it against hers.

A wash of visions flowed from Alexa to Marian—recent ones of battles on Lladrana that caused Marian to sway in horror, but mercifully they flashed by.

There was Alexa hearing the same gong and chimes and chant as had Marian. A lovely blond woman dancing in the sunlight down Denver’s 16th Street Mall. Graduation from law school. Classrooms. Alexa growing younger in a series of foster homes. Each picture brought a spurt of emotions—terror…grief…triumph…resignation.

Marian’s sight dimmed. Her knees collapsed and she was on the ground again. She flung out her left hand and it hit Alexa’s rib cage.

“Oomph!” Alexa protested.

“Sorry,” Marian said weakly.

“No problemo.” Alexa sounded as dazed as Marian herself. “Didn’t expect this to be so strong. I saw your brother, Andrew. You love him very much.”

“Yes.”

“Your mother would never take care of him.”

“No.”

Alexa sighed. “Can you see yet?”

Marian blinked. Everything was cloud-thick gray. “No.”

“Neither can I. Guess since we’re not doing anything, I’ll tell you about the Snap.”

“That would be good.”

“The Snap is when Mother Earth calls you back—”

“I’ve lost my connection with Mother Earth.” To her horror, Marian’s voice rose.

“Well, I never knew I had a connection until I got here,” Alexa said. “I thought I’d lost it, too, but it did pull me back. I’m sure somewhere you still have a link to our home planet.”

“Go on.”

“It’s hard to describe—a pull. More, it’s a choice—stay or go. Like I said earlier, I was given visions of what my life might be if I went back, but I never actually left Lladrana. I could have, if I wished—just wished to be back, I guess. But by that time I’d made a life here. I had too much emotional commitment to Bastien and the Marshalls and Lladrana to leave Amee.”

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