She glanced down at it, back up at him. “Yes.”
“Then bring it along with you.”
He plucked up the wine, and the glasses, and led the way.
HE sat by the fire, propped his boots on the hearth, savored his wine and the scent of the woman who sat so warily beside him. “I was born in magic,” he began. “Some are. Others apprentice and can learn well enough. But to be born in it is more a matter of controlling the art than of learning it.”
“So your father was a magician.”
“No, he was a tailor. Magic doesn’t have to come down through the blood. It simply has to be in the blood.” He paused because he didn’t want to blunder again. He should know more of her, he decided, before he did. “What is it you are, back in your Boston?”
“I’m an antique dealer. That came through the blood. My uncles, my grandfather, and so on. Brennan’s of Boston has been doing business for nearly a century.”
“Nearly a century, is it?” he chuckled. “So very long.”
“I suppose it doesn’t seem so by European standards. But America’s a young country. You have some magnificent pieces in your home.”
“I collect what appeals to me.”
“Apparently a wide range appeals to you. I’ve never seen such a mix of styles and eras in one place before.”
He glanced around the room, considering. It wasn’t something he’d thought of, but he’d had only himself to please up until now. “You don’t like it?”
Because it seemed to matter to him, she worked up a smile. “No, I like it very much. In my business I see a lot of beautiful and interesting pieces, and I’ve always felt it was a shame more people don’t just toss them together and make their own style rather than sticking so rigidly to a pattern. No one can accuse you of sticking to a pattern.”
“No. That’s a certainty.”
She started to curl up her legs, caught herself. What in the world was wrong with her? She was relaxing into an easy conversation with what was very likely a madman. She cut her gaze toward the knife beside her, then back to him. And found him studying her contemplatively.
“I wonder if you could use it. There are two kinds of people in the world, don’t you think? Those who fight and those who flee. Which are you, Kayleen?”
“I’ve never been in the position where I had to do either.”
“That’s either fortunate or tedious. I’m not entirely sure which. I like a good fight myself,” he added with that quick grin. “Just one of my many flaws. Fact is, I miss going fist to fist with a man. I miss a great many things.”
“Why? Why do you have to miss anything?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it, of this fireside conversation. The why. Are you wondering, mavourneen, if I’m off in my head?”
“Yes,” she said, then immediately froze.
“I’m not, though perhaps it would’ve been easier if I’d gone a bit crazy along the way. They knew I had a strong mind—part of the problem, in their thinking, and part of the reason for the sentence weighed on me.”
“They?” Her fingers inched toward the handle of the knife. She could use it, she promised herself. She would use it if she had to, no matter how horribly sad and lonely he looked.
“The Keepers. The ancient and the revered who guard and who nurture magic. And have done so since the Waiting Time, when life was no more than the heavens taking their first breath.”
“Gods?” she said cautiously.
“In some ways of thinking.” He was brooding again, frowning into the flames. “I was born of magic, and when I was old enough I left my family to do the work. To heal and to help. Even to entertain. Some of us have more of a knack, you could say, for the fun of it.”
“Like, um, sawing a lady in half.”
He looked at her with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “This is illusion, Kayleen.”
“Yes.”
“I speak of magic, not pretense. Some prophesy, some travel and study, for the sake of it. Others devote their art to healing body or soul. Some choose to make a living performing. Some might serve a worthy master, as Merlin did Arthur. There are as many choices as there are people. And while none may choose to harm or profit for the sake of it, all are real.”
He slipped a long chain from under his shirt, held the pendant with its milky stone out for her to see. “A moonstone,” he told her. “And the words around are my name, and my title. Draiodoir. Magician.”
“It’s beautiful.” Unable to resist, she curved her hand around the pendant. And felt a bolt of heat, like the rush of a comet, spurt from her fingertips to her toes. “God!”