Beyond the Highland Myst(769)

“Good night, Cian.”

“Good night, Jessica. Dream sweet, lass.”

“You too.”

He was kind enough to not remind her that he neither slept nor dreamed while in the minor.

And Jessica made a sleepy entry in a mental diary.

Memory/Day Fourteen: We said good night tonight like a married couple who’d been together for years and years.

So what if he was in a mirror and she was sleeping on the floor.

It was still a fine memory.





* * *





25



Days sped by on winged feet.

Jessi’d always thought that was such a cliché: time speeding by on winged feet; time flies when you’re having fun; or as Cian had once put it so simply—time is of the veriest essence.

Yes, it was.

Suddenly all the clichés in the world were true. Each and every one made perfect sense to her. Those love songs on the radio that had once made her roll her eyes and tune the dial to Godsmack instead now reduced her to sappy sentimentality in moments. She’d even caught herself humming the maudlin melody of a country-music song the other day and she’d never liked country music.

Last year she’d read The Stranger by Albert Camus in French for extra foreign-language credits. Not her cup of tea, though it had given her food for thought, including the existential contention that death made brothers of all men.

Jessi now knew the truth was that love made brothers—and sisters—of all people. As different as they were, love was that common, defining ground, making everyone the same giddy, delirious fools for it in a thousand and one ways.

Like countless women before her, from tender teens to wise seniors welcoming a second wind, Jessi began keeping a diary to forever capture her memories.

Memory/Day Thirteen: Today we kissed in all one hundred and fifty-seven rooms in the castle (including closets, utility rooms and bathrooms!).

Memory/Day Twelve: We had a midnight picnic of smoked salmon and cheeses and three bottles of wine (my aching head!) on the castle grounds beneath a star-drenched sky and, while everyone else slept, we swam nude in the garden fountain and made love on all three tiers.

Memory/Day Eleven: We chased the cooks from the kitchen and made chocolate-chip pancakes with raspberry jam and whipped cream.

What they’d done with that raspberry jam and whipped cream had had very little to do with eating. The pancakes, that was.

But not all of the memories were good. She couldn’t hide in some of the memories. Some of them slapped her in the face with truth.

Memory/Day Ten: Lucan Trevayne came today.



Lucan stood at the line of demarcation between Keltar-warded land and Trevayne-warded land, staring up at the castle. He toed arrogantly up to it, though he didn’t care for the feeling at all. The Keltar’s power hummed in the earth beneath his feet, trying to push past the invisible boundary, butting up against his own wards.

It had taken him all night and the efforts of a dozen well-trained men to secure this portion of land, enough for him to accomplish his aims. By the light of a pale moon, while the castle slept, they’d spelled the soil, from the sleek black limousine readied behind him for a swift departure, up to the circle of estate Cian had claimed for himself.

Now he stood approximately two hundred yards from the castle proper, waiting. The Highlander hadn’t wasted time and resources warding more than the immediate grounds, nor had there been any reason to. Lucan was effectively barred from the castle by this meager yet insurmountable perimeter, as Cian had known he would be.

So long as he did not cross that boundary, Cian couldn’t use sorcery on him. So long as Cian did not cross it, Lucan couldn’t use sorcery on him, either. As they were both immortal and self-healing, they couldn’t harm each other with anything else. They’d mastered long ago the exact wards that neutralized the other’s power. This was the only way reclusive sorcerers were ever willing to meet, toe-to-toe on neutralized ground. Cian would not cross the line, nor would Lucan, unless a temper could be provoked, and they were both too smart for that.

Though he was immortal and could not be physically slain, he could be bespelled. If he were fool enough to stray onto Cian’s warded ground, the Highlander could trap him and cocoon him in a mystic stasis, as helpless as a fly in a thick, sticky spider’s web.

Eventually, Lucan might figure out how to break free, but he had very little time left to take chances with. And he’d never been willing to wager on the outcome of a battle of spells between him and the Highlander.

The situation at this second Castle Keltar was far worse than he’d imagined. He could feel the potency of two Keltar Druids in this new castle, about whom he knew nothing but for this—their power was as old as their names. They were strong. Not like Cian. But also not like any other Druid he’d ever encountered.