Stars of Fortune(46)

“I couldn’t ignore them, couldn’t make them stop, so yes, that’s what I did. Riley, you should take it from there.”

“Sure. Most excellent salsa,” she added, and dipped a chip in the hill she’d put on her plate. “Tracking legends, myths, finding antiquities and artifacts—that’s what I do. The stars have been on my radar for a long time, and I’d dug up some information that arrowed here. I’d just finished a job, had some time, and decided to see what I could find out on the spot.”

She waved the bottle, took another hit.

“The thing is—and I didn’t mention this before—I didn’t plan to stay in that hotel. I’d planned to come to this area all along, but I had this impulse, is the best I can say. Treat yourself to a good hotel for a day or two, Riley, take a break. So there I was, taking a break with a very nice Bellini on the hotel terrace, and up walks the blonde.”

When she’d finished her side of it, she reached for another beer. “Over to you, Bran.”

He’d wrangled with himself over how much to tell them, what he should hold back. And decided, considering all, on full disclosure.

“Someone in my family, generation by generation, has been tasked to look for the stars, to hold them safe, and to one day return them to where they began, to where they can never be used for ill. So it came to me. We descend from Celene.”

“The goddess?” Riley set her beer down. “You’re a god?”

“I’m not.” Impatience sharpened his voice. “I’m what I told you. I’m a magician, and descended from her. She mated with a sorcerer—a mortal—and bore his son.”

“The demigod Movar,” Riley prompted, “conceived with the sorcerer called Asalri.”

“As you say.”

“And Movar had five sons and three daughters. I know the legend. Or,” Riley corrected, “your family tree.”

“The gift of magicks has come through the blood, and so has the quest for the stars. I came here because, as with you, Riley, I came upon some information. While once again scouring books until my eyes bled, I came on a passage that spoke of a fallen star, one of fire, waiting in a land of green. You might think Greenland, and I did, or Ireland, but there was more that convinced me it was here. It was written the maidens of Korkyra had hidden it, away from the mother of lies.”

“Not much different from what I found,” Riley said. “And the timing? You, me, Sasha? It cements it.”

“I’d barely arrived, and like you, booked the hotel on impulse as I thought to rent a villa. For the quiet, the privacy, as I’d need to work, and hotel rooms aren’t always . . . convenient for certain work.”

“When you make magick,” Annika said, and made him smile.

“When I do. And so I walked out on the hotel terrace, annoyed with myself for changing my plans and direction. Imagine my surprise when I found myself lured over to two beautiful women, with fascinating stories to tell.”

“So you teamed up,” Doyle said.

“I’d be the last to ignore power or turn away from the fates. And beyond the stories there were the sketches, Sasha’s brilliant sketches, which made it clear this was meant. Still, I felt it best to keep what I’m telling you now to myself.”

He frowned at his beer, then shrugged. “Others have been deceived by lovely faces, by fascinating stories, by the whiff of power and the promise of trust. So I bided some time—and it can’t be said I bided long, can it?”

Temper flared around the edges of his tone as he looked over at Sasha. “A bit of time to be more certain what I felt, what I knew was truth, and that meeting, that joining of forces was for the right of it.”

He paused, considered having another beer. “So we piled ourselves into Riley’s borrowed jeep and headed north and west, where I had always planned to go. And Riley, being enterprising and well-connected, arranged this place for us. On the way back, after we’d gone to get our things from the hotel, there was Sawyer, walking toward this place, on the side of the road.”

He opted for the beer. “And there,” he said to Sawyer, “you come into it.”

“It’s a family thing for me, too. The story of the stars came down through my family. I’m not much of a scholar, not like Riley here, so most of what I know is through those stories. And . . .” He scratched the back of his neck, frowned into the distance.

“Didn’t tell us the whole of it either, did you?” Bran asked.

“Not exactly. It’s the sort of thing people don’t buy into, and like you said, it hasn’t been long since we teamed up. A psychic’s one thing—I mean a lot of people buy into that. Hell, it’s an industry. No offense.”