“That depends. At the base? I’m an archaeologist. I like looking for things no one else can find.”
“And when you find it? What do you do with it?”
“That depends, too.”
“You find things.” Sasha nodded, nearly relaxed. “That must be one of the reasons.”
“For what?”
“For our being here.”
“I’ve got a reason to be here.”
“But at this time, in this place?” Sasha gestured to the sketches again. “I know we need to look, we need to find . . .”
“If you want my attention you have to spit things out.”
Rather than speak, Sasha pulled out another sketch. A beach, a calm sea, a palace on a hill, all under a full white moon.
And curved under the moon shone three stars.
“I don’t know where this is, but I do know these three stars, the ones near the moon, they don’t exist. I’m not an astronomer, but I know they’re not there. I only know they were, somehow they were. And I know they fell. See this one.” She laid out another sketch. “All three falling at the same time, leaving those cometlike trails. We’re supposed to find them.”
Sasha looked up, saw Riley’s eyes stare into hers, feral and cold.
“What do you know about the stars?” Riley demanded.
“I’m telling you what I know.”
In a fast move, Riley reached out, gripped Sasha’s arm at the wrist. “What do you know about the Stars of Fortune? Who the hell are you?”
Though her stomach trembled, Sasha made herself keep her eyes level with the fierce ones, ordered her voice not to shake.
“I’ve told you who I am. I’m telling you what I know. You know more about them. You know what they are. You’re already looking for them—that’s why you’re here. And you’re hurting my arm.”
“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll hurt more than your arm.” But she let it go.
“Don’t threaten me.” Temper, hot and surprised, leaped up and out. “I’ve had enough. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want this. All I wanted was to live in peace, to paint, to be left alone to work. Then you and these others are crowding my dreams, you and these damn stars I don’t understand. One of them’s here, I know it, just as I know finding it won’t be peaceful. I don’t know how to fight, and I’ll have to. Blood and battle, dreams full of blood and battle and pain.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.”
“It’s terrifying, and I want to walk away from all of it. I don’t think I can. I held one in my hand.”
Riley leaned forward. “You held one of the stars?”
“In a dream.” Sasha turned her palm up, stared at it. “I held it, held the fire. And it was so beautiful it blinded. Then it came.”
“What came?”
“The dark, the hungry, the brutal.”
Suddenly she felt queasy, light-headed. Though she struggled, what moved through her won.
“She who is darkness covets. To have what she desires consumes her. What the three moons created out of love, loyalty, and hope, she would corrupt. She has burned her gifts and all bright edges of her power away, and what remains is a madness. She will kill to possess them, fire, ice, water. Possessing them, she will destroy worlds, destroy all so she lives.”
Sasha lifted both hands to her head. “Headache.”
“Does that happen often?”
“I do everything I can to stop it.”
“And that’s probably why you have a headache. You can’t fight your own nature, trust me. You have to learn to control it, and to adapt.” Riley caught the waiter’s eyes, circled a finger in the air. “I’m getting us another round.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Eat some nuts.” Brisk now, Riley shoved the bowl closer. “No way you’re faking this—nobody’s that good. And I’ve got a sense about people—not empathic, but a reliable sense. So we’ll have another drink, talk this through some more, then figure out where we go from there.”
“You’re going to help me.”
“The way I look at it, we’re going to help each other. My research indicates the Fire Star is in or around Corfu—and your dreams corroborate that. You could come in handy. Now—”
She broke off, flicked a hand at her bangs as she looked over Sasha’s head. “Well, well, it just keeps getting more and more interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Dream date.” Riley aimed a deliberately flirty smile, crooked a finger in the air.
Swiveling in her chair, Sasha saw him. The man who held the lightning. The one who’d taken her body.