Key of Knowledge

by Nora Roberts

  followed Jordan to the kitchen.

  “What’s the deal?”

  He pulled a soda out of the refrigerator. “No deal.” he popped the top, then shrugged. “You never—well, since I moved to New York, you’ve never had a good word to say about my work.”

  “I was pissed at you.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” He started to take a swig, then set it down. Truth, he thought again. No matter how it exposed him, there had to be truth between them.

  “The thing is, Dana, it mattered. There’s nobody’s opinion I respect or value more when it comes to books than yours. So it mattered what you thought of my work.”

  “You want to know what I think of your work? My honest opinion?”

  “Yeah, let’s be honest.”

  “Well, you did buy me this really terrific ring, so I guess I should come clean.” She took the soda, sipped, handed it back. “You have such an amazing talent. You have a gift, and it’s obvious that you nurture and appreciate it. Every time I’ve read one of your books I’ve been astonished by your range, your scope, your skill with the language. Even when I hated you, Jordan, I was proud of you.”

  “How about that,” he managed.

  “I’m not sorry I swiped at it before. Maybe it made you work harder.”

  He had to grin at her. “Maybe it did.”

  “Are we okay now?”

  “We’re a lot better than okay.”

  “Then let’s go back, because I haven’t finished. And I’m going to be very interested in what you think of what I have to say next.”

  She walked back out to the living room, settled down on the floor again. “Okay,” she said, raising her voice over the conversations. “Break’s over. The point I was trying to make was that however skilled Jordan might be, this is more than a writer’s point of view. It’s more than a series of events entertainingly woven together in story form. When you read it, you start to see how often he’s linked to one of those events, or is to one of the people involved in the event. In fact, he was the first, years ago, to see or feel anything, well, otherworldly about the Peak. He once thought he saw a ghost there.”

  She stopped, amused to see Malory pick up a highlighter from the crate and begin to mark the sections under discussion on Flynn’s copy.

  “Jordan was the first of us to see, and own, one of Rowena’s paintings,” Dana continued. “Flynn’s my brother, Brad’s my friend, but Jordan stepped up from being a kind of brother, from being a friend, to being my lover.”

  “He broke your heart.” Malory meticulously coated typed words with bright yellow. “A shattering of innocence. Sorry,” she said to Jordan, “but there’s a very strong kind of magic in that.”

  “And it was Jordan’s blood that Kane shed.” Nodding at Malory, Dana smiled. “He’s the one who left home—orphaned, alone, young, on a quest. And came back,” she concluded, meeting Jordan’s eyes, “to finish it.”

  “You think I have the key.” Fascinated, Jordan sat back. “I follow the logic, and the traditional elements of your theory, Dane, but where? How? When?”

  “I can’t know everything. But it makes sense. It just plays through. I haven’t hammered it all out yet. There’s still that business about goddesses walking and waiting. Walking where? Waiting for what? Then there’s that image I saw when I was trying to put myself into a trance.”

  Something started to click in his head, then shut off again at her last statement. “When you did what?”

  “An experiment. Like meditation. Blank out the mind, that sort of thing, and see what formed. I saw the key, just sort of floating on this blue-green field. Probably my wall at Indulgence, as that’s what I’d been staring at. It was like I could reach out and touch it. But I couldn’t.”

  Frowning, she looked back, imagined it all again. “Then the field changed. White with these blurry black lines running across it. And I heard these words in my head.”

  “You heard voices?” Brad asked her.

  “Not exactly. But I heard the words. Wait a minute, let me think, get it right. ‘She walks the night, and is the night with all its . . . all its shadows and secrets. And when she weeps, she weeps for day.’

  “So, doesn’t it make sense that she’s the goddess—whoever the hell she is? That’s got to be one of the last pieces to put into place.”

  “I can put it in place,” Jordan told her. “It’s mine. I wrote that. Phantom Watch.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone began talking at once.

  “Hold it!” Brad got to his feet, held up his hands. “I said hold it! Let’s not lose the thread. First, let’s eliminate any coincidence. Dana, did you read the book?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You did?”

  She rolled her eyes at Jordan. “I’m not going into another round of pumping your creative ego. Yeah, I read it, but it was years ago. Even I don’t remember every line of every book I’ve ever read. I didn’t recognize it when I heard it.”

  “I read it, too.” Zoe raised her hand like a girl in a schoolroom, then, mortified, immediately lowered it. “It was great,” she said to Jordan. “But the woman, the one you wrote about walking at night, wasn’t a goddess. She was a ghost.”

  “Good point,” Brad put in. “But it’s an interesting touch that Jordan wrote that book about Warrior’s Peak, that he created that ghost because he thought he saw her one night.”

  “You did?” Zoe asked. “That’s so cool!”

  “We went up there to camp. Brad and Flynn and I. Brad managed to . . . liberate some beer and cigarettes.”

  Now Zoe turned to Brad. “Is that so?”

  “We were sixteen,” he muttered.

  “As if that makes it better.”

  “Scold him later,” Dana demanded. “Let’s pull this thread through.”

  “I saw her walking on the parapet,” Jordan continued. “In the moonlight. Washed in light and shadows with her cloak streaming in a wind that wasn’t there. I thought she was a ghost, and when I wrote her I drew her as one. Lonely, trapped in the night and weeping for the day. But she wasn’t a ghost.”

  Dana laid a hand on his knee. “She was a goddess.”

  “She was Rowena. I understood that today, when I went to see them at the Peak. I didn’t know what it meant until now.”

  “You were the first to see her,” Dana said softly. “And you wrote of her, in whatever form. You gave her another kind of substance, another kind of world. She, the key holder. The key’s in the book.”

  Her hand trembled as it slid into place for her. “The white field with black lines across. Words on a page. And the key melted into it. Into the page. The book.” She sprang to her feet. “Flynn, you’ve got a copy.”

  “Yeah.” He looked around the room. “I’m not exactly sure where. I haven’t unpacked everything yet.”

  “Why should you? You’ve only lived here nearly two years. Well, find it,” Dana demanded.

  He gave her a weary look, then rose. “I’ll go upstairs and look.”

  “I’ve got a copy at home,” Zoe put in. “A paperback. I’ve got all your books, but my budget doesn’t run to hardcovers,” she said in apology.

  Jordan reached over, yanked her hand to his lips. “You are the sweetest thing.”

  “I could go get it. I might be able to bring it back before Flynn finds his.”

  “Give him a little time.” Malory glanced at the ceiling, imagining Flynn upstairs rummaging through boxes. “I’ve got a copy, too, and my place is closer if it comes to that.” Then she stopped, lifted the index fingers on both hands. “What do you want to bet we all have copies of Phantom Watch?”

  “Well, I certainly do,” Jordan confirmed.

  “And me,” Brad agreed.

  “Yeah. Clink, clink, clink,” Dana said. “That’s the sound of links fusing on the chain. Come on, Flynn, how hard can it be to find a book?”

  “When’s the last time you’ve been up in one of those spare rooms?” M
alory asked.

  “Good point.” She began to pace. “It’s in there. It’s in there. I know it. I’ll go up and find it myself.”

  She spun toward the doorway just as Flynn came jogging down the stairs.

  “Got it. Hah. It was in a box labeled ‘Books.’ I didn’t know I had a box labeled ‘Books.’ ” He handed the book to Dana.

  She ran her hand over it, hoping for some sort of sign, and studied the silhouette of Warrior’s Peak brooding under a full moon. She opened it, fanned the pages, and smelled paper and dust.

  “Where’s the line, Jordan?”

  “It’s the end of the prologue.”

  She turned the first few pages, read the words in her head, spoke them out loud. Waited.

  “I don’t feel anything. I should feel something. Malory?”

  “There was an awareness, a kind of knowing. It’s hard to explain.”

  “But I’d know it if I felt it,” Dana finished. “And I don’t. Maybe I have to read it, get the whole picture. The way you had to paint the whole portrait before you could reach the key.”

  “I wonder . . .” Zoe hesitated. “Well, I just wonder if maybe it’s not in that book, because that book’s not yours. Jordan wrote it, so all the copies are his in a way. But only one is yours. And you’re the key, so wouldn’t it make more sense for it to have to be your own book?”

  Dana stared at her, then grinned. “Zoe, that’s absolutely brilliant. Okay, troops, saddle up. Let’s move this to my place.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.” Zoe picked up her purse. “I’ll just run Simon home and see if my neighbor will sit with him.”

  “Let me just get rid of these boxes. Zoe, I’m going to wrap up some of this leftover pizza for Simon.”

  Life, Dana decided, didn’t stop. Not even for magic keys and wicked sorcerers. And wasn’t that why it was life?

  “Meet us there after you’re done the domestic stuff.” She grabbed Jordan’s hand, headed for the door. “And you could wrap up some slices for me while you’re at it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “DID you read the book, or did you just say you read the book?” Jordan asked as they drove back to her apartment.

  “Why would I just say I read it?”

  “Beats me. But you said just the other day that you’d never been in a book before. So I figured you’d never read Phantom Watch.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Did you read the book?”

  “Yes, damn it. I hated that book. It was so good, and I wanted it to suck. I wanted to be able to say, See, he’s no big deal. But I couldn’t. I was going to toss it out, even fantasized briefly about burning it.”

  “Jesus, you were pissed.”

  “Oh, brother, let me tell you. Of course, I couldn’t burn a book. My librarian’s soul would wither and die. I couldn’t toss it out, either, for much the same reason. And I could never bring myself to turn it in at the used bookstore or just give it away.”

  “I haven’t seen any of my books in your apartment.”

  “You wouldn’t. They’re camouflaged.”

  He took his eyes off the road to laugh at her. “Get out.”

  “I didn’t want people seeing I had your books. I didn’t want to see I had your books. But I had to have them.”

  “So you read Phantom Watch, but you didn’t recognize Kate.”

  “Kate?” She reached back in her memory. “The heroine? Ah . . . good brain, a little arrogant about it. Strong-willed, self-reliant, content in her own company—which is why she took all those long walks and ended up with that fascination for the Peak—or the Watch, I should say.”

  She dug back a little deeper, let the image form. “Had a mouth on her. I admired that. A tendency toward crankiness, especially toward the hero, but you couldn’t blame her. He asked for it. A small-town girl, and happy to stay that way. Worked in, what was it, this little antiquarian bookshop, which is what put her in the villain’s cross-hairs.”

  “That’s our girl.”

  “She had a healthy outlook toward sex, which I appreciated. Too many women in fiction are painted as either virgin or slut. She used her head, which was a good one, but it was that and a stubborn streak that got her in a jam.”

  “No bells ringing?” Jordan said after a moment.

  “What bells? I don’t . . .” A ripple of shock had her gaping at him. “Are you saying you based her on me?”

  “Bits and pieces. A lot of bits and pieces. Jesus, Dana, she even had your eyes.”

  “My eyes are brown. Hers were . . . something poetic.”

  “ ‘The color of chocolate, both rich and bitter.’ Or something like that.”

  “I’m not stubborn. I’m . . . confident in my decisions.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pulled up outside her building.

  “I’m not arrogant. I simply have little patience for narrow minds or supercilious behavior.”

  “Yep.”

  She shoved out of the car. “It’s starting to come back to me now. This Kate could be a real pain in the ass.”

  “At times. It’s what made her interesting and real and human. Especially since she could also be generous and kind. She had a great sense of humor, the kind of woman who could laugh at herself.”

  Scowling at him, she unlocked her door. “Maybe.”

  As they walked in, Jordan gave her a friendly pat on the butt. “I fell pretty hard for her. Of course, if I were to write her today—” He backed Dana against the door, braced his hands on either side of her head.

  “Yes?”

  “I wouldn’t change a thing.” He lowered his mouth to hers, slid into the kiss. “I was so sure you’d read it, see yourself and get in touch with me. When you didn’t get in touch, I figured you’d never read it.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t ready to see myself. But you can be sure I’m going to read it again. The fact is, it’s the only one of your books I never reread.”

  With a half laugh, he eased back. “You reread my books?”

  “I can actually see your head swelling, so I’m going to get out of the way before somebody gets hurt.” She ducked under his arm, headed toward one of the bookshelves.

  “To the woman I lost. To the woman I found. To the only woman I’ve loved. How fortunate for me that all three are one.”

  She looked back at him as she reached for a book. “What was that about?”

  “It’s the dedication I just wrote in my head for the book I’m working on now.”

  She dropped her hand. “God, Jordan, you’re going to turn me into a puddle of mush. You never used to say things like that to me.”

  “I used to think things like that. I just didn’t know how to say them.”

  “This is the one I read a piece of. The one about redemption. I’ll look forward to reading the rest of it.”

  “I’ll look forward to writing it for you.”

  He watched her remove a book from the shelf, slip off the outer dust jacket to reveal the one beneath.

  “ ‘Phantom Watch,’ ” he read, “ ‘Jordan Hawke.’ Covered up by . . .” The laughter rolled out of him. “ ‘How to Exterminate Pests from Home and Garden.’ Good one, Stretch.”

  “Worked for me. I have another of yours under the cover of a novel titled Dog-Eaters. A surprisingly dull and bloodless book, despite the title. Then there’s . . . Well, doesn’t matter. Just variations on the theme.”

  “I get it.”

  “Tell you what.” She covered his hand with hers. “After we’re done, you and I will have a ritual unveiling, after which I will, with some ceremony, place your books in their rightful place on the shelves.”

  “Sounds good.” He looked down at the book, then back at her. “Going to wait for the others?”

  “I can’t.” She could see he hadn’t expected her to wait. “I’m too wound up. And I think, I feel, that this is something we’re supposed to do. You and me.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  As she had with Flynn’s co
py, she ran her fingers over the cover, over the illustration of the Peak.

  But this time, she felt . . . something. What had Malory called it? An awareness. Yes, Dana decided, exactly that. “This is it, Jordan,” she whispered. “The key’s in the book.” Hands steady, she opened it.

  Focus, she told herself. Concentrate. It was there. She only had to see it.

  He watched her skim her fingers down the title page, the tips running lightly over his name. Her breath quickened.

  “Dana.”

  “I feel it. It’s warm. It’s waiting. She’s waiting.”

  She flipped pages gently, then let out a single shocked gasp as the book fell out of her hands. He called her name again and caught her as she collapsed.

  Stunned, scared, he lowered her to the rug. She was breathing, he could feel her breathing, but she’d gone pale and cold as ice.

  “Come back. Dana, damn it, you come back.” On a spurt of panic, he shook her. Her head rolled limply to the side.

  “Where did you take her, you son of a bitch?” He started to haul her up, and his gaze landed on the book that had fallen, open, on the floor. “Oh, my God.”

  He picked her up, clamping her against him to warm her, to protect. He heard the voices out in the hall and fumbled the door open before Flynn could knock.

  “Dana.” Flynn grabbed for her, ran his hands over her face. “No!”

  “He’s got her,” Jordan spat out. “The son of a bitch pulled her into the book. He’s got her trapped in the goddamn book.”

  SHE felt him take her. He’d wanted her to, she’d known that immediately. He’d taken her with pain so she would be sure to know he could. He’d ripped the consciousness from her body as gleefully as an evil boy rips wings off flies.

  After the pain, there was cold. Bitter, brutal cold that shot straight to the bones, seemed to turn them brittle and thin as glass.

  She was torn from the warmth and the light and thrust into the cold and the pain, through the damp, hideous fingers of the blue mist. It seemed to wrap around her, binding arms and legs, strangling her until she wheezed for even one breath of that cold air, wheezed for another even though it was like inhaling iced blades.

  Then even the mist was gone, and she lay shivering, alone in the dark.

  Panic came first, made her want to curl up tight and whimper. But as she sucked in air, she tasted . . . pine, autumn. Forest. She pushed to her hands and knees and felt, yes, pine needles, fallen leaves, under her hands. And as the first edge of fear eased, she saw the sprinkle of moonlight coming through the trees.

  It wasn’t so cold now, she realized. No, it was more brisk than cold, the way it was meant to be on a clear fall night. She could hear the sounds of night birds, the long, long call of an owl, the hushed music of the wind soughing through the trees.

  A little dazed, she braced a hand on the trunk of a tree, nearly wept with relief at the texture of the rough bark. It was so solid, so normal.

  Fighting a wave of dizziness, she pulled herself to her feet, then leaned against the tree while her eyes adjusted to the dark.

  She was alive, she told herself. She was all in one piece. A little light-headed, a little shaky, but whole. She had to find her way back home, and