Key of Knowledge

by Nora Roberts

  “Choose,” he said again, and she felt the hot silk of the scarf wrap around her throat.

  Horrified, she clawed at it, raked her own skin with the frantic swipes of her nails. She was choking, fighting the illusion of the strangling cloth as the blood roared in her head like the sea.

  Then suddenly she was free, and there was only the single corridor leading to the last staircase.

  Tears leaked from her eyes as she ran for it, dragging herself up by the banister as her injured knee gave out under her.

  She threw herself at the door, yanked at the knob with slippery hands. Her breath sobbed out of her burning lungs, scored her abused throat when she stumbled out into the silver light of the moon.

  She was at the top of the Watch, high above the valley, where light glowed against the dark. People, she thought, were tucked away in those houses. Safe and warm. She knew them, and they her. Friends, family, a lover.

  All so far away now, beyond her reach. Beyond her world.

  She was alone, and there was no place left to run.

  She slammed the door closed, scanned the stone parapet for something to brace against the door. If she could keep the killer on the other side until day broke . . .

  No, not the killer. Kane. It was Kane.

  She was Dana, Dana Steele, and what chased her was worse than a killer.

  She pressed her back against the door, using her weight as a wedge. Then she saw she’d been wrong. She wasn’t alone.

  The cloaked figure walked in the shower of moonlight, one hand, with its glitter of rings, skimming along the low stone wall. Her cloak streamed out in a wind that made no sound.

  The phantom of the Watch, she thought, and closed her eyes for a moment of peace. The ghost. Jordan’s ghost.

  “He’s coming.” She was amazed how calm she sounded with a vengeful god or mad killer behind her, and a spirit of the dead in front. “To kill me, or stop me, or take my soul. It all comes to the same thing in the end. I need help.”

  But the figure didn’t turn. She only stood, looking down at the forest where two hundred years before, love had killed her.

  “You’re Jordan’s. You’re Jordan’s creation, not Kane’s. In the book you helped, and the act set you free. Don’t you want to be free?”

  But the phantom said nothing.

  “Kate’s dialogue,” Dana murmured. “I need Kate’s words. What are they?”

  As she dug for them, the door burst open, throwing her forward onto the stone.

  “She can’t help you.” Kane ran the scarf through his hands as he stepped out. “She’s only a prop.”

  “It’s all props.” She scrambled backward like a crab. “It’s all lies.”

  “Yet you bleed.” He gestured toward her arm, her throat. “Is the pain a lie? Is your fear?” His smile spread as he came closer. “You’ve been a challenging opponent. You have a clever mind and a strong will. Clever enough, strong enough to have changed some small pieces of my picture. Imagining the stairs and the door to this place took considerable strength. Bringing her here”—he gestured toward the cloaked figure—“even more. I commend you.”

  Her mouth trembled open, then she shut it again. Had she imagined it, the route, the door? Had she willed the ghost into being?

  No, no she didn’t believe she had. She’d been circling in confusion.

  Jordan. It was Jordan’s book. And he was a man with a clever mind and a strong will. Somehow he was trying to help her. Damned if she was going to let him fail.

  She was Dana, she reminded herself. And she was Kate—Jordan’s Kate. Neither one of them would cower at the end.

  “Maybe I’ll just imagine you jumping off that wall to your bloody, messy death.”

  “Still hissing. A cornered cat. Perhaps I’ll simply leave you here, deep inside a book. You should thank me, as books are one of your pleasures.”

  He inclined his head as she got to her feet, as he saw her wince of pain. “Or perhaps I’ll step back and let the killer come onstage. It would be interesting to see you battle him, though in my version you may not triumph. Either way, it would be entertaining. Yes, I believe I’d enjoy the theater of it.”

  The white scarf vanished from his hands. “Do you remember how she hears him shambling up the steps, what she feels run through her when she understands that she’s trapped?”

  Dana’s breath began to hitch once more as she heard the slow, oncoming footsteps.

  He couldn’t force her to do anything, she remembered. He could only trick her mind.

  “How the fear clutched in her belly as she understood that she had run exactly where he’d wanted her to run? And below, her lover sees her standing in the light of the moon, sees the phantom beyond her, and the killer as he steps out onto the stone.

  “And he calls her name, in terror and despair, as he knows he can never reach her in time.”

  “Sure he can. All it takes is a rewrite.”

  Kane whirled as Jordan leaped out of the doorway.

  The force of the attack knocked Kane back against the wall.

  “You have no place here!”

  “This is my place.” Putting all his rage into it, Jordan rammed his fist into Kane’s face. It burned as if he’d shoved his hand into fire. Still, he reared back to do it again. And was lifted off his feet and flung backward.

  “Die here, then.”

  A sword shot up from the hand Kane raised. Dana sprang to her feet, and charged him, sprang onto his back to fight with teeth and nails and spitting fury. She heard someone howling, and realized as her throat opened again, that the sound came from her.

  Kane knocked her away with a vicious backhand that sent her slamming hard against Jordan. She saw blood on his face, from wounds that both she and Jordan had inflicted.

  And her heart danced.

  “You will know pain,” she shot out at him.

  His eyes gleamed black as he raised the sword. “And you, worse. Your blood will seal you here.”

  But as he swung down to strike, his hand was empty.

  “Let’s see if gods fly,” Jordan said. Both he and Dana rushed forward.

  Dana felt her shoving hands connect, then they passed through him as he vanished.

  There was a swirl of smoke, a flash of dull blue light. Then nothing but the moon and shadows.

  “Did I do that?” She had to wheeze out the words. “Or did you?”

  “I don’t know.” He caught her when her legs gave way, and lowered them both to the stone floor. “I don’t care. Jesus, you’re bruised and bleeding. But I’ve got you.” He wrapped her tight in his arms. “I’ve got you.”

  “Ditto.” Undone, she buried her face against his chest. “How did you get here? He didn’t bring you. He wasn’t expecting you.”

  “He’s not the only god in the Valley these days.” Lifting her head, he pressed his lips to her cheek, her temple. “We’ve got to find our way back, Dana. I don’t mind being sucked into a story, but this is a little much.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.” Hold on, she ordered herself. Hold on until it’s finished. “This is just about the end of the story. Heroine grapples with bad guy, and with a little help from the ghost—who was no help at all, by the way—fights him off, sends him over the wall just as the hero bursts out to save her. Kiss, kiss, frantic explanations and declarations of love. Then they watch the phantom of the watch fade away, freed by her final act of humanity.”

  “You remembered that pretty well for somebody who read it six years ago.” He helped her to her feet, then looked toward the end of the parapet. The cloaked figure stood, looking out at the forest.

  “She’s not fading.”

  “Maybe she needs a little more time.” When she put weight on her knee, the pain brought tears to her eyes. “Ouch! Damn. Maybe you could write in an ice pack for this knee.”

  “Wait.” Fascinated, he stepped forward. “Rowena.”

  “Her name wasn’t Rowena. It was . . . I can’t quite remember, but it
wasn’t—” She broke off, her eyes widening as the cloaked woman turned and smiled at her. “Except it is Rowena.”

  “I couldn’t send you alone. We wouldn’t let him take your lives here. Will you finish your quest?” she asked Dana.

  “I haven’t come this far to toss it in now. I was about to—” She cut herself off again. “It’s not in the book, not anymore. Not on the white page with the black words. It’s here now. In the story, like we are.”

  “I’ve already done more than I’m permitted to do. I can only ask you: Will you finish your quest?”

  “Yes, I’ll finish it.”

  She vanished, not with smoke and light as Kane had, but as if she’d never been.

  “What the hell do we do now?” Jordan asked. “Go back—somehow—to the beginning of the book and start looking? The lines you remembered were from the prologue.”

  “No, we don’t have to go back. I need a minute first.” She stepped to the wall, breathed deep. “Autumn smoke in the air,” she chanted. “The way the moon, a perfect ball, is carved into the sky. Everything—the trees, the valley . . . look, you can just see the river, the way the moonlight glints off the water at the bend of it. It’s all here, every detail.”

  “Yeah, nice view. Let’s finish up and go look at it in our world.”

  “I like your book, Jordan. I don’t want to live here, but it’s a fascinating place to visit. It’s exactly the way I pictured it. You write a hell of a story.”

  “Dana, I can’t do this. I can’t stand thinking about the way you’re lying there back home. You’re so pale, so cold. You look like—”

  “Niniane, from Brad’s portrait. One walks.” She gestured to where Rowena had been. “One waits. That would be Niniane, or in reflection, I guess it’s me.” She turned, held out a hand. “I need the key, Jordan.”

  He stared at her. “Honey, if I had the key, I’d’ve given it to you long before this.”

  “You always had it. You just didn’t know it. I’m the key, and you’re mine. Write it for me, Jordan. Put it in my hand, and let’s go home.”

  “All right.” He tried to wrap his mind around it. Then he touched her face and let himself see. “She stood bathed in moonlight. Goddess and lover, with eyes deep and dark with truths. He might have been born loving her, he wasn’t sure. But he knew, without question, that he would die loving her.

  “She smiled,” he continued as Dana’s lips curved, “and held out her hand to him. It glittered in her palm, a small, simple thing. The key she’d searched for, fought for. It was old, but bright with promise. A slim bar of gold topped with a swirl of connecting circles in a symbol as old as time.”

  She felt the weight of it, and the shape against her palm. Closing her fist around it, she reached for him with her free hand. “It’ll take us back,” she said, “for the epilogue.”

  SHE opened her eyes, blinked at the sea of faces, then blinked at her brother. “Auntie Em.”

  “Oh, Christ. Dana.” He grabbed her, hauled her up against him, and rocked them both.

  “Ouch.” But she was laughing as he hugged her tight enough to crack ribs. “Take it easy. I’ve already got more than enough bumps and bruises.”

  “You’re hurt? Where are you hurt?”

  “If you can bear to let her go a moment, I’ll tend her.” Rowena touched Flynn’s shoulder.

  “I have the key.”

  “Yes, I know. Will you trust me with it for now?”

  “You bet.” Without hesitation, she put the key in Rowena’s hand. Reaching back for Jordan, she grinned at her friends. “What a ride.”

  “You scared the hell out of us.” Malory swallowed back tears. “Both of you.”

  “Your face is bruised. Her face is bruised,” Zoe said, and moved in immediately. “Her arm’s bleeding. Oh, her poor throat. Where are the bandages?”

  “She won’t need them, little mother,” Pitte stated calmly.

  “I cut my arm on some glass, breaking into the Peak, or the Watch, I should say. And my knee feels about the size of a watermelon. As scary and weird as the whole thing was, I have to admit, it was also very cool. I was . . .”

  She trailed off, looking down in surprise at the knee that had throbbed until Rowena laid hands on it. “Wow, that feels good. Better than usual.”

  “Maybe so, but I bet you can still use this.” Brad pushed a snifter into her hand. “I remembered where you keep the brandy,” he told her, then leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. “Welcome back, baby.”

  “Good to be back.” She downed a swallow of brandy, then passed the snifter to Jordan. “There’s a lot to tell.”

  “Would you prefer to stay here and rest, or are you feeling well enough to come to the Peak tonight and use the key?”

  Dana studied Rowena as the woman stroked her fingers over her bruised cheek. “You’d wait?”

  “The choice is yours. It always has been.”

  “Well, I’m up for it.” She glanced at the clock, nearly goggled. “Nine? How can it be only nine o’clock? I feel like I was out for days.”

  “Sixty-eight of the longest minutes of my life,” Flynn told her. “If you want to do this tonight, we’ll go with you.”

  “I have to call the baby-sitter.” Zoe flushed as all heads turned toward her. “I know that sounds silly considering, but—”

  “There’s nothing silly about making certain your child is safe and well tended.” Rowena rose. “Pitte and I will take the key, and wait for you.”

  “If there’s a problem with the sitter,” Brad began, “I’ll go stay with Simon. You should be with the others for this.”

  “Oh, well.” Flustered, she backed out of the room. “I’m sure Mrs. Hanson won’t mind staying a bit later. But thanks. I’ll just go call.”

  “We’ll start up as soon as Zoe’s ready.” Dana turned back to look at Rowena, but she and Pitte were gone. “Man, they sure do poof in and poof out, don’t they?”

  “They’d have saved us an hour’s driving time round-trip if they’d poofed us with them.” Jordan danced his fingers lightly over her cheek, down the column of her throat. The bruise and scrapes were gone. “You sure you’re up to this?”

  “Not only up for it, raring. We’ll fill you guys in on everything when we get to the Peak. I’ll feel better once the key’s in the lock.”

  IN the portrait room they were served good, rich coffee and small sugary cakes while Dana and Jordan took turns filling in those sixty-eight minutes.

  “You were so smart,” Zoe commented. “I don’t know how you kept your head.”

  “There were moments when I lost it. I’d get confused, or I’d get scared, or he’d change the plot on me. It helped a lot when I realized that Jordan was either there or manipulating things, too. Getting rid of that maze Kane had created, pointing me toward the right door, made a big difference.”

  “I didn’t care for his editorial input.” Jordan took her hand, kissed it just above the ruby. “And, in this case, I decided the hero should take a more active role in the denouement.”

  “No complaints here.”

  “Do you think you killed him?” Malory wanted to know. “When you pushed him over the wall of the parapet?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He went, you know.” Dana wagged a thumb toward Rowena and Pitte. “Poof.”

  “But we hurt him,” Jordan put in. “And not just his pride. He felt it when I punched him, just like he felt it when Dana tried to rip his face off. He bled. If he can bleed, he can be killed.”

  “Not completely.” Rings sparkled on Rowena’s hands as she poured more coffee. “Death is different for us, and some part of what we are remains. In the trees, in the stones, in the earth or the water or wind.”

  “But he can be defeated,” Jordan insisted. “He can be . . . vanquished.”

  “It could be done,” she said quietly. “Perhaps it will be.”

  “He retreated.” Brad lifted his coffee cup. “He ran because he wasn’t prepared to take
you both on at once.”

  “He might’ve done us both in with that sword he pulled out of thin air. I think we owe Rowena for that one,” Dana said.

  “He was not to shed mortal blood, not to take mortal life. It should never have been allowed. We don’t know why it has been, but since it has, we’ll do whatever we can to prevent him from doing so again.”

  “At what cost to you?” Brad wondered.

  “The responsibility is ours,” Pitte said simply. “As is the cost.”

  “You may not get back now, isn’t that it?” He’d worked it out while trying to keep his mind off his own fears for his friends. “You broke your vow, so even if all three keys are found and used, even if the souls of the Daughters of Glass are freed, you may not be able to go back. You’ll be trapped here, in this dimension. Forever.”

  “That’s not fair.” Seeing the truth of it on Rowena’s face, Zoe stood up. “That’s not justice. That’s not right.”

  “Gods are not always just, and often far from fair.” Touched by Zoe’s defense, Rowena rose. “This was our choice. One might say our moment of truth. And now, will you finish yours?”

  She held out a hand, offering the key to Dana.

  Odd, Dana thought, that she was wobbly in the knees now. But she stood, walked to Rowena. “Whatever promise or rule you broke, you did it to save lives. If you’re punished for that, if that’s the way your world works, maybe you’re better off in ours.”

  “There would be no lock if we had guarded them more closely. They are the innocents, Dana, and they suffer because I was weak.”

  “How long do you have to pay for that?”

  “As long as they do, and longer if that is the law. Take this and open the second lock. You’ll give them hope, and give it to me as well.”

  Pitte lifted the glass box, dancing with blue lights, out of the chest. He placed the Box of Souls with great care on a table, then stood at one side, warrior-straight, while Rowena stood on the other.

  Watching those lights, Dana felt her heart ache.

  There were two locks left, and she slid the key into the first, felt the gold heat against her skin, watched light shoot along the bar, along her fingers as she turned her wrist.

  She heard the quiet click, a kind of sigh, then saw the frantic leap of those three lights. With a flash, both key and lock melted away.

  And there was one lock remaining on the glass prison.

  Rowena stepped forward and kissed Dana on each cheek. “Thank you, for your vision.” Turning, she smiled at Zoe.

  “Looks like I’m up.” Because her cup rattled in her saucer, she set it aside.

  “Will you come, all of you, at seven on the night before the new moon?”

  “The night before the new moon?” Zoe repeated.

  “Friday, seven o’clock,” Brad supplied.

  “Oh. Yes. Okay.”

  “Will you bring your son? I enjoy children, and I’d like to meet him.”

  “Simon? I don’t want to take any chances with Simon.”

  “Neither do I,” Rowena assured her. “I’d like to meet him, and do what I can to see him safe. Whatever I can do, I will do to see that no harm comes to him. I promise you this.”

  Zoe nodded. “He’ll get a big kick out of this place. He’s never seen anything like it.”

  “I look forward to it. Dana? Could I have a word with you, in private?”

  “Sure.”

  Rowena stretched out a hand, and took Dana’s to lead her out of the room.

  “Did I ever tell you I like what you’ve done with the place?” Dana scanned the colorful mosaics on the floor, the silky walls, the gleaming furniture. “I especially like it now that I’ve seen what it could look like under less hospitable circumstances.”

  “It will be yours soon.”

  “Still hard to imagine that.”