“You don’t know that,” Blackstone said. “For all we know—”
“I do know that.” The anger Vivian had been feeling since she had arrived in the restaurant finally boiled over. “And if you people hadn’t been so damned self-involved, this could all have been prevented. I knew it was going to happen. I could sense it. And you all ignored me to go on with your silly little argument.”
Vari let the ladle fall back into the soup. Blackstone’s eyes narrowed. The Fates watched Vivian, small smiles on their faces. Nora and Ariel seemed surprised.
Dex was reclining in his chair, his arm over the back. It looked like he was resting. But Vivian felt him again, as if he were inside of her mind. He was amused and proud of her, all at the same time.
His approval gave her strength.
“You couldn’t have known anything in advance,” Blackstone said. “You haven’t come into your magic yet. You were just nervous.”
“Nervous?” Vivian walked toward him, this tall, pompous man who had lived for centuries. “I wasn’t nervous. I felt something. I knew that we were being watched, and I felt the danger. I tried to tell you people, but you kept interrupting me with your petty argument.”
“Petty?” Blackstone seemed taller than he had a moment before.
“Petty.” Vivian shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stopped right in front of him. She was a lot shorter than he was, but not as short as his cheerleader/lawyer wife.
Blackstone looked surprised. Apparently, people rarely called him on his behavior.
“These women came to you for help,” Vivian said. “They worried about it too, knowing you had a history. And all you and your friend there, Sancho or Darius or Vari or whatever his name is, did is try to figure out ways to make these women pay for some punishment they meted out to you hundreds of years ago. Punishment that was, from what I understand, deserved.”
“You don’t understand,” Blackstone snapped.
“I think I do,” Vivian said.
“Vivian,” Clotho said, with a warning in her voice, but Vivian chose to ignore her. Chose to ignore everyone else except this cold man in front of her.
She didn’t even look at Dex.
“What I understand is this,” Vivian said, raising her chin slightly so that she could look Blackstone in the eye. “You use charm like it’s a magic spell. You pour it on so thick that people think you’re better looking than you really are, and nicer than you really are. And what has your attention at the moment is the fact that these three women scare you and—”
“They do not,” Blackstone said.
“They do. You’re worried that they’re going to punish you again for some imagined slight. Which—” Vivian started to add that Dex had been afraid of the same thing and then changed her mind. That was his secret to tell if he wanted to “—they are in no position to do.”
“I am not afraid of them,” Blackstone said, but his voice shook, belying his words.
The Fates looked amused. Dex leaned slightly to the left, the rope coiled behind him like a tamed snake. His right fist was clenched. He didn’t seem to notice. His entire body vibrated with anger at Blackstone, for the way the man was treating Vivian.
Dex would jump to her defense in a moment, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to do this on her own.
“I’ve never seen Blackstone afraid of anyone,” Vari said, “and I’ve known him the longest.”
“You don’t need to defend him,” Vivian said. “You’re just as bad, maybe worse, because you’re acting out of an anger that you know is misdirected.”
Vari’s pale cheeks flushed. The red accented the blue of his eyes.
Dex shifted in his chair. Vivian made sure she avoided eye contact with him. He would take that as an invitation to help her.
Instead, she glared at Andrew Vari. “You know you were wrong all those years ago, and still you blame them for all you suffered in between.”
“I do not!” Vari said.
“Well, you certainly did when they arrived,” Vivian said. "You’re still broadcasting your desire for revenge. You never thought you’d get this chance. Of course, you’re a little appalled because you didn’t realize you were this angry.”
“You can’t know that,” Vari said. “It’s not possible. You don’t have magic yet.”
“She doesn’t need magic.” Dex’s tone was laconic. “She’s psychic.”
“No one’s that psychic,” Vari said.
“You mean she’s right?” Ariel’s voice rose. She frowned at Vari.
“You were angry at them too,” Vivian said to Ariel. Vivian wanted to include all of them in this. She was furious that they had dismissed her because they thought she had no super power.
Well, she had a strong super power, and it had saved the Fates when they arrived in Portland. These mages and their wives wouldn’t ignore her again.
“You think the Fates hurt your husband unnecessarily,” Vivian said, “and you’re not happy about that either. But you’ll help them if someone else does.”
“Boy.” Ariel winced. “That makes me sound like a humanitarian.”
“It wasn’t meant to,” Vivian said. “There is only one humanitarian in the room and it’s—”
“Quite obviously Vivian.” Dex interrupted her before she could say his name. “She took on the Fates even when she thought they were crazy women. I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt and listen to what she has to say. You’ll be surprised at the depth of her knowledge.”
Vivian turned to him, startled by the way he’d taken control of the conversation away from her. Her anger turned on him for just a moment, until she sensed the emotion beneath his words.
He didn’t want these people to get to know him. He didn’t trust easily, and nothing anyone in this room had done made him trust them.
Vivian frowned. He believed he didn’t trust easily, yet he had trusted her from the moment they met. His expression thawed just slightly and his eyes held a warmth just for her. We’re different. His thought reached her as if it were her own.
And it almost felt like one of her own thoughts. She’d had some similar ones earlier. This feeling she had for Dex—this instant sense of him—was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
“I already am surprised at her knowledge,” Blackstone said. “I should apologize.”
His words took Vivian’s attention away from Dex. The anger returned. “No,” she said to Blackstone. “You shouldn’t apologize. You wouldn’t mean it.”
Vivian walked past him toward the table. Blackstone watched her with something like awe. Dex’s mouth twitched as he tried to suppress a smile.
She was shaking. She hadn’t lost her temper like this in nearly a year—and that incident had occurred at the hotline after months of build-up.
She had never gotten this angry this fast about anything.
“We’ll be all right, dear,” Lachesis said. “If they don’t want to help us, they can spell us to someone who will.”
“There aren’t many who will,” Atropos said. “We’ve never made friends outside of our circle.”
“Surely you haven’t threatened to punish everyone,” Nora said.
The three women faced her as if they were surprised by her comment.
“You work in law, young lady,” Clotho said to Nora. “You know that judges are often feared and mistrusted, especially by people who do nothing wrong.”
“That’s true,” Nora said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“It’s the same for us,” Lachesis said. “Either we’re hated for the punishments we’ve doled out or we’re feared for the ones we might.”
Dexter winced. He had been worried about something that hadn’t happened too.
But, unlike the other mages in the room, he seemed to be able to get beyond his feelings. He had been helping the Fates.
“Well,” Vivian said to the Fates, “I’m not afraid of you, nor am I angry at you. And after all I�
�ve seen today, I certainly believe you are who you say you are. I’m willing to help, whether anyone else here is or not.”
She sat beside Dexter, who was now leaning forward, his head down. Her sense of him vanished again, and she felt oddly alone. Did their connection wink in and out like the building had? Was he doing it?
Or was she?
“And if none of the rest of you are willing,” she said into the silence, “help us figure out who might be.”
The silence grew around her. She was beginning to wonder if she alone would be responsible for three formerly magic, extremely naïve and somehow experienced women. The idea scared her. She was out of her depth, and the people who understood that depth weren’t willing to help.
What was that about fools rushing in? Was Clotho right? Were clichés a lot more painful than Vivian could imagine?
She waited. But no one said a word.
Not even Dex.
ELEVEN
FINALLY, INSTEAD OF SPEAKING, Blackstone came around the table. He grabbed the soup ladle, and picked up Vivian’s bowl. Then he poured some steaming broth into it, and set the food in front of her.
He meant it as a peace offering. She didn’t even need her psychic powers to know that. And it was a good offering. The steam wafted toward her, smelling of beef broth, bay leaves, and thyme, as well as spices she couldn’t identify.
Her stomach growled. She was a lot hungrier than she’d realized.
Blackstone grabbed Dex’s bowl and filled it. Dex watched the movements with scarcely any expression at all, but he was suspicious. Even more than he had been a moment ago.
Blackstone was all about subtlety. Dex was not. Dex preferred open, honest reactions, even though he was hiding his own emotions now. He only did that sort of thing in a group like this one, where his honesty might not be appreciated.
Vivian was astonished that she knew so much about him by just a fleeting touch of their minds. They were winking in and out, but she appreciated even the occasional hint of his emotions.
She hoped he appreciated hers as well, because she knew he was feeling them.
Blackstone was working his way around the table. When the soup was served, he sat down.
“I thought Nora was the only woman who saw me clearly,” Blackstone said. “I’m sorry, Vivian. I misjudged you, and I handled this situation incorrectly. I forgot the most important thing about our Fates.”
“What’s that?” Vivian asked, mostly because she was supposed to.
“That all of their work is about love.”
That sounded like New Age bunkum to her. She started to object when Dex put a hand on her knee. His touch sent a tingle through her.
“He’s right,” Dex said. “They give us all prophecies when we’re born and we’re to try to fulfill them.”
“Lachesis assigns the prophecies,” Atropos said, then shrugged. “You know. Dispenser of Lots.”
“Although sometimes they’re pretty misleading,” Vari said as he reached for the French bread. “Like the one about Cupid. Calling that fat idiot the God of Love is like calling Genghis Khan a Uniter of Countries.”
“Actually, Cupid is one of the reasons we’re here,” Clotho said.
“Shhh,” Lachesis said, looking alarmed.
Atropos bit her lower lip. “I don’t think you can blame our situation in this restaurant on Cupid.”
Vivian frowned. Atropos was lying. Purposefully lying.
Did this Cupid person have something to do with the attacks on the Fates? Or was Atropos lying about something else?
“I thought you took care of Cupid,” Vari said.
“He’s serving time again,” Clotho said. “But he’s been involved in some pretty nefarious—”
“But ultimately unimportant deeds.” Lachesis kicked Clotho under the table. The movement was not subtle; everyone saw it.
“So you think Cupid’s the one who attacked you?” Blackstone asked, spooning some soup from his own bowl.
“Impossible,” Atropos said. “He’s imprisoned.”
“But you mentioned him,” Vivian said. She felt a bit odd accusing a cherub whom she thought of as the God of Love of attacking the Fates.
Clotho shrugged. “We have many enemies.”
She seemed so calm about it.
“We have to figure out who is after you if we’re going to help you,” Dex said. He hadn’t removed his hand from Vivian’s knee. She had no desire to slide his hand away either.
“I didn’t hear anyone volunteer to help the Fates,” she said.
“I just did.” Dex gave her a warm smile. It made her feel as if he had volunteered only because she was involved.
“We’re all going to help,” Blackstone said, as if he were the one in charge of the others.
“Nice of you to ask our permission before you volunteered us,” Ariel said. “I’m training. I don’t have time for this. I have a race in a week.”
Vivian froze. That’s where she recognized Ariel from. Ariel Summers, the marathoner. She had an endorsement contract with Nike, and her picture was on the side of one of the old brick buildings in downtown Portland.
Ariel was really famous. Which made sense with all the magic available to her.
“Didn’t realize who she was, huh?” Vari asked. His voice was kind, though. He seemed to have softened since Vivian yelled at him.
“I knew she looked familiar,” Vivian said.
“It’s all right,” Vari said. “And now it’s my turn to read minds. No one knows about us and the magic. I help her train, but I don’t use my powers. That would be cheating. Ariel has no magic.”
“None?” Vivian said.
“She has a sort of sixth sense about it,” Nora said. “She can see magical edges of things.”
“You tend to glow green when you’re thinking,” Ariel said to Vivian. “Or maybe it’s when you’re receiving other people’s thoughts. I haven’t observed long enough.”
Vivian’s cheeks grew warm. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were doing something wrong.”
“It’s all right,” Ariel said. “I would wonder the same thing in your shoes.”
“And in case you were wondering,” Nora said, “you didn’t breathe a word.”
“It was just your expression that gave you away,” Vari said with a grin. “Don’t ever play poker.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Dex liked to use that I’m-just-an-ignorant-cowboy tone. It made him seem less perceptive than he really was. “I have a hunch she’d be really good at it.”
He squeezed her knee. Vivian looked at him and got lost in his blue eyes. They were so stunning, and the lashes were so very long. An intelligence shone through his eyes that gave him a confidence most people didn’t have—couldn’t have, really. Most people weren’t that smart.
“If she played poker,” Blackstone was saying, “she would have an unfair advantage.”
Vivian turned, breaking her gaze from Dex’s. Blackstone had been talking about her.
Nora hit his arm. “If you’re going to stay this grumpy, you can go back to the kitchen. The rest of us have work to do here.”
“I’m sorry,” Blackstone said, and this time his apology was completely sincere. He turned to the Fates. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what’s going on?”
As the Fates launched into the story for the third time—at least from Vivian’s perspective—she tuned them out and focused on the soup.
It was delicious. The flavor was robust, the vegetables crisp, and the broth just thick enough to give the meal the right texture.
“You know,” Dex said softly, his voice sending a pleasurable shiver down her spine, “Blackstone is something of a legend.”
Lachesis’s voice rose indignantly as she described the Interim Fates.
“I’ve heard of him,” Vivian said.
“No, no,” Dex said. “He’s not that Blackstone. From what I’ve heard, that Blackstone stole his name—”
“He’s not a chef then, after
all?” Vivian asked. “I mean, this stuff is good.”
Atropos had taken up the story now. She held knives in both hands and brandished them like shears as she described her last few days at the job.
Dex frowned. “Of course he’s a chef. He’s just not the—you’ve never heard of William Blackstone, have you?”
“Vaguely,” Vivian said.
Clotho was standing now, waving her arms in big circles, talking about their arrival in Portland.
Vivian listened for half a moment and realized the Fates were telling the same story in the same way using the same language. She wondered how they did that, then decided she didn’t want to know.
Dex scooted his chair closer to hers. “You’re amazing, you know,” he whispered.
Vivian flushed, flattered by his compliment. Then she smiled at herself. Part of her felt like she had known him forever, and another part felt like a giggly schoolgirl on a first date. She kind of liked the combination. It didn’t take the uncertainty from the flirting—the what-kind-of-future-would-we-have feeling—but it added a level of trust that Vivian had never had with anyone outside her family before.
Dex leaned closer. Their heads were almost touching. “You are. They say Blackstone can charm a snake. In fact, they say he has.”
“Oh.” Vivian wasn’t impressed with Blackstone. Some of this stuff sounded like myths the man had made up for himself. Suddenly a pain flared through her neck. She put her hand on it, rubbed it absently, and the pain died away.
“People don’t stand up to him,” Dex said.
“Well, they should.” Vivian finished her soup. It was the best vegetable soup she’d ever had. “He can’t always be right.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Dex’s shoulder brushed hers. She was so aware of his touch, of the scent of him, of his warmth through his shirt. When he was this close, he made her breathless. “What you did took guts.”
“No,” She turned her head toward his to that their eyes met. His were open and honest and full of admiration. Hers were probably the same way. She hoped they were. “What you did took guts.”
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