by Nora Roberts
“No pain, no gain,” Riley shot back with merciless cheer. “I’ll go over philosophy later, because I damn well want coffee, too, but for now, breathe in from your center, and do what I do.”
At least the movements were slow, and she had to admire Riley’s fluidity as she tried to mimic them. But that didn’t stop her quads from aching like rotted teeth.
By the time she sat down she could have wept and whimpered for coffee, but she damn well knew where her center was as it quivered from exhaustion and begged for food. Sawyer produced a platter with a golden mountain of pancakes. Where she’d usually have eaten one, she ate three, actually contemplated a fourth before she decided it might make her sick.
Doyle looked across the table at her. “You’re up.”
“I don’t want to be up. Maybe not ever again.”
“I believe he means your clever and creative chart.” Bran gestured to where Annika had propped it on a chair, like another team member.
“Oh. Well. I’ve got me and Bran on cleanup, Riley on Apollo and chickens.”
“Wolf in the henhouse.”
Riley sent Sawyer a sharp, sweet smile. “You’re a barrel of monkeys.”
“Annika and I hit the garden to weed and harvest,” Sasha continued.
“I’m on the pool, Bran’s on the lawn mower. Annika’s on laundry.” Sawyer grinned at the chart. “Leaves Riley and Doyle on the supply run. I think I like the pictures of the bag of groceries and boxes of ammo best.”
“Give me ten for the cluckers, another ten to grab a shower.” Riley downed the rest of her coffee. “Another five to make a call, see where we’ll find the best place for the ammo.”
“The household supply list is on the dresser in my room.”
Nodding at Sasha, Riley pushed away from the table. “Got it. Fifteen tops,” she said and jogged off. How could she jog, Sasha wondered bitterly, to deal with the chickens?
“Might as well grab a swim before I play pool boy.”
Doyle rose as Sawyer did. “Fifteen minutes to add anything to the supply list, otherwise, you get what you get.”
Annika sat a moment after the others left, then looked apologetically at Sasha. “I don’t know how to laundry. Can you teach me?”
“Go ahead.” Bran waved them away. “I’ve got this.”
* * *
By the time she’d finished giving Annika a lesson on separating clothes, water temperatures, cycles, he’d nearly finished the dishes.
So she and her partner for the morning went out to the garden with hoes, rakes, shears, and a plastic tub from the shed.
They worked with Annika happily humming. She could hear the rumble of the lawn mower, the drone of bees, and the swish of the sea at the base of the cliff.
All so normal, Sasha thought, so everyday. Anyone looking at the picture would see a group of people tending to household chores. But they were far more.
She bided her time, noting that Annika caught on quickly to hoeing out the weeds, just as she’d caught on quickly to the basics of doing laundry.
But she’d clearly done neither before.
“So you have six sisters,” Sasha began.
“Yes.”
“You must miss them.”
“I do, but I’m happy here. Even though we have to fight, and some of the work is hard.”
“Six sisters,” Sasha repeated. “And you’ve never done laundry before.”
“Today I’m doing laundry.”
“So you had staff?”
Obviously puzzled, Annika straightened, mimed holding a tall stick. “Staff?”
“Not that kind. People. People who do things like laundry and cooking and cleaning.”
“Oh. We’re staff now.”
Annika bent back to her weeding, avoiding Sasha’s eye.
“You’ve never really said where you live.”
Annika weeded another moment, then stopped, turned to face Sasha again. “Will you be my friend?”
“I am your friend.”
“Will you be my friend and not ask what I can’t tell you? I can promise, I have nothing bad. It’s . . .”
“Like an oath.”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Annika reached out to take Sasha into a hug. “Thank you. You taught me laundry.” She eased back, smiling. “I’ll teach you how to . . .” Bending over, she lifted her legs into a ridiculously fluid handstand.
“I think that’s going to take a lot longer than teaching you how to do laundry.”
“I’ll teach you.” Annika dropped down again. “And we’ll find the stars. When we do, and they’re where they belong, I can tell you everything.”
“All right. And whatever it is, we’re still going to be friends.”
After gardening and laundry, after supplies were put away and they ate the gyros Riley brought back from the village, Sasha had her first lesson in gun safety.
A very patient Sawyer spent considerable time with her and Annika—the only ones who’d never fired a gun—showing them how to load, unload, reload, how to sight, how to use the safety, how to take it off.
As instructed, Annika slapped the magazine into one of Sawyer’s 9 mms.
“I don’t like it. It feels cold and mean.”
“You don’t have to like it. You have to respect it. A lot of GSWs are accidents, from carelessness. Gunshot wounds,” he explained. “People who don’t learn how to properly handle a gun, who don’t properly secure it when not in use. Some insist guns don’t kill. People do. But guns do kill, and knowing that, respecting that, is really important.”
“Did this gun kill someone?”
“No. But I know it can. I know I can. If there’s no choice.”
He looked down to where the others had set up a temporary target range, with paper targets over a thick sheet of wood.
“Time to try them out. Safeties on.”
Sasha didn’t like the feel of the gun any more than Annika, but she carried it down to the range, where Riley took over the lesson.
“We’re going to start with stance and grip. Basic Weaver stance,” she told Sawyer, “Two-handed grip.”
When she demonstrated, Annika shook her head.
“Sawyer shoots the gun with one hand.”
“And when you can shoot like Dead-Eye here, be my guest. For now, two hands. Your dominant hand presses the weapon forward slightly, and the other draws it back. Balancing. This’ll help you with the recoil. Dominant foot back and to the side, the other forward, knee bent. Most of the weight’s on your front foot.”
She had them practice, again and again, getting into position, lifting an unloaded weapon to eye level.
“Okay. Who wants to shoot first?”
“Sasha does,” Annika said immediately.
“Okay.”
“Load it like I showed you,” Sawyer told her.
When she had, Riley stepped behind her. “Take your time, take your stance, raise your weapon.” She laid a hand on Sasha’s back. “Don’t hold your breath when you squeeze the trigger. Squeeze it, slow and smooth and let your breath out.”
She did, felt the kick all the way to her shoulder, and the force of it, the sound of it like a punch in the heart.
She didn’t miss the target entirely, but put a bullet in the second ring in, to the right.
“Not bad. Adjust your stance, relax your shoulders. Try it again.”
The next shot hit higher, and still well to the right of center.
“You’re pulling it to the right. Think about that, fire again.”
Lower this time, Sasha noted, and another ring closer.
She fired several more, never hit center, but shot what Riley called a decent grouping.
She stepped aside, more than happy to unload and set the gun down, so Annika could step to the line.
Riley adjusted her stance, her grip, then stepped back.
Annika fired when told, missed the paper target, plowed a bullet into the wood.
“Okay. It’s okay. Don’t hold your breath. Don’t close your eyes. Eyes on the target this time, and squeeze the trigger.”
She did, hit the white of the paper, then lowered the gun.
“I won’t learn this. I’m sorry.” Deliberately she unloaded, handed the gun carefully to Sawyer. “I’m sorry, I can’t learn this. I’ll work harder, and I’ll fight, but I can’t do this. It feels evil in my hand. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hey, don’t,” he said quickly when her eyes welled with tears. “We’ll find something else for you. No guns.” He looked meaningfully at Doyle. “She doesn’t have to use a gun.”
“Her call.”
“Yeah, it is. See that.” Sawyer holstered the weapon, put an arm around her shoulders. “Your call.”
“I’m going to fold the laundry. Sasha showed me how. I’m going to go fold the laundry.”
“We’ll think of something else,” Sawyer said to the group when she dashed off.
“I might be able to come up with something.” Bran looked after her. “Something that would give her a weapon, a defense, and not upset her. Let me work on it.”
* * *
By the time they’d concluded what Sasha thought of as Weaponry 101, she found all the laundry finished, folded—and her own share neatly stacked on her bed.
And the house sparkled.
She found Annika in the kitchen, diligently unloading the dishwasher.
“I cleaned the house.”
“I’ll say.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You need to stop being sorry. No one’s mad at you.”
“I didn’t do my task.”
“Because it’s wrong, for you. Everyone understands.” Sasha thought of her sore and aching muscles, weighed them against friendship. “You said you’d teach me the handstand. You could give me a couple private lessons before you work with everyone. Give me a—ha-ha—leg up.”
“Yes, I can. I will.”
“How about now?”
She failed, and even when Annika held her legs, Sasha’s arms and shoulder muscles quivered and pinged like plucked harp strings. During the group lesson, after multiple face and/or ass plants, she was relegated to practicing simple forward and backward rolls.
She would get stronger. She would get better.
Deeming herself finished, she took her aches and pings off for a soak in the hot tub. She considered doing laps, as Doyle had suggested, but the way her arms and legs felt, she’d probably sink straight to the bottom of the pool and drown.
Besides, she’d damn well earned a break.
She hit the jets—ahh—adjusted her sunglasses. She’d just sunk down to her chin when she saw Annika and Riley coming her way.
She liked their company, but at the moment she’d have preferred the moans she knew would come to be a private thing.
Riley set a pitcher of margaritas on the table, poured three glasses. And Annika held up a small bottle.
“Bran said to add this to the water.”
“What is it?”
“Lavender and rosemary and . . .” She looked to Riley.
“Magic. He said it would take care of any muscle soreness. Dump it in, Anni. We’re going to test it out.” Riley handed Sasha a glass.
“I’m not sore.” But Annika poured in the pale green liquid.
“She tempts me to say fuck you.” Riley boosted herself into the tub.
“Consider it said.” Sasha closed her eyes, sipped the frothy drink. She heard the splash as Annika chose the pool instead.
“I hurt everywhere, and it’s worse knowing I’m going to be squatting and lunging and running at dawn tomorrow.”
“Add in upper body work.”
Sasha slitted her eyes open. “Consider it repeated in your direction.”
“We’ll be diving tomorrow, so that’ll mix things up. And maybe we’ll get lucky. I left Sawyer and Doyle working out where.”
“Bran?”
“He got a brainstorm about Annika’s deal, so he went up to work on it.”
Sasha decided she’d go up and help him with it. Eventually. “God, this smells so good. Why don’t I have one of these at home?”
“A hot tub, or a hot magician to make you magic hot tub potions?”
She smiled to herself. “Both.”
“Bet you could get both.”
“Bran, in my little house in the mountains? He has New York, and Ireland. My place is so isolated, so quiet, and he’s . . . he’s larger than life, isn’t he? All that power. He banks it—that’s control—but it’s huge, and passionate, and more than could be satisfied living in a little house in North Carolina.”
“Will you be, once we’re done with what we’re here for?”
“I don’t know anymore.” And that shifted her balance. “But I think I’ll always need a quiet place to go, to live, to paint. I’ll never block what I have again, or feel I have to be alone. I know more about myself, what I’m capable of. I know what it is to be a part of something really important. Something worth fighting for. And when I look at myself now . . .
“The mirror sees the truth, hard and bare. What she fears and fights against lives in the glass. And there lies her end, one only the stars can change. She fears her end.”
She came back to herself with Riley gripping her arm to keep her head above water and calling for Annika.
“I’m all right. I’m okay.”
“Take a hit.” Riley pushed the glass back in her hand. “I saved it when it started to tip out of your hand.”
Sasha shook her head, let out a breath. “Give me a second.”
“The water’s too hot, and you’re pale. Come, cool off in the pool.”
“Good thinking.” With a nod to Annika, Riley put the glass aside, pulled Sasha to her feet. “Out and in, pal.”
She obeyed, as she did feel too hot, and somehow too . . . loose. The cooler water of the pool helped offset the dizziness so she was able to climb out again on her own.
“Do you remember what you said?” Riley asked her.
“Yes. About a mirror, about the truth in it. I’m not sure what it means.”
“We should go in,” Annika decided. “Out of the sun.”
Yes, Sasha thought. She’d get out of her wet bathing suit, take a moment or two to settle. “One good thing.” She rolled her shoulders before wrapping herself in a towel. “I don’t ache anymore.”
Though she brushed off the offers to help her change, she realized they’d gone straight to Bran when he walked in before she’d buttoned up a dry shirt.
“Let me look at you.”
“I’m all right. They didn’t have to interrupt you for this.”
He simply put his hands on her shoulders, took a long study of her face. “No headache?”
“No. I didn’t try to block it. It comes on in a wave—and it leaves me a little shaky, but it didn’t hurt. You were right about that.”
“Describe what happened.”
“Riley and I were in the hot tub—Annika put your potion in the water. Wonderful, by the way. I was relaxed, and we were just talking about . . .” She adjusted here. She certainly wasn’t going to bring up Riley’s suggestion he’d come live with her in North Carolina.
“Talking about what?”
“How I knew myself better since all this started, and knew what it was to be part of something. Then it was that wave again. It’s like being pulled by an undertow. But this time, I tried to go with it instead of fighting to stay up.”
“What did you see?”
“I—” She broke off at the knock on her door.
“Are you okay in there?” Sawyer called out.
“Yes. I’m coming down. I need to organize my thoughts,” she said to Bran.
“All right.” He ran his hand over her damp hair. “We’ll go down.”
They’d already gathered on the terrace, so she sat, took a breath. “I’m sorry because I don’t really understand what I meant, what I saw. It might have been a room
, it might have been a cave. Everything was gold and silver and shining. Like a really elegant house of mirrors. It was like I was standing there in it, but I couldn’t see myself. Then I picked up a mirror—but it wasn’t my hand. I think it was hers. Nerezza. She picked up this jeweled mirror, but when she looked in it, what looked back was not just old. Ancient. Gray and withered. Sunken eyes, thin gray hair. Hardly more than a skull. Nothing else reflected. The glass around that image was pure black.
“The glass shattered, and that face was in all the shards, hundreds of shards. And the shards went to smoke, and it all went dark.”
“You said the mirror sees the truth,” Riley reminded her.
“I know.”
“An allegory?” Sawyer suggested. “She’s ancient, being a god—but the mirror sees her soul or heart or whatever you want to call it as withered and dark?”
“We don’t need a seer to know that,” Doyle pointed out. “Maybe she’s got a Dorian Gray thing going.”
Struck, Riley pointed a finger at him. “And the mirror reflects what she really is. It ages, shows her sins and all that while she stays young and beautiful.”
“It’s a theory.”
“A good one. If there actually is a mirror, and we destroyed it—there lies her end.”
“I don’t know. What I saw . . . She destroyed the mirror. She’d hardly end herself.”
“Another mirror, another glass,” Bran suggested.
“I’ll do some digging on it.” Riley picked up her margarita again. “You said only the stars could change it. We can speculate that’s another reason she wants them so bad. There’s a way to end her—not just stop her, but end her. And if she gets the stars, the way’s done.”
“I’ll do some checking on mirror spells,” Bran added. “The stars remain first priority. Have you two chosen where we dive tomorrow?”
Doyle nodded. “We mapped out routes to three caves. We should be able to do all three, but we can hit two for certain. You’ll want to get a meal in before
