The Lost Enchantress

by Patricia Coughlin

  “The prophecy?” Eve asked as she took it from her, a flash of excitement overriding her trepidation.

  “Yes . . . gently, gently please,” she cautioned as Eve started to unroll it. “That scroll is at least four hundred years old, and very fragile.”

  Now that it was actually in her hand, Eve was eager to see what it said, but she paused to give her grandmother a skeptical look. “Four hundred years old? Really? I would have thought something that old would be in worse shape . . . a lot worse. In fact, without any special preservation treatment, I wouldn’t expect it to be here at all.”

  Grand’s shrug was philosophical. “It is what it is meant to be. The prophecy itself is far older than that scroll, and far more sweeping in its entirety. The original is locked away in the council’s archives; what you’re holding is a transcription of the passages that most concern our family. I hope it will answer the question you have yet to ask.”

  “Don’t rush me,” Eve grumbled without any real rancor. “These things take time.”

  “Would it pique your interest to know that the prophecy foretold the loss of the talisman and the magic it represented, and the long stretch of misfortune that followed? And,” she said and then paused a beat, to heighten anticipation, Eve was certain. “It tells that there is only one way for T’airna magic to be restored, and only one who can bring it about.”

  “The Lost Enchantress,” Eve said, running her fingers over the parchment.

  Grand nodded. “Yes. It says she will be both blessed and marked, and you are both, Eve.”

  “Blessed?” Eve countered, trying not to sound cynical.

  Again her grandmother nodded firmly. “You are blessed with innate magic greater than any I have ever seen. I recognized it in you from the time you were very young. And you are marked with the sign of the goddess. It cannot be happenstance that your birthmark and the markings on the talisman are the same.”

  “Does it happen to say exactly how this blessed and marked woman will do it?” Eve inquired.

  “It does indeed,” Grand assured her. “She does it by choosing to do it.”

  Eve rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly why I hate prophecies; the instructions are always so damn vague. Not like the Ten Commandments. When something is carved in stone, you know exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Which I imagine is why prophecies are not carved in stone. They’re not commandments,” Grand argued. “They’re . . . possibilities. To be seized or lost as we see fit; it’s always a choice . . . or hundreds of small choices we make along the way, most without a moment’s thought. The talisman was lost by an enchantress who chose not to claim her power. Maura had no patience for magic; she considered it a burden and refused to be taught or trained to use it. She was very young; perhaps in time she would have changed her mind, but she never got that chance.

  “The choices she made led to a devastating loss for our family, the loss of love and magic.” A current of raw emotion ran through Grand’s words. “They will only be restored to us when the one enchantress meant to claim the full power of the talisman freely chooses to do so.”

  “And you really think I might be the one who can do that?” Eve asked her.

  “I don’t think it,” said her grandmother. “I believe it. I always have.” She waited a few seconds for that to sink in before adding, “But what I believe is not important. The future depends on what you believe. And on what you choose to do about it.”

  Eve shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t even know what to think about . . . all this.” She indicated the scroll.

  “That’s why you must read it. Reading the prophecy will help you understand what is possible; you must choose for yourself if that is the path you will take.” She began to return things to the box, holding on to the letters just a little longer than anything else.

  Observing her, Eve felt a rush of tenderness. “Do you ever read them, Grand?”

  “The letters? Not as much as I once did. There’s no need; I know by heart most every word he wrote.” She pressed them to her chest, her lips curving in a gentle smile. “Your grandfather was quite romantic for a young man.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Barely twenty. I was eighteen when he went off. Officially, Ireland remained neutral during the war; it was even referred to as ‘the Emergency,’ as if not calling it a war made it somehow less pressing. But your grandfather would have none of it; off he went to join a British regiment.”

  Eve turned her head to look at the sepia-toned photograph on the bedside table. In it, the grandfather she’d never met was a young man with wavy hair and happy eyes, a man clearly proud to be in uniform. “I suppose to a young man war can seem like an adventure.”

  “That wasn’t his reason for going. He told me he did it because he was needed and he couldn’t turn away from what he knew in his heart was right. People were suffering and dying, and he was young and fit and brave. Liam Conor believed that if it was within your power to do good, you ought to.”

  “Smooth, Grand,” Eve said with a bemused smile. “Very smooth. You reeled me right in. And I get the message.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Grand responded, closing the box with a satisfied air. “I’ll just leave you to read in peace.

  Eve read; she read of power lost and power claimed, and of an enchantress lost to the art, and to herself. And as she read, time seemed to slide backwards. The ornate script and dated poetic language reminded her of reading the Winter Rose Spell for the first time.

  The gift of power bestowed by a goddess and stolen by darkness

  can be restored only by the enchantress

  Born with the mark of ancient favor,

  Decieved by tragedy of her own making,

  And lost to destiny by her own choice.

  And like the first time she read the spell, she was swept by a sense that the words before her had been written for her and her alone.

  With one enormous difference: then she had been fifteen and fearless, and now . . . now she was neither.

  When she left the room, she found Grand sitting at her kitchen table, a thick book with gilt edged pages and a worn leather binding open in front of her. Maura T’airna may not have wanted to learn the family business, but Grand had never stopped. It suddenly occurred to Eve that all that hard-won knowledge and experience might well end with her grandmother. She used to believe that would be the best thing for all concerned; now she wasn’t so sure, and the thought of Grand’s legacy being lost forever filled her with sadness. And regret that things hadn’t turned out differently . . . that she hadn’t turned out differently.

  Grand lifted her head and peered at Eve over the top of her reading glasses. “All done?”

  “Done reading. But I still need more time to think.” Eve held up the scroll. “Do you mind if I hang on to this for a while?”

  “Not at all. By rights, it belongs to you.”

  “Maybe,” Eve demurred. “That’s what I need to figure out. But I did make up my mind about something else. I’m going to take some time off from work. I’ll call and clear it with Angela first thing in the morning. Between vacation days and comp time, I have nearly a month accumulated. I’m hoping I won’t need that long, but however long it takes, I intend to get the talisman back from Pavane. And I won’t be asking the council or your friends for help doing it.”

  A deep V formed between Grand’s lowered brows. “I’m delighted that you’re taking this to heart, but Pavane is not the sort you should confront alone.”

  “I have no intention of doing it alone. I agree that we shouldn’t ask others to put themselves at risk on our behalf, but we’re not the only ones with something at stake here.”

  For just an instant her grandmother appeared puzzled, and then she smiled. “Of course. Gabriel Hazard. Do you think he would be willing to help us?”

  “Willing? No. But he’ll do it anyway. I may not know Hazard well, b
ut I know something about him that he’s forgotten; he’s an honorable man. We made a deal, and he’ll live up to his end whether he likes it or not.”

  “He’s not going to like this,” Taggart told her. They were standing just inside Hazard’s front door. “He’s not a pleasant sort on the best of mornings, and being woken before he’s ready will make him even less bearable, especially seeing as he only went to bed a few hours ago. He was holed up in the turret with that web thing of his until the wee hours.”

  Eve eyed him curiously. “Web thing?”

  “Right, that Internet web thing he carries about.”

  “Oh, you mean a laptop . . . a computer.”

  “That’s it,” he confirmed with a vigorous nod. “He was at it long after I called it a night, and he was good and nettled even then because I lost Pavane’s scent and couldn’t ferret out a clue to where he might be holed up. I doubt a few hours’ sleep will have improved his mood any.”

  “His mood is irrelevant,” she retorted, not bothering to mention to Taggart that he wasn’t the only one who’d contributed to Hazard’s lousy mood last night; he’d been good and nettled when she left and for reasons that had nothing to do with Taggart or Pavane. “I need to talk to him.”

  She wouldn’t have been dissuaded even if Taggart’s demeanor had matched his worried protests, but it didn’t. He looked slyly amused that she’d shown up just past the crack of dawn, demanding to see Hazard. In fact, he looked as if he’d like nothing better than to see what commotion would result if she insisted on waking the grizzly bear before he was finished hibernating. Which is exactly what she was determined to do.

  Hazard was the one who’d dragged her into this. If not for trying to help break his curse, she might never have done whatever it was she did that summoned Pavane back to the realm of the living. Hazard was responsible for things going from bad to worse, and he could damn well get down here and help her come up with a plan to fix it.

  “Coffee?” she inquired, flashing her sweetest smile as she offered Taggart one of the three cups in the cardboard tray she was carrying. She’d stopped at a coffee shop on the way because she was pretty certain there wouldn’t be a pot of anything on when she got there and she needed Hazard awake and firing on all cylinders. She’d picked up a cup for Taggart to be nice, not intending to use it to bribe him, but, hey, if that’s what it took, so be it.

  He grinned happily. “Cream and sugar?”

  Eve nodded at the bag in the center of the tray. “Plenty of both to go around. There are muffins in there too.”

  “Muffins?” His blue eyes sparkled as he took the cup from her. “What kind?”

  “Blueberry and cinnamon raisin.”

  Eve held out the bag; he took it.

  “Go on up,” he said cheerfully before turning and heading toward the kitchen.

  “Me?” Eve called after him. “Wait! I thought you would go up and wake him and tell him I was here.”

  “You thought wrong,” he tossed over his shoulder. “It’s the room on the right, darling. Best of luck to you.”

  Eve stared glumly at his back and realized this was her own damn fault. She was no novice at trading perks for favors or information; she should have held on to the coffee and muffins until after he’d fetched Hazard. Now she was stuck doing her own dirty work.

  The room on the right, Taggart had said. That must mean that changes had been made since she’d last been there, she thought as she climbed the stairs. Back then, there had been only a bathroom, a linen closet and a tiny room designed to be a nursery on the right. The bath was now at the end of the hall, with a large bedroom on either side. The new look made being there a little easier, though she still had to take a deep breath and concentrate to keep her memories in check.

  She stopped in front of the closed door on the right and shifted the tray to one hand so she could knock.

  There was no response. She put her ear close to the door and listened. Silence. Either the door was especially soundproof or Hazard didn’t snore.

  She knocked again, harder. “Hazard?”

  The response came in a sleepy growl. “Piss off, Taggart.”

  Taggart was right; Hazard wasn’t a morning person.

  She cleared her throat and tried a third time. “It’s not Taggart. It’s me. Eve.”

  Again she heard that rough growl, but this time it was impossible to decipher what he said, and she had a hunch that was for the best.

  “Hazard, I need to talk to you,” she said loudly.

  There was a short pause.

  “Now?” he asked, his deep voice heavy with sleep, and annoyance.

  “Now.” There might have been some movement on the other side of the door, but Eve couldn’t be sure. “So either you come out here or I’m coming in there.” She waited about thirty seconds. “I’m going to count to three and then I’m coming in. One. Two. Th—”

  The door was yanked open and she was face-to-face with Hazard, looking all sleep mussed and sexy as hell. His hair was tousled, his jaw stubbled. She had sudden wild urges; she wanted to smooth and pet and do other inappropriate things. He had the disheveled look of a man who’d grabbed the first thing he saw and dragged it on. His black jeans were zipped but unbuttoned; his black cotton shirt hung open. She had a vision of herself stripping both off him and shoving him back onto the tangled sheets on the bed behind him.

  Get a grip, she told herself, suddenly realizing that his lips were moving and she had no idea what he’d said.

  “Umm,” she stalled, fooling no one.

  He looked daggers at her blank stare. “I asked what was so important that you had to come pounding on my door in the middle of the night to talk about it.”

  “Oh. Well. This is obviously not the middle of the night,” she pointed out.

  “It’s the middle of my night,” Hazard retorted.

  She looked into those gray eyes dark with irritation and held out the cardboard tray. “Coffee?”

  “Coffee? That’s what you dragged me out of bed for?”

  “No, of course not. I just thought a nice hot cup of coffee might make up for waking you.” She shrugged and lowered the tray. “Obviously I was wrong.”

  “What do you want, Eve?”

  “I want the pendant.” Her tone was suddenly as abrupt as his, her expression as unsmiling. “I want to find Pavane and get it back. And I want you to help me.”

  He shook his head. “Not a good idea. Not after last night.”

  “What’s the matter, Hazard? Afraid you were so good I won’t be able to keep my hands off you?”

  “Maybe you should be afraid that I won’t be able to keep my hands off you,” he countered, his voice soft and lethal.

  “Well, I’m not.” She ignored the little trill of excitement his heated gaze sent dancing along her spine. “Let’s just forget last night happened and focus on the fact that we had a deal. You were supposed to return the talisman to me unharmed.”

  “And you were supposed to help break the curse.”

  “Exactly,” Eve agreed. “And thanks to Pavane, neither of us got the job done. So instead of standing here bickering and wasting time, get dressed and meet me downstairs so we can figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

  He didn’t like the idea; that was evident in the quick, disparaging slant of his mouth and the slight narrowing of his eyes. Eve suspected he was searching for a reason to refuse . . . a way to weasel out of their deal with dignity. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t know the reason for his sudden, mysterious aloofness, but she wasn’t about to let it interfere with what she had to do . . . with what they had to do. Finding Pavane and recovering the pendant was more important than his broodiness.

  “You gave me your word,” she reminded him. “And no matter how bitter and detached you think you are, I’m willing to bet that still means something to you.”

  He gave her a hard look. “Tread carefully, Enchantress. You stand to lose a great deal betting on me.”
He took one of the cups from her tray. “Wait downstairs.”

  Hazard closed his bedroom door and stood for a moment with his hand pressed flat against it. Annoyed. Worried. Elated. The only thing he wanted more than he wanted to stay the hell away from Eve was to be with her. It made no sense. Not much did since she’d come into his life. Thanks to her he was questioning things he knew to be true, and wishing for things he could never have. The woman had brought more than color back to his world; she’d brought longing and confusion and—most dangerous of all—hope. It was a futile hope, of course, but that didn’t stop it from creeping into his head, and his heart. He had to fight to keep it in check.

  And to make the task even harder, he’d gone and agreed to work side by side with her for God knew how long, ostensibly to honor the bargain they’d struck. He could have walked away from it . . . and from her. He should have walked away, for her sake if not his own. What they shared last night was amazing. He knew exactly what she’d felt because he’d felt it too, with one important difference: he knew that it was a dead end. That he was a dead end. Eve deserved much better.

  His situation alone ought to be enough to scare her off. A man with a death wish is the wrong man for any woman. Unfortunately, everything he’d learned about Eve warned that she didn’t scare or discourage easily. Faced with a dead end, she was the sort to dig in her heels, roll up her sleeves and find a way over, under or if need be, straight through in order to get where she wanted to go. Just the thought of her doing that for his sake made his heart beat recklessly. It wouldn’t take much to encourage a woman like that.

  Moving away from the door, he did something he rarely did: he shrugged off his shirt and stood in front of the mirror. His unlined face and never-changing body were to him what steel bars and shackles were to a prisoner, ever-present visual reminders of his captivity, and he needed no reminders. The silence and loneliness of his existence made the point well enough. It didn’t matter how much music he listened to on the finest sound system money could buy, or how many noisy crowds he emerged himself in; he couldn’t escape the crushing stillness of never hearing someone say his name or inquire about his day or wonder out loud if he’d remembered to lock the door or feed the cat or pay the bloody rent. Someone to whom such things mattered because they shared with him all the trifling details that make a life.