“Travers.” Zoe tugged again. “I think we should leave.”
“I’m not leaving. Something’s happened to Meg—”
“I happened to Meg.” Robin came out of the bedroom. He had found another robe. It barely fit across his chest, and it left his legs bare.
They were sexy legs, athlete’s legs. And his feet were perfectly shaped.
She really hadn’t taken the time to look at him, and she should have. He was so gorgeous.
“You?” Travers strangled the word out. “You took advantage of my sister?”
That got Megan’s attention back on the situation. She turned toward her brother.
His blue eyes were blazing, his skin pale. He looked ready for battle.
“Trav,” Megan said. “Calm down.”
“Calm down when this pervert seduced you? You barely know each other.”
“He kissed me,” Megan said.
“It looks like a lot more than kissing happened here.” Travers put his fists against his hips.
“Travers, stop,” Zoe said.
“She’s my sister. She doesn’t need anyone to take advantage of her.”
“He didn’t take advantage,” Megan said.
“You may think that,” Travers said, “but he’s old enough to be your—great-great … ancestor.”
“So?” Megan asked.
“So older guys, younger girls. That’s always a bad combo, Meg. You know that.”
Zoe let go of Travers’ arm and crossed her own.
“What about older women and younger men?” she asked. Her question was deceptively calm. “Is that a bad combo?”
“We’re different, Zoe, and you know it,” Travers snapped.
“Explain to me how,” Zoe said. “I’d really like to know.”
“We’re in love.”
“Who says we’re not?” Rob asked.
Megan shivered. That feeling earlier. Had that been love? She had thought so in the middle of it all, but she’d learned so often that what she thought was permanent, others thought was ephemeral.
Travers glared at Rob. “I say. You haven’t known her long enough.”
“How long have you known Zoe?” Rob asked.
Travers let his fists drop from his hips. Zoe stood back, a skeptical expression on her face.
Megan moved between her brother and Rob.
Her lover.
“You know, this isn’t going to get any of us anywhere,” she said, dropping into her psychologist persona. “Robin and I are consenting adults. And I most certainly consented. In fact, I was consenting again when you came barging in the door, and I must say that I’ll consent any time in the future if each time is as absolutely spectacular as this first time.”
Travers blinked once, looked at Megan, then at Rob, and then closed his eyes. Then he rubbed his thumb and forefinger on the bridge of his nose, and said in a pained voice, “Waaay too much information.”
“Yeah,” Megan snapped. “Like seeing you and your fiancé in full—whatever that was. We’re even now.”
Zoe grinned. “I do like you.”
“Then tell my brother I’m not thirteen.”
Travers opened his eyes. They were still blazing blue. He didn’t look at Megan. He looked at Rob.
“But you see, that’s the problem. She is thirteen inside. She doesn’t understand men for all her fancy education. She gets too involved and then gets hurt, and you—you have a history, and probably thousands of women, and my sister isn’t somebody who can be loved and left. You got that? Because she deserves better.”
Megan’s breath caught.
“You have quite the protector,” Rob said softly.
“I tried to tell you I didn’t need one,” Megan said.
Rob put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her against him. His body felt solid against her back.
“Zoe’s been teaching me spells,” Travers said. “I may not be as old as you or as famous as you, but I can take you on if I have to—”
“Travers,” Megan said again. “I consented.”
“And he’ll hurt you,” Travers said. “They always do.”
“Have a little faith in me,” Megan said, but those tears were threatening again. He was right. They always hurt her. Everyone seemed to, even without meaning to. “I know what I’m doing.”
“And so do I,” Rob said. “I love your sister.”
Megan felt her heart flutter. She felt cocooned in emotion—the same emotion that had touched her when she and Rob were in bed.
“You don’t know her well enough,” Travers snapped.
“I think you should stop now,” Zoe said. “You probably don’t want to say much more.”
“She’s my sister. He’s some thousand-year-old legend.”
“Eight hundred years,” Rob said tightly.
“I thought you said age doesn’t matter,” Zoe said.
“She’s my sister,” Travers repeated.
“When he doesn’t have an argument,” Megan said as calmly as she could, “he gets louder. I think he doesn’t want to think about me and Rob naked. I certainly think he doesn’t want to think about me and Rob having fun while naked. And I absolutely think that he doesn’t want to think about us having fun naked again any time soon. So he’s going to do what he can to stop it—”
“Jeez, Meg, give it a rest,” Travers said. Then he cursed and stomped into the living room. “I hate it when you’re right. I’m going to have to wash out my brain now.”
Because she was mad beneath her professional calm, she said, “Not until I tell you exactly what we did.”
He let out a yelp and flopped onto the couch, his hands over his ears. Zoe gave her a sideways grin, then went into the living room to comfort her fiancé.
Rob stood perfectly still for a moment, and then he chuckled.
“You’re really quite brilliant, you know,” he said.
“Well, I have to be to make up for my brother,” Megan said. “He’s an ass.”
“He loves you.”
She nodded.
“He’s seen you hurt before.”
Those tears again. Dammit. Would they always be there, right below the surface?
Rob turned her toward him, put a finger under her chin, and lifted her face to his. Then he kissed her. He meant it as a calming kiss—she could sense that—but it went beyond that. The passion that had been interrupted moments before returned, as strong as ever—
“I’d tell you to get a room,” Travers said, “but you already have one. Still, can this…utterly disturbing moment wait for, say, half an hour? We were supposed to talk with you about the wheel.”
“We waited for you,” Megan said, deliberately wrapping her arms around Robin. She was still mad at her brother, and she didn’t care what he saw.
“Well, yeah, you have a point.” Travers sounded nervous, but Megan wasn’t about to turn around and look at him.
Instead, Rob was the one who broke out of the embrace.
“We do need to discuss the wheel,” he said.
Megan frowned at him. “You’re the one who didn’t want to be involved,” she said.
“And you’re the one who pissed off Zeus,” Rob said.
“Zeus?” Zoe sounded scared. “How did you make him angry?”
“We have no idea whether I did or not,” Megan said.
“She promised to help the Interim Fates,” Rob said to Zoe.
Zoe’s eyes were wide. “Help them with what?”
Megan sighed and pulled her robe tighter. “They have an emotionally abusive, controlling father who doesn’t care about them at all. They’ve been thrust into a job that they have no training for, and they’re expected to perform well. They have no abilities to take care of themselves, let alone others, and they’re frightened. Someone has to help them.”
Zoe just stared at her. Travers let his arms drop. He sighed and leaned forward on the couch, then shook his head.
“You can take the psychologist out of her practice
,” he said softly, “but you can’t take the practice out of the psychologist.”
“I don’t think switching the cliché really works,” Megan said, “but you made your point. And you’re wrong. I wasn’t being intrusive. Those girls need help.”
“Those girls have more power than all of us combined,” Zoe said quietly.
“Power means nothing,” Megan said. “I’ve counseled teenagers who’ve had more money and more power than I have, but that still didn’t stop them from being screwed up. These girls need a lot more than a pile of magic books and some instructions on running the world. They need someone to care for them."
“You said you’d do that?” Travers asked slowly.
“I said we’d help them get out of that job,” Megan said. They were still staring at her. She was glad she couldn’t see Rob’s face. She already knew how he felt about this. “I figured we can do it since we know where the real Fates are.”
“She did get the Interims to agree to step down if the real Fates come back,” Rob said, “but whether they do that or not remains to be seen.”
“You think they won’t,” Zoe said. It didn’t take a psychologist to infer that, considering his tone.
Travers had his hands stuck through his hair. He was still shaking his head. “You know, sometimes I think I’m going to wake up and find myself in front of my computer, doing Mrs. Jacobson’s taxes. And sometimes, I think I’d be happy doing just that.”
Zoe gave him a sideways look. “Having second thoughts?”
He grinned up at her. “Not after this afternoon.”
It was Megan’s turn to moan out loud. “Too much information.”
“It’s not even close to the information you gave me earlier,” Travers said.
“I can give you more,” Megan said.
“Enough!” Rob had a spectacular bellow. It shook his body and Megan’s. “We have to resolve this. Megan did make promises to the Interim Fates and, it seems, Kyle has made promises to the Fates. We all will come to the attention of Zeus sooner or later—he’s not as dumb as his daughters when it comes to tracking magic—and so I suggest we do something.”
“We’ve already done something,” Zoe said. “It’s in your ballpark now, at least according to the Fates.”
“What is?” Megan asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“This entire scheme—with your lovely, added Zeusy fillip—can’t go any farther until the Fates have that wheel. It’s the only way they can reclaim their magic without the help of the Powers That Be,” Zoe said.
“They can’t ask the Powers That Be,” Travers said to Megan, “because Zeus is one of those Powers.”
Megan nodded. “I got that from Rob’s paranoid reaction.”
Rob’s hand left her shoulder. “I’m not paranoid. I’m just practical.”
“This from a man who tried to take on the Fates,” Megan said.
“I was dumb,” he said, “and lucky.”
She sighed. Then she turned to Zoe and Travers. “Why can’t you guys get the wheel?”
“Because,” Zoe said, “the Fates took us off the case.”
“So we’ll put you back on.”
Travers stood, put his arm around Zoe, and pulled her close. “She nearly died in Faerie,” he said. “I’m not letting her go back.”
“As if he has any say,” Zoe said. “But I do agree with him. I’m not going back inside, even if the Fates wanted me to.”
“So you’re going to send us?” Megan asked.
“Actually,” Zoe said, “the Fates only wanted Robin.”
Rob nodded. “So then it’s Robin they’ll get.”
Twenty-six
Rob’s kind of thievery wasn’t really suited to a heist. He’d never done one. He’d started out as a highwayman, and then had become a master con artist.
And he did continue along his old lines. He still found ways to take from the rich and give to the poor.
Only now, he made the rich believe they were going to get a good return on that investment. Of course, he never promised when that return would happen—or even if it would happen. And he made certain that the rich knew they were investors in high-risk businesses. Most of the time, that was all he had to say.
The rest of the time, he threatened to expose his investors who wanted to pull out. We’re building hospitals in the poorest countries in the world, he would say. Do you really want the press to hear that you believe building hospitals isn’t a worthwhile investment?
He had a dozen variations on that theme, and it always, always brought compliance from his rich investors. A few of the savvy ones never invested with him again, but the rest had no idea what they were getting into.
Legal highway robbery. When he’d come up with this at the turn of the last century (and somehow managed to survive the U.S. stock market crash in ’29), he had been proud of himself. It had gotten rid of the risk, at least for him, and had enabled him to keep the haves from completely breaking the backs of the have-nots.
But this—stealing something from someone else, something physical—he hadn’t done that in more than a hundred and fifty years.
“I suppose,” he said softly, “there’s no way to get this wheel out of Faerie.”
He was thinking of some sort of broad-daylight truck hijacking or a spinning-wheel snatch in the middle of the Vegas strip.
But Zoe shook her head. She reached into what passed for a pocket in her skin-tight leather pants, and removed a piece of paper.
The paper glittered with magic.
“I have a map of Faerie,” she said.
He whistled.
“We have to be very careful with it,” she said, “because it has its own magic. If we touch it too much, someone’s going to know what we’re doing.”
“Gotcha.” He’d seen maps like that before. Usually, he tried to stay away from them. It’d been relatively easy, since he’d never been the kind of thief looking for real treasure.
He’d always just wanted to equalize the playing field between those with power and those without.
Zoe held the map gingerly between her thumb and forefinger as she walked into the dining room. Rob followed her, cinching his robe tighter. He would rather have spent the afternoon with Megan, but his conscience had gotten in the way.
His conscience and his concern about Zeus. Zeus’ punishments were legendary: this was a man who had destroyed his own father, and who had taken true heroes, like Hercules, and made them into slaves. He was the one who had come up with the whole Sisyphus-pushing-a-rock-uphill-for-eternity thing, and who had once decided that mortals were so wicked, he had to flood the Earth to rid the world of them. (Fortunately that hadn’t worked.)
And that was long before Rob’s time. He’d tried hard not to pay attention to the things that Zeus had done since. They were equally icky, but a lot more covert.
Megan stayed at Rob’s side until they reached Travers. Travers stood and glared at his sister.
“I don’t think this should be clothing optional,” Travers said.
“You don’t want me to hear this,” Megan said.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he said.
“I’m involved, thanks to you and Kyle, and now Rob. I’m staying.” She pushed past him.
Rob grinned at Travers. “She’s not going to listen to you.”
Travers shook his head. “Doesn’t stop me from trying,” he said softly. Then he gave Rob a sideways smile. “You know, it’s hell being an older brother.”
“I can only imagine,” Rob said truthfully.
Zoe spread the map over the entire surface of the dining room table. Lights flickered and spun, making the entire suite seem like it was part of a casino.
“Hey,” she said, beckoning them, “we’ve got a world to save here.”
“Or at least a spinning wheel,” Rob said, then sighed. How had he gotten into this? Ah, yes. A beautiful redhead, a silly promise, and some sort of buried nobility.
“This is am
azing.” Megan had bent over the table. The colors from the map illuminated her face. She was bathed in light.
“Don’t touch it,” Zoe said.
“It’s hard not to,” Megan said.
“That’s part of the magic,” Zoe said. “It’s a Faerie map. Usually only Faeries can have it, and then only for a short period of time.”
“How’d you get it?” Rob asked as he reached the table.
Zoe grinned at him. “I have strange friends in low places.”
“Some of them quite helpful.” Travers reached Zoe’s side. He squeezed her waist and pulled her close. “Which reminds me. Has anyone heard from Gaylord since last night?”
Zoe shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll show up when we least expect him.”
“Gaylord?” Rob asked.
“A friend of Zoe’s,” Travers said. “He’s a Faerie.”
“Man,” Megan said, “I’m not sure I can get used to that word in its old-fashioned context. It makes me bristle.”
“Faeries make mages bristle,” Zoe said. “Historically, we don’t get along.”
“But you get along with them?” Rob asked, feeling odd. He had never heard of such a thing.
Zoe shrugged. “People are people. Magic people even more so.”
“Whatever that means,” Megan said softly.
Rob slipped his arm around her and hugged her to him, then moved her slightly. He didn’t want her to have any chance of touching that map.
It had sunken into the tabletop. The colors on the map constantly changed, moving and floating around as if tracking moving objects. Some parts of the map had runes on it; other parts were written in Old English, a language he’d grown up with but never learned to read well. It made his brain hurt. A few parts of the map had directions in Celtic, and one or two other parts had something written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“This thing is pretending to be old,” he said, “but it isn’t.”
“I have no idea about its age,” Zoe said. “I bought it from a shaman a few days ago.”
“And left it in her car last night,” Travers said. “I’m amazed no one stole it.”
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