Then he looked at Robin again, at the protruding bones underneath the thin skin, and the filmy look in eyes had that once snapped with dark sparks of intelligence and mischief. The puck looked ruined, and Nikolas did not think Robin would sit so trustingly on the lap of someone who had been involved in what had happened to him.
He also noticed the gentle protectiveness in the way Sophie curled her hand around the dog"s shoulder, and he remembered how she had stood up to both him and Gawain in defense of what she had thought was an abused pet.
That took courage and decency.
Sophie had noticed his tension and hesitation. "While I appreciate that I frighten you deeply, you can relax," she said in a sour aside to him. "It"s just a spell drawn with magic-sensitive colloidal silver. It"ll rinse off with water, or you can spit on it and rub it off on your jeans in a pinch. You don"t have to carry an amulet, and there"s no damage done. And it will last for hours, if you want it to, as long as you don"t work up a sweat."
At her sarcasm, antagonism flared, hot and bright, but he held himself in a clench because Gawain had been right. They had been too long at war, and all his responses to conflict were violent and deadly.
She must have seen it in his eyes, along the dangerous way his body was coiled as if to strike, because her expression flickered and she edged away from him. She hadn"t blinked or flinched before that moment.
Nikolas dismissed her before he did something he couldn"t take back and turned his attention to Arran, who was still waiting. He told the pub keeper, "Bring us Guinness and supper. Whatever your special is for the evening will do."
"Very good, my lord." The pub keeper slipped away.
"I don"t know if I like Guinness," Sophie said. "I"ve never had it before. And I"m not sure I want to sit here and try to choke down food with you two watching me. Thanks for asking, a.s.shole."
"For the love of all the G.o.ds, you stupid woman," Nikolas said between his teeth. "Is that petty point really what you want to focus on right now?"
He didn"t realize he had spoken in the old tongue until he saw the incomprehension in her face. Gawain coughed quietly into one hand and nudged him under the table with one foot.
Sophie lifted one shoulder. "I"m not sure what you said there, but I have a feeling it was not complimentary. Let"s clear up a few things for you old-timey folks-not that this is likely to come up again anytime soon. Don"t touch me without my permission. Don"t order anything for me again. Don"t speak for me when I can speak for myself. Don"t open doors for me, and don"t take that patronizing, lord-of-all-you-survey tone with me. Not if you want me to do a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing for you. You still owe me for the attack from two weeks ago-and for this." She indicated the bruises appearing on her wrist. "Understood?"
Nikolas curled a nostril and didn"t deign to reply. Gawain coughed again. "I, for one, understood that perfectly."
She gave Gawain a tight smile. "I"ll go get my vial. Be right back."
Gawain nodded. "Thank you."
As she stood, she tried to put Robin down in her seat, but the dog let out a sudden ki-yi that was so loud all conversation paused as everybody looked at them.
"Oh fine," she snapped. She tucked him under her arm, and together they left.
When they were alone again, Nikolas and Gawain looked at each other. Gawain said, "What is the matter with you? You grabbed her and shoved her into the wall, and all because she stopped to help an injured creature?"
The edged note in the other man"s quiet voice rankled. Nikolas snapped, "There"s more going on than that."
"Well, I"ve never seen you act this way." The other man studied him keenly. "What did she mean when she said you attacked her?"
"You remember when I killed four Hounds a fortnight ago, just before the summer solstice gathering?"
Gawain frowned. "Yes."
"The fog rolled over the park within seconds, and the Hounds attacked. Just as I killed the last one, I felt a presence. When I turned around, she was there. Not physically. It was more like a vision. I thought she was part of the ambush, possibly responsible for the fog, and I threw a morningstar at her." Nikolas set his teeth. "And we still don"t know if she was involved or not. All we really know is that Robin seems attached to her, so it"s unlikely she was involved in torturing him."
Gawain"s frown deepened as he considered that. "The pub keeper said she just arrived in England."
"He said she just arrived in England today." Nikolas stressed the last word. "That has nothing to do with where she was two weeks ago. She could have been here, left, and come back again. Or she could have been involved while in a different location. We never connected physically. It was all psychic, all magical."
"d.a.m.n. Okay." Gawain blew out a breath as he rubbed the back of his neck. "If she was involved in the attack, she might try to make a run for it."
"We"ll know if she tries to leave," Nikolas said. "And I"m sure she has figured that out."
A pause, as they both listened to the normal sounds in the pub, and Nikolas listened with more than just his ears. He could sense her presence above them, on the second floor, and hear her light, decisive footsteps.
"I don"t think she"s going to try to leave," Gawain said suddenly. "She"s become too immersed in what"s happening. And she wouldn"t let go of the dog when she thought we might want to hurt it. That doesn"t sound like someone who would cast a blanket of fog to cover up a murder."
"No, it doesn"t, does it?" Nikolas murmured. He tilted his head. "She wouldn"t even put Robin down just now when he didn"t want her to leave him."
He still didn"t like how she had shown up at the same time Robin had reappeared, but that could have been a coincidence. What had happened a fortnight ago could have been a coincidence too-but that was a h.e.l.l of a lot of coincidence. It made him uneasy.
In any case, he had to give credit where credit was due. She might be irritating and mouthy, and she seemed to embody more than one contradiction, but she also appeared to have a streak of genuine kindness.
The woman might end up having more soul than he did.
"What I wouldn"t give for my Glock," Sophie said under her breath to the dog who wasn"t a dog riding in the curve of her arm. To the puck. Whatever a puck was. "You have no idea. I know a gun isn"t the answer to everything. I know I have many other skills I can rely upon, but a gun is ready, you see, when spells might not be. It can lie under your pillow while you sleep, standing sentinel as you dream, all the bullets nicely nested and just waiting to be fired."
Robin blinked up at her, looking as if he was trying to comprehend what she was saying. Really, he was playing the dog very well.
She muttered, "I know it"s not attractive to constantly complain about something you can do nothing about, but as long as you"re riding with me, I guess you"re going to have to put up with it."
While she talked, she unlocked the door to her room, opened her bigger suitcase, and rummaged through the contents until she found the correct royal blue, stoppered bottle along with the small, thin brush she had attached to it with a rubber band. After locking her room again, she loped down the stairs.
Ignoring the sidelong looks from the patrons they"d not yet managed to scare off, she crossed the front room quickly to slide back into her seat. The two men had been conversing in low voices. As she joined them, they sat back and turned their attention to her.
Gawain was the one she trusted so far, at least to some extent. He was the one who made an effort to be decent, whereas Nikolas might have sheathed his physical weapon, but he had never fully put away his blade.
Nikolas watched her now, his dark eyes cold and a.s.sessing. He had an utterly beautiful, completely mesmerizing face that was ruined with the edge of malice that was never far from his expression.
At least it wasn"t very far whenever he looked at her. When he turned his attention to Gawain, something much warmer and truer appeared, like the glimpse of a golden city concealed behind a midnight curtain.
It made her heart heavy in a way she didn"t understand, that the one part of the man could be so filled with rancor, while the other part, the barely glimpsed part, was so... so...
So fine. There was a fineness to him, or there could be, if the chilling ferocity eased up and gave the other side of him a chance to breathe.
Well. What she felt or thought about this deadly stranger didn"t matter in the slightest to anyone except for her. Shoving her ruminations aside, she smiled at Gawain. It said something about a man when a saber-toothed tiger was the safer, kinder bet.
Noting the fascinated look on Gawain"s face, she held out the bottle for him to inspect. "Colloidal silver. You know what that is, right?"
Shaking his head, Gawain opened the bottle and pulled out the stopper to sniff at it. He squeezed a few drops onto the tip of one blunt finger, then stopped the bottle and handed it over to Nikolas, who inspected it just as thoroughly.
While they ascertained for themselves that the liquid in the bottle was essentially harmless-at least in its inert state-she said, "Colloidal silver is a simple concoction of silver particles in demineralized water. Some people take it as a supplement for health reasons. I have no idea if it does them any good. A lot of sites, like the National Inst.i.tutes of Health, have a list of serious side effects that can occur if you take it regularly as an oral supplement. At least for humans."
Just as Gawain had, Nikolas took a few drops on his finger and tasted it cautiously. "You said this is made with magic-sensitive silver."
"That"s right. At the moment, the liquid is neutral, like a blank page." She smiled at Gawain. "Ready?"
"Ready when you are."
"Give me your hand."
Obligingly, he held his hand across the table. Settling Robin in her lap, she urged Gawain to turn his hand over so that the broad back was upright.
"I"ll go slowly," she told him. "If you"re uncomfortable and you want me to stop at any time, all you have to do is say so. And remember, the only thing you have to do to get rid of this particular spell is splash it with some kind of liquid and rub it off. Okay?"
"Okay," he told her in a steady voice.
He watched her calmly as she took the stopper out and dipped her thin paintbrush in the liquid. Then, lightly, she began to stroke a rune onto his skin while she whispered the null spell that would sink into the pattern the silver made. Gawain remained calm and interested, which was not at all how Nikolas reacted.
Thank G.o.ds the spell was a technically simple one that she could cast in her sleep, because the nuclear warhead watching her work had an expression filled with such terrible promises of retribution if she did anything to hurt his friend, it was enough to give her nightmares for weeks.
Like she needed any more fodder for nightmares.
She was used to handling a certain amount of pressure, but still her fingers were shaking slightly by the time she finished. Once the spell had been solidly cast, she could feel the energy in the room ease down. Now only Nikolas still shone like a pillar of flame against her mind"s eye.
She looked up into Gawain"s eyes. "You good?"
He nodded. "I"m good. You have a light touch with your magic."
Capping the vial, she murmured, "Why use a sledgehammer when a b.u.t.terfly net will suffice?"
She most emphatically didn"t look to her left where the sledgehammer sat.
Either the sledgehammer was not aware it was being discussed, or it was not amused. It emitted a chilly silence while Gawain coughed into his hand again. Sophie could see a corner of his mouth turn up in brief amus.e.m.e.nt.
He said, "I can feel the spell lying on my skin, but it"s not irritating. It"s a little like a temporary tattoo, isn"t it?"
"In a way."
"Where did you learn this skill?" He flattened his hand and tilted it back and forth. There was a faint shimmer where the rune lay against his skin. "Can you buy this liquid?"
"When I left home, I came across an old Native American woman in Nevada who showed me how to work with magic-sensitive silver. She taught me how to make the colloidal silver and cast spells with it. I"ve never heard of anybody else with the skill, and I"ve never seen magic-sensitive colloidal silver for sale." She shook the vial before pocketing it. "I made this myself."
"Fascinating."
After giving Gawain a smile, she turned to look into Nikolas"s dark, cold eyes. "You have questions. I have questions. Since I just helped you and your friend eat supper together, I"ll go first. What is a puck?"
She braced herself for some sort of retaliation for all the snark she"d been feeding him, but he surprised her by giving her a straightforward answer.
"Some people call them lesser Fae, but they aren"t strictly Fae," he said. "They are like sprites or brownies. In his normal state, Robin looks almost like a boy. He has an affinity with nature, he can shapeshift into a variety of forms, and he"s intensely magical. Usually."
All three of them looked at Robin, sitting quietly in her lap. The puck seemed to be watching shadows move on the wall, appearing to pay no attention to them.
"My turn," Nikolas said. The intensity in his expression sharpened. "Where were you a fortnight ago, and what were you doing?"
For some reason she felt a flush warm her cheeks as if she had been caught spying on him, when she had done no such thing. "I was in Los Angeles, where I"ve been living, and I was casting runes for a reading. I focused on my near future, threw the stones, and a vision of you appeared. You were holding a b.l.o.o.d.y sword, you saw me, and you threw something at me. I could feel it coming, and it didn"t feel good, so I scattered the stones and broke the connection. End of story."
She paused. Both men were listening to her intently and watching every move she made. She had no doubt that they had highly developed truthsense and were using it. "My turn," she said. "What were you doing two weeks ago? Why was your sword b.l.o.o.d.y? And why did you attack me?"
"I had just been attacked myself, and I thought you were part of the ambush. I was defending myself." His eyes narrowed. "Were you a part of it?"
"No," she said emphatically. "Absolutely not. I"m going to say this as clearly as possible so you can hear the truth in my voice. I have never met you before. I"ve never heard of either one of you before. I have no idea what you"re up to, or who you are fighting, and I did not have anything to do with what happened to you. In fact, I don"t know why my reading didn"t behave normally. You should never have been able to see me, and I wasn"t scrying-I was working divination. They"re two totally different magics."
"Of course they are," Gawain muttered, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.
"Then how did we collide like that?" Sophie asked. She was eager for some explanation, because she never wanted to have it happen again.
Ever since that morning two weeks ago, she hadn"t felt easy about casting the runes. She had still done it a few times anyway, but she was always on highest alert for any danger, and she had never felt that way before about her rune readings. They used to be a source of comfort and information, and she missed the familiar ease with which she had done them.
"There was other magic that day." Nikolas leaned back and crossed his arms. The corner wall light threw part of his face into shadow while emphasizing the inhuman beauty in his bone structure. His black shirt fell open at the collar, revealing the strong, pure line of his throat. He regarded the puck narrowly. "Something else was in play. I"m still working to discover what. I thought it was part of the ambush too, but now I"m not so certain. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn"t."
Their conversation was interrupted as Arran walked up with a tray of food and drink.
Sophie used the time to regroup as she considered everything they had discussed.
She did not have the highly developed truthsense that many of the Elder Races acquired with experience and age, but she still didn"t believe they had lied to her. They had a dangerous enemy, who was also the one responsible for abusing Robin.
Nikolas had believed she"d helped to attack him. It explained why he had responded the way he had, both two weeks ago and just earlier. It didn"t make him likeable or friendly, and it certainly didn"t make him any less dangerous, but knowing that did ease her tension.
Suddenly the plate of beef stew and homemade bread that Arran set in front of her smelled appetizing, and she thought she might be able to eat at the same table with the two males after all.
When the food arrived, Robin began to tremble so violently he almost slid off her lap.
She offered him a piece of the fragrant bread. He nearly bit her fingers as he s.n.a.t.c.hed at it. "I"m going to put some stew in a dish for you," she told him gently. "Since you"re in the form of a dog, you"ll be more comfortable eating on the floor."
As he worked at gulping down the bread, she lifted him onto the floor. When she straightened, she caught Nikolas watching her, his expression inscrutable. His close attention made her uncomfortable. She decided the best thing to do was to ignore it.
Ladling stew onto her bread plate, she picked out the choicest pieces of beef and potatoes as she said to Nikolas, "One thing rang true out of this. I asked for a vision of my near future, and you were in it. And now we"ve done it. We"ve met. So that bit is over. We can all move on and go our separate ways."
She set the filled bread plate on the floor, and Robin attacked it. It was hard to watch him bolt the food while his body still trembled. Her eyes p.r.i.c.kled with a flood of moisture, and after a moment, she had to look away-back at Nikolas, as it happened, who had not stopped watching her.
"Why are you in England?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
Blinking away the wetness, she focused on her food. "That"s a long story. The short version is, I"m on vacation for three months. I"m here to see if I can somehow get into the old Weston manor. If I can, then I"ll inherit it and the grounds, along with an annuity. Kind of kooky, huh?"
While Nikolas hadn"t picked up a utensil yet, Gawain ate with a kind of single-minded attention that said he thoroughly appreciated a hot, filling meal. Gawain asked, "What do you do in LA?"
"I was a witch consultant for the LAPD," she told him as she slipped another piece of bread to Robin. She hesitated. She should make herself talk about it. It"s just a thing that happened in her past. Say it. Be done with it. Move on. "There was a shooting. I was involved. I needed a break, so when this opportunity came, I leaped at it."
Nikolas said, "You were shot?"
How had he known to ask that question? She glanced at him. She didn"t mean to meet his eyes, but she did, and the shock of connection was there again, jolting her down to her shoes. Clearing her throat, she said in a husky voice, "Yeah, I was. I got over it."
Even to her own ears, she could hear the lie in that. Of course they heard it too. Plunging onward, she said, "You never told me who your enemy was."
"Some names you don"t speak in public," Nikolas said quietly.