The guys had settled around the tiny table, Vayl and Aaron on one side opposite Raoul and Cole. They al looked pretty wasted. But I could tel Vayl had more to lay on them. He motioned for me to join them, so I pul ed the desk chair over and sat at the end of the table. Then he said, “I have a bad feeling. It is near to making me il . Hanzi—or rather the man he is today—is in terrible trouble.
The longer I think on it, the more certain I am that Roldan wil have cornered him just as he did Aaron here. We cannot wait for him to make his move. We must find him first.” Cole, Raoul, and I traded helpless looks. They left it for me to say, “But, Vayl. You’ve been searching for him for… ever. What makes you think we’l have any better luck now?” Vayl leaned his head toward Aaron. “My younger boy is with me now. I believe it is inevitable that I wil be rejoined with the elder. But fate seems determined to reunite us in violence. If there is any way we can stop that from happening, we must try.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Raoul. “And don’t look at me. This is one area where I absolutely can’t step in for you.”
“Cassandra,” said Cole.
“She has read me before, and failed,” Vayl said.
“Yeah. But you said yourself times have changed. You have to bring her here. The sooner the better, I think. Let her touch you and Aaron. I’m betting she’l have a mega-vision that’l head you straight to Hanzi.”
Vayl turned to me, his eyebrows raised a notch. “She’s coming this way anyhow. Family visit before Dave’s leave ends,” I explained.
“Cal her,” he said. “Tel her I wil charter her and David a plane if they wil agree to come tomorrow.”
And just like that I knew my crew was going to be whole again by the time the sun set on the fol owing day.
Raoul had agreed to take the first watch over Aaron, who protested that it was ridiculous to imprison him until we reminded him that he was, according to his own law, an attempted murderer.
At which point he quietly fol owed my Spirit Guide to the guest bedroom, his head clearly so ful of new thoughts to ponder that he didn’t even protest the company of Jack, who stil felt like being social after his last trip to the backyard. Cole, who was just as exhausted as Vayl’s attempted assassin, took the green room, which also contained a guest bed and bath in addition to an indoor sauna that made our newest Trust member fal to his knees and pretend to kiss Vayl dramatical y on his nonexistent ring.
“I wil be your vassal forevermore, me lord,” he said in a horrible Cockney accent, bucking his front teeth so far over his bottom lip as he talked that it completely disappeared. He rol ed onto his back. “Do you want to rub my tummy to make it official?”
“Would you get up?”
“Okay, but I’m warning you, I may have slightly obscene thoughts about you while I’m sitting in your sauna. I’l try not to, but it’s probably inevitable, I’m just that grateful.” I grabbed him by the cheeks, reminding myself forceful y not to pinch as I pul ed him forward and kissed his scar-free forehead. “Just get some sleep, you doof. We’re going to need you fresh tomorrow.”
He brought his hands up to wrap around my wrists so he could pul my hands down and kiss the back of each one. His eyes held depths I never would’ve imagined the day we first met in a ladies’
bathroom in the house of a terrorist sympathizer. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.” A light seemed to go on from his heart, and I had no doubt whom he was talking about when he said, “You’l take good care of her for me?”
“Of course.”
He nodded and dropped my hands. “Then I’l be in your debt forever. Anything you want, anytime, you just have to ask. Except for right now, when I suggest you run, don’t walk, out the door, because I’m stripping down for my first of many sweats in that sauna in five, four, three, two—” Vayl slammed the door on Cole’s laughter and together we closed ourselves into the room we’d shared since we’d gotten back from Marrakech.
It reminded me of its owner. Large, masculine, with a preference for life’s luxuries. The wal s, papered in ivory with a hunter green stripe, each held a single memento from his past that, I hoped, someday he’d feel comfortable explaining. On one hung a glass case that displayed a British heavy cavalry saber that I dated to around 1800. On another hung a framed program and two tickets to
He’d touched a finger to the frame with a tenderness that nearly broke my heart. Then he’d said,
“Helena wore it when she married John Litton.” And I’d wrapped my arms around his waist. I didn’t care how pretty that dress was, if I’d had a long-dead adopted daughter, anything that reminded me of her would’ve had to be buried in a trunk and stored in the attic. But Vayl had preserved this piece of her happiness so he could always remember those few years when they were a family.
I felt her now, like an old friend at my shoulder, as I walked to the dresser and looked down at the items I’d arranged there. In a strange way she was responsible for their presence. If Vayl hadn’t discovered her back in 1770—an eleven-year-old orphan cowering in a deserted mansion about to be attacked by Roldan—that same Were would never have tried to give him permanent amnesia.
Because Roldan had become obsessed with her, and the fact that Vayl had saved her from him made them bitter enemies. And if they hadn’t been enemies, we might never have discovered that Roldan’s pack was guarding the Rocenz, which sat on the dresser, a silver hammer magical y glued to a chisel, looking like nothing more than an extrafancy paperweight.
Next to it lay the map we’d stolen, which had led us to its hiding spot in Marrakech. We’d kept the dusty old leather because on it was written a clue related to separating the hammer from the chisel. Natural y it wasn’t in English, but the translation read, “Who holds the hammer stil must find the keys to the triple-locked door.”
I picked up the map and curled up on the couch while I watched Vayl prepare his room for the coming day. He pressed a button beside the balcony doors that activated light blockers within the window glass, turning them pitch-black. But Bergman, whose middle name was probably Redundancy Plan, had also instal ed a massive canopy above Vayl’s bed that was made out of the same black material as the traveling tent that he slept in when
