Because of the unknown male’s attack, she had broken the vision off too early. She hadn’t had the chance to harvest enough information. Since the reading turned out to be incomplete and unsatisfactory, she had no idea if it was attached to her lunch meeting, to the imminent change she sensed on the wind, or the hint of impending danger.
Everything might very well be related, but it might not. So far, all she had were fragments of messages, and she didn’t know how or even if they fit together. As a result, tension knotted the muscles between her shoulders and she studied everything with wary eyes.
For the meeting, she had slipped on a flowing, sleeveless linen pantsuit, undyed, the cuffs of the slacks ending above the ankle and showing off her slender feet in strappy-looking sandals that were, nevertheless, still sturdy enough to sprint in.
She had accessorized with chunky teal-colored jewelry layered over a few magic-sensitive silver pieces that she had spelled with protections and charms. The magic tinkled pleasantly to her inner ear, the jewelry shifting along her skin.
As she paused by the hostess stand, a beautiful woman dressed in a chic outfit walked up. The woman carried a pile of menus and looked bored.
“Do you have a reservation?” the woman asked, looking down Sophie’s figure in frank assessment.
The hostess’s expression was cool and calculating. Sophie wasn’t quite sure if she had passed muster.
Fuck you. I put on makeup. I look like a million bucks.
“I don’t know.” She glanced over the crowded tables. “I’m meeting someone.”
“What is the name?”
“Kathryn Shaw.”
The hostess checked the computer screen, and her expression changed. In a much friendlier voice, she said, “Very good. Please follow me.”
Kathryn Shaw’s name had clearly pushed Sophie over some invisible line into acceptability. Mouth tilting in a sour slant, she followed the hostess to a quiet booth located in a corner where a woman waited.
As Sophie and the hostess approached, the woman slid to her feet with cool, liquid grace. Smiling, she held out her hand. “Sophie Ross? How nice to meet you.”
“Dr. Shaw.” As they shook hands, Sophie sized up the other woman quickly and without being as obvious as the hostess had been.
Kathryn Shaw was not quite what she had expected. The other woman was lightly tanned and had a tall, fine-boned figure, golden-brown hair that streamed in an elegant straight fall to her shoulders, large intelligent eyes, and the kind of poise that came from education, money, and knowing her worth in the world. She had good, sensitive hands, a firm grip, and immaculately tended fingernails. A hint of Power, well contained and as honed as a scalpel, clung to her figure like an expensive perfume.
Kathryn’s cool, sleek sophistication was almost the antithesis of Sophie, who stood several inches shorter. Sophie’s pale skin never tanned, her body tended to curve at breasts and hips, and her thick black hair had a mind of its own.
After trying one short, disastrous haircut that made her look like a twelve-year-old with cowlicks, she had learned to keep her hair long enough so the weight straightened out some of the unruliness. That way she could at least braid or pin it out of the way.
At the moment, the knot at the nape of her neck had loosened as she had walked from the car to the restaurant, and it now fell in loose waves down her back. Her fingernails were no-nonsense and not nearly as well tended as the other woman’s. She had clipped them herself yesterday.
At first glance, it wasn’t obvious that Kathryn Shaw was Wyr, but then the muted lighting in the restaurant hit her just right, and her eyes flared with a golden reflection. Sophie guessed the other woman was not just Wyr but possibly some kind of avian. It would fit, with her narrow bone structure and build.
“Please, have a seat,” Kathryn said.
Sophie slid into the opposite side of the booth.
The hostess took their drinks order and left them with menus. Sophie ordered coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. After everything that had happened, she wanted to fall into a cup and bathe in it.
Kathryn set her menu aside without looking at it and folded her beautiful hands on the table. “Thank you for coming. I half expected you to not show up.”
“I thought about it,” Sophie admitted. “But then curiosity got the better of me.”
A serious flaw, curiosity. It had gotten her into trouble before. She devoutly hoped the flaw wouldn’t turn fatal.
Violent images threatened to surface. This time the images were not divination but memory, and her body reacted in response, the ghost of pain pulsing in three spots again.
She thrust it aside. No vital organs had been damaged, and the pain was getting better every day. Focusing on the present, she added, “After all, you were tenacious enough.”
Kathryn grinned. “Tenacity is a bad habit of mine.”
Sophie’s grin turned wry. “I was just thinking the same thing about me and curiosity.”
The other woman laughed, her fine-boned face opening like a flower. “And so here we are.”
“Yes.” Despite keeping her barriers up, Sophie found she liked Dr. Kathryn Shaw. Out of sight, she laced her hands together in her lap and clenched her fingers tight.
Their waitress came, brought their drinks, and introduced herself. After a short discussion about the day’s specials, they ordered lunch.
Gripped by nerves and wariness, she ordered the first thing she saw when she opened the menu, a simple chicken-and-mango salad. When the waitress left again, she cradled her coffee cup and took her first sip of the fragrant, dark liquid. It was excellent, with a smooth, roasted flavor.
She cleared her throat. “Perhaps now you can tell me what brought you all the way from New York. Especially since I threw away your letter and never responded to your first two phone calls.”
She had, in fact, been convinced that Kathryn’s letter had been a scam until the other woman had left a third message at the LA precinct where Sophie did consulting work.
Angry and disturbed at the intrusion into her life, Sophie had one of her department buddies, Rodrigo, run a background check on the caller, which was when she discovered that Kathryn Shaw really was a prominent, respected New York surgeon.
Only then did she return Kathryn’s phone call. As guarded as Sophie had tried to be, Kathryn had dropped too many lures in front of her, offering at least one or two answers about her past. It proved impossible to resist. After talking for several minutes, Sophie had finally agreed to meet her in person.
Sophie had been adopted into a family of witches, and her past was a blank slate before she was five. She had no early childhood memories and no knowledge of where she had come from.
The details of her adoption had offered no clue either—after she had turned eighteen and accessed her records, she had done some cursory research on the names in her file, but the research had led nowhere. Either her parents had long since vanished, or the names given when she had been surrendered to the authorities had been false.
Kathryn hesitated, her calm, intelligent expression assessing. Then she reached into her large leather purse and drew out a few manila files. “First I need to put everything I’m about to say into context with a little history. My late father was the Earl of Weston, Francis Shaw.”
Sophie’s attention lingered on the files while her old pal curiosity reared its head again. “An earl—an English earl?”
“Yes.”
“Does that make you titled as well?” Her knowledge of English titles was almost nonexistent.
Kathryn shrugged. “It does. I’m a countess, but I’ve lived in the States for so long I never use it. I’ve become very American. The most important title to me is doctor because that’s the one I earned.” She set the manila folders on the table. “My father was a unique man and very dedicated to certain causes. Some time ago—decades, really—I came to the States to attend medical school, and I chose to settle in New York. One of the causes my father was dedi
cated to was the British government. We did not see eye to eye on my choice of domicile.” One corner of Kathryn’s mouth lifted briefly, a bittersweet, affectionate expression.
Fascinated and somewhat envious of the other woman’s obvious sense of loss, Sophie looked down at the table. Clearly Kathryn had loved her father deeply. What would it be like to have family you loved that deeply? And who loved you just as deeply in return?
Carefully she adjusted her coffee cup in its saucer. “He’s deceased?”
“Yes, he died in the London bombing in 1995. Twenty Parliament members were killed that day.”
Sophie only knew the bare bones about the terrorist bombing, just sound bites from media articles. This was the first time she had met anybody personally connected to such an event.
Even more mystified than ever about what any of this had to do with her, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It happened a long time ago.” Kathryn paused. Then in a brisker tone she continued. “He was dedicated to another cause that he began in the early eighteenth century, when he rescued his first group of children. It was something he felt passionate about, so he continued with rescues throughout the years. His efforts were sporadic and situational. Whenever he heard of trafficking or of children being abused, he would investigate, and if the situation called for it, he would take action. Sometimes the rescues involved children of the Elder Races, and sometimes they involved humans.”
While she listened, Sophie realized she was gripping her hands so tightly her fingers had gone numb. Loosening her grip, she whispered, “Interesting.”
Kathryn picked at the edge of her rolled linen napkin. “If he couldn’t return the rescued children to their families, he would work with agencies all over the world to place them in appropriate homes. Security was a consideration for those placements. He always took care to make sure nothing could be traced back to the children’s homes of origin so they never ran the danger of being found and exploited again.”
Sophie took a deep, unsteady breath. Certainty settled into her bones.
She said, “I was one of those children, wasn’t I?”
Kathryn cleared her throat, a quiet, delicate sound. “Yes, you were one of his last rescues.”
“Does that mean I’m British?” She blinked, her perspective undergoing a massive shift. The searching she had done, both through traditional means and magical ones, had all been based in the United States. It had never occurred to her to search outside the States.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I don’t have any information on the details of your rescue either.”
Exploited, Kathryn had said. Trafficking. Sophie had been five years old—or younger, when he had found her. God, she had been a baby. A sudden wave of revulsion chilled her skin, and her blood pounded in her ears.
Her voice a harsh, uncertain scrape in her throat, she said bluntly, “I was a virgin when I first had sex.”
She was also an asshole magnet, and every jerk she had ever dated had been a loser or worse. But that was neither here nor there at the moment.
The other woman’s expression lightened with a gentle smile. “It sounds like my father rescued you in time.”
Their waitress came with their lunches. Sophie’s salad looked exquisite, and Kathryn had ordered steak. For the next few minutes, they ate in silence, which gave Sophie a chance to recover her poise.
After she had eaten enough to placate the empty hole in her stomach, she said, “The names of my birth parents in my records. Are they fake?”
Kathryn picked up the top manila folder. “I think so. This is the file my father kept on you. I’m sorry, there isn’t much in it.”
Sophie had been eyeing the files while she ate. As Kathryn offered it to her, she snatched at it and flipped it open.
Like Kathryn had warned, there wasn’t much information. Just a few pages of notes, along with a photograph of a small, serious-looking girl with a mop of unruly black hair, pale skin, a light dusting of freckles, and a delicate pixie face.
Somewhere in the conversation, Sophie had lost most of her capacity for skepticism, and the photograph laid the last of it to rest. As she had matured into adulthood, the delicate pixie face had lost its youthful roundedness and turned more angular, but the girl was clearly, indisputably her.
She scanned the contents quickly, taking in key words.
Precocious. Highly magical. Mostly human child, approximately four years old.
Mostly human. Yeah, that about summed it up.
Parents, unknown. Domicile, unknown. Nonverbal, possibly trauma induced.
There were more notes, along with a few handwritten numbers—the number of digits and the way they had been written made them look like American phone numbers—then the name of an adoption agency in Kentucky. The adoption agency that had handled her case. She flipped over the last page, but there was nothing more.
“That’s it,” she muttered as her stomach sank. “That’s everything.”
Everything about her early childhood, jotted down on a few yellowing pages. It felt unreal, like something out of a Dickens novel or a Spanish soap opera. But it wasn’t a story. This was her life.
She hadn’t verbalized it as a question, but Kathryn responded as if she had. “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could tell you.”
The back of Sophie’s eyes burned, but she had stopped shedding tears over ancient history a long time ago. Snapping the file shut, she forced herself to think.
“You tracked me through the adoption agency in Kentucky,” she said. “When I turned eighteen, I accessed my records and left contact information.”
“Yes.” Kathryn set her empty plate to one side.
The waitress stopped by. Kathryn ordered coffee, and when the waitress returned, she refilled Sophie’s cup as well.
“Well, this has been fascinating,” Sophie said when they were alone again. She met the other woman’s eyes. “Even if there isn’t much information, I’m grateful to have the file. The most important thing is that it shifts the geography of where I need to search if I want to try to find out anything more about my past—which is something I might decide to do. But I still don’t understand why you’ve gone to the expense and trouble to meet with me. So far, we haven’t talked about anything that couldn’t have been said over the phone or FedExed to me.”
“That’s true.” Kathryn smiled. “But everything we’ve discussed was just the prelude to what comes next. You see, I’m the executor of my father’s specific, detailed, and quixotic will.”
Sophie bit her lip as a bolt of quick, unexpected laughter shook through her body. She thought, if Kathryn says I’ve inherited something, I might lose it. Because it really would be just like an email scam.
She said, “Your father died over twenty years ago, and you’re still not done executing the terms of his will?”
“Unfortunately, no, I’m not.” Kathryn’s smile turned dry. She picked up the second manila folder and offered it to Sophie. “Almost everything was settled years ago, but there is one last task yet to be completed. There’s an old property that—really, I don’t know how else to put it—remains stubborn. The estate has been in the family for hundreds of years. The last time my father was in the house was when he was a young man, which was a very long time ago.”
The two-natured Wyr could be extremely long-lived. Some rare breeds were among the first generation of Elder Races and considered to be immortal. They could be killed, but they would never die of old age.
“You’ve never been there yourself?” Sophie asked. She opened up the file to scan the contents.
Photographs of a massive medieval house lay inside. Part stone fortress, part monstrous architectural folly, it brooded against a backdrop of ancient, tangled forest. The land fell away behind the house, and in one corner a lake or the edge of a river glimmered. She looked through each of the photos, studying the different angles. The palms of her hands tingled as she handled the pictures.
The
photos themselves weren’t magic, not exactly. But something about the house was, or the land, and the camera had managed to capture a hint of it.
Kathryn told her, “Oh, I’ve been there several times, but I’ve not been inside the house. Nobody has since the last time my father went in. It… stopped letting people in.”
Sophie rested her left palm on one of the photographs and searched for that elusive hint of magic. When she connected with it, her palm tingled again. She sensed a distant breeze blowing through the trees in the scene. The house had five gables.
A subtle, almost indefinable shift rippled under her palm. She leaned forward, her attention sharpening.
No, not five gables. There were seven.
What the hell.
Belatedly, what Kathryn had said sank in, and she looked up at the other woman. She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, the house won’t let anybody in?”
Kathryn let out a soft laugh. “I know how that sounds. I’m anthropomorphizing a building, but I don’t know how else to say it. It’s a strange place. You would have to experience it to believe it.”
Sophie glanced down again at the photograph that lay underneath her palm. “Tell me more.”
“The Weston family seat is in the West Marches, the land that borders England and Wales. The West Marches is a witchy place and intensely magical, with more crossover passageways per acre than anywhere else in the world. Many wars have been fought all over that land. Once upon a time, or so the story goes, there had been a crossover passage on this very spot.” Kathryn reached over to tap one of the photographs.
“You mean there isn’t one there now?”
As Sophie asked the question, her mind started working on the concept. What could destroy a crossover passageway? Crossover passageways had been around since the Earth was formed, when time and space had buckled. They led to Other lands, where modern technology didn’t work, time flowed differently than it did on Earth, and the sun shone with a different light.
Sophie chewed on her lip as she thought.