“Congratulations.”
“I’ve had these dreams all winter. They started right after the first of the year. Every night.” Waking dreams, too, but she wasn’t ready to share that much. “I sketched the people, the places in them, the ones that kept reoccurring.”
She opened the portfolio, chose the sketch that had brought her to where she sat. “I drew this weeks ago.”
Riley took the sketch, lips pursing as she studied it. “You’re good, and yeah, this is Corfu.”
“And this is you.”
Sasha laid down a sketch, full body, of Riley. She wore cargo pants, hiking boots, a battered leather jacket, a wide-brimmed hat. Her hand rested on the butt of the knife sheathed at her belt.
As Riley lifted the sketch, Sasha set down another. “So is this.” A head-and-shoulders sketch this time, of Riley looking straight ahead with a curled-lip smile.
“What is this?” Riley muttered.
“I don’t know, and need to find out. I thought I was losing my mind. But you’re real, and you’re here. Like me. I don’t know about the others.”
“What others?”
“There are six of us, including me.” Sasha dug into the portfolio again. “Working together, traveling together.”
“I work alone.”
“So do I.” She felt giddy now, both vindicated and a little crazed. “I don’t know any of them.” She held out another sketch. “I have individual sketches of all of them, and others with some of us together, more with all of us, like this one. I don’t know them.”
The sketch showed Riley, dressed much as she’d been in the other, and Sasha, in boots, pants, a snap-brimmed hat rather than the sandals and flowy dress she wore now. Another woman with hair tumbling to her waist, and three men. Three hot men, Riley thought, all standing together on a trail, forested hills around them, grouped together as if posing for a photograph.
“You— Sasha, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m Sasha.”
“Well, Sasha, you sure know how to dream men. They’re all smoking.”
“I’ve never seen any of them before, outside of the dreams. But I feel . . . I know them, know everyone here. And this one.”
Unable to resist, Sasha touched a finger to the figure standing beside her, standing hipshot, his thumb hooked in the front pocket of worn jeans. Sharp cheekbones, dark hair—she knew it to be a deep, rich brown—carelessly curling past the neckline of his T-shirt. His smile spoke of confidence, and of charm—and a little mystery.
“What about this one?” Riley prompted.
“He holds lightning. I don’t know if that’s a symbol or what it means. And I dream we—that we . . .”
“Sex dreams?” Amused, Riley took a closer look at him. “You could do a hell of a lot worse.”
“If I’m going to have sex dreams with a man, I’d like to have dinner first.”
Riley let out a bark of laughter. “Hell, a girl can eat anytime. Are you a dream-walker, Sasha?”
“Dream-walker?”
“Some cultures use that term. Do you have prophetic dreams? Why hold back now?” Riley said when Sasha hesitated. “You’re already telling me you have sex with strange men, and you haven’t even had your drink yet.”
“I don’t have to be asleep to dream.” Yes, Sasha thought, why hold back now? “And yes, they’re usually prophetic. I knew my father would leave before he walked out the door when I was twelve. He couldn’t handle what I am. I don’t control it, can’t demand to see, can’t demand not to.”
Sasha picked up her glass and drank, and waited for the wariness or the derision.
“Have you ever worked with anyone on that?”
“What?”
“Have you ever worked with another dream-walker, explored learning how to block it or open it?”
“No.”
“You look smarter than that.” Riley shrugged. “Is it just visions, or do you read minds?”
She might have asked if she painted in oil or acrylics. Emotion clogged Sasha’s throat so thickly she could barely speak. “You believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? The proof’s all over the table. Can you read minds, and can you control that?”
“I don’t read minds. I read feelings, and they speak just as loud. I can control it, unless the feelings are so intense they push through.”
“What am I feeling? Go ahead.” Riley spread her arms when Sasha hesitated. “I’m an open book, so read it.”
Sasha took a moment, focused in. “You feel some sympathy for and curiosity about me. You’re relaxed, but on guard. You tend to stay on guard. You feel a need for something that’s always been out of your reach. It’s frustrating, especially because you like to win. You feel a little sexually deprived just now because you haven’t taken the time . . . felt you had the time to fill that need. The work fulfills you, the risks, the adventure, the demands of it. You’ve earned your self-reliance, and you’re not afraid of much. If there’s fear, it’s more for the emotional than the physical.
“You have a secret,” Sasha murmured. “Closed up tight.” Sasha jerked back, frowned. “You asked me to look, all but insisted, so don’t get angry when I do.”
“Fair enough. And that’s enough.”
“I believe in privacy.” She’d never read anyone that openly, that purposefully. It left her flushed, and mildly embarrassed. “I don’t dig into people’s secrets.”
“I believe in privacy.” Riley raised her glass again. “But I freaking love to dig.”
“Your work brings you a lot of pride and satisfaction. What is it?”
“That depends. At the base? I’m an archaeologist. I like looking for things no one else can find.”
“And when you find it? What do you do with it?”
“That depends, too.”
“You find things.” Sasha nodded, nearly relaxed. “That must be one of the reasons.”
“For what?”
“For our being here.”
“I’ve got a reason to be here.”
“But at this time, in this place?” Sasha gestured to the sketches again. “I know we need to look, we need to find . . .”
“If you want my attention, you have to spit things out.”
Rather than speak, Sasha pulled out another sketch. A beach, a calm sea, a palace on a hill, all under a full white moon.
And curved under the moon shined three stars.
“I don’t know where this is, but I do know these three stars, the ones near the moon, they don’t exist. I’m not an astronomer, but I know they’re not there. I only know they were, somehow they were. And I know they fell. See this one.” She laid out another sketch. “All three falling at the same time, leaving those cometlike trails. We’re supposed to find them.”
Sasha looked up, saw Riley’s eyes stare into hers, feral and cold.
“What do you know about the stars?” Riley demanded.
“I’m telling you what I know.”
In a fast move, Riley reached out, gripped Sasha’s arm at the wrist. “What do you know about the Stars of Fortune? Who the hell are you?”
Though her stomach trembled, Sasha made herself keep her eyes level with the fierce ones, ordered her voice not to shake.
“I’ve told you who I am. I’m telling you what I know. You know more about them. You know what they are. You’re already looking for them—that’s why you’re here. And you’re hurting my arm.”
“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll hurt more than your arm.” But she let it go.
“Don’t threaten me.” Temper, hot and surprised, leaped up and out. “I’ve had enough. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want this. All I wanted was to live in peace, to paint, to be left alone to work. Then you and these others are crowding my dreams, you and these damn stars I don’t understand. One of them’s here, I know it, just as I know finding it won’t be peaceful. I don’t know how to fight, and I’ll have to. Blood and battle, dreams full of blood and battle and pain.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.”
“It’s terrifying, and I want to walk away from all of it. I don’t think I can. I held one in my hand.”
Riley leaned forward. “You held one of the stars?”
“In a dream.” Sasha turned her palm up, stared at it. “I held it, held the fire. And it was so beautiful it blinded. Then it came.”
“What came?”
“The dark, the hungry, the brutal.”
Suddenly she felt queasy, light-headed. Though she struggled, what moved through her won.
“She who is darkness covets. To have what she desires consumes her. What the three moons created out of love, loyalty, and hope, she would corrupt. She has burned her gifts and all bright edges of her power away, and what remains is a madness. She will kill to possess them, fire, ice, water. Possessing them, she will destroy worlds, destroy all so she lives.”
Sasha lifted both hands to her head. “Headache.”
“Does that happen often?”
“I do everything I can to stop it.”
“And that’s probably why you have a headache. You can’t fight your own nature, trust me. You have to learn to control it, and to adapt.” Riley caught the waiter’s eyes, circled a finger in the air. “I’m getting us another round.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Eat some nuts.” Brisk now, Riley shoved the bowl closer. “No way you’re faking this—nobody’s that good. And I’ve got a sense about people—not empathic, but a reliable sense. So we’ll have another drink, talk this through some more, then figure out where we go from there.”
“You’re going to help me.”
“The way I look at it, we’re going to help each other. My research indicates the Fire Star is in or around Corfu—and your dreams corroborate that. You could come in handy. Now—”
She broke off, flicked a hand at her bangs as she looked over Sasha’s head. “Well, well, it just keeps getting more and more interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Dream date.” Riley aimed a deliberately flirty smile, crooked a finger in the air.
Swiveling in her chair, Sasha saw him. The man who held the lightning. The one who’d taken her body.
His eyes, so dark, flicked away from Riley, met hers. Held them. And holding them, crossed to their table.
“Ladies. Spectacular view, isn’t it?”
His voice, Irish and easy, brought a shiver to Sasha’s skin. She felt trapped, as if a shining silver cage had dropped around her.
And when he smiled, she yearned.
“Where you from, Irish?” Riley asked.
“Sligo, a little village you wouldn’t have heard of.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Cloonacool.”
“I know it. Sits at the foot of the Ox Mountains.”
“So it does, yes. Well then.” He waved his hand, and offered Riley the little clutch of shamrocks that appeared in it. “A token from home, faraway.”
“Nice.”
“Americans?” He looked back at Sasha. “Both of you?”
“Looks that way.” Riley watched his gaze shift, land on the sketches. She said nothing when he reached down, lifted the one of six people.
Not shocked, she thought. Intrigued.
“Isn’t this a fascination. You’d be the artist?” he said to Sasha. “You’ve a clever hand, and eye. I’ve been told I have the same.” He smiled. “Mind if I join you?”
Without waiting for assent, he got a chair from a neighboring table, pulled it up. Sat.
“I’d say we’ve a lot to talk about. I’d be Bran. Bran Killian. Why don’t I buy you ladies a drink, and we’ll talk about the moon and the stars?”