PITTE was already in the parlor, wearing a black shirt and trousers that echoed Rowenas casual elegance.
Dana wondered if they sat around looking beautiful all the time. Something else to think about, she supposed. Like did they ever have bad hair days, indigestion, sore feet?
Or were those things too mundane for gods living in the mortal world?
“We were just enjoying the fire, and a glass of wine. Youll join us?” Rowena asked.
“Sure, thanks.” Welcoming the heat, Dana walked toward the snapping fire. “You guys hang like this every evening?
In the process of pouring wine,Pitte stopped, frowned at her. “Hang?”
“Hang out. You know, sit around in great clothes, drinking fine wine out of, what is that, Baccarat?”
“I believe it is.”Pitte finished pouring, offered the glass to Dana. “We often take an hour or so to relax together at the end of the day.”
“What about the rest of the time? Do you just putter around this place?”
“Ah. You wonder what we do to entertain ourselves.” Rowena sat, patted the cushion beside her. “I paint, as you know.Pitte spends time on our finances. He enjoys the game of money. We read. Ive enjoyed your books, Jordan.”
“Thanks.”
“Pitteenjoys films,” Rowena added with a glance of affection toward her lover. “Particularly ones where a great many things blow up in impressive explosions.”
“So you go to the movies?” Dana prompted.
“Ordinarily no. We prefer settling in at home and watching at our leisure.”
“Multiplexes,”Pitte muttered. “They call them this. Like little boxes stacked end by end. Its a pity the grand theaters have gone out of fashion.”
“Thats something youd both be up on. The changes in fashion. Thered have been a lot of that in a couple of millennia.”
Rowena lifted a brow at Dana. “Yes, indeed.”
“I know this sounds like small talk,” Dana continued, “but Im just trying to get a handle on things. It occurred to me that you know everything about me. Youve had my whole lifetime to watch. Did you watch?”
“Of course. You were of considerable interest to us from the moment you were born. We didnt intrude,” Rowena added, running the jeweled chain she wore around her neck through her fingers as she spoke. “Or interfere. I understand your interest in us now. We are more like you than you may think and less like you than you could possibly imagine. We can and do indulge in what youd call human pleasures. Food, drink, warmth, vanity. Sex. We love…” She reached up forPittes hand. “As genuinely as you. We weep and laugh. We enjoy much of what your world offers. We celebrate the generosity and resilience of the human spirit, and mourn its darker sides.”
“But while youre here, youre of neither one world nor the other. Isnt that right?” There was something about the way they touched each other, Jordan thought. As if they would wither away without that small contact. “You can live as you choose to live, but within limitations. Within the boundaries of this dimension. Even so, youre not of it. You might feel the heat, but you dont burn. You might sleep at night, but when you wake in the morning, you havent aged. The hours havent changed you. Millions of hours cant.”
“And do you see that kind of… immortality,”Pitte inquired, “as a gift?”
“No, I dont.” Jordans glance shifted toPittes face and held. “I see it as a curse. A punishment, certainly, when youre locked out of your own world and spend those millions of hours here.”
Pittesexpression didnt change, but his eyes seemed to deepen, to heat. “Then you have excellent sight.”
“I see something else clearly enough. The penalty, if Dana fails to find the key, is a year of her life. A year of Malorys andZoes as well. From your standpoint thats nothing. But its a different matter when youre human and your life is already finite.”
“Ah.”Pitte draped an arm over the mantel. “So, have you come to renegotiate our contract?”
Before Dana could speak, tell Jordan to mind his own business, he shot her a look. “No, because Danas going to find the key, so it wont be an issue.”
“You have confidence in your woman,” Rowena said.
“Im not his woman,” Dana said quickly. “Has Kane watched us, too? From the beginning of our lives?”
“I cant say,” Rowena answered, then waved an impatient hand at Danas dubious expression. “I cant. There are, as Jordan said, certain boundaries we cant cross. Something has changed—we know this because he was able to draw both Malory and Flynn into dreams and to cause Flynn harm. He wasnt able, or perhaps didnt choose, to do so before.”
“Tell them what he did to you.” It wasnt phrased as a request, and this time Danas anger was sparked. But before she could snap at Jordan, Rowena took her arm.
“Kane? What happened?”
She told them, and found that this time her voice remained steady throughout the telling. More distance, she thought, less fear.
At least there was less until she saw a flicker of fear cross Rowenas face.
She didnt care to think what it took to frighten a god.
“There wasnt any real threat, right?” Her skin was prickling, icy little ants rushing down her back. “I mean, I couldnt have drowned when I jumped into the sea, because the sea didnt actually exist.”
“But it did,”Pitte corrected. There was a grim chill to his face. A soldiers face, Dana thought, as he watched the battle from a rise and waited for the time to draw his sword.
And she was the one down in the field, she realized, waging bloody war.
“It was conjured first by your fantasy, then by your fear. That doesnt make it less than real.”
“That just doesnt make sense,” she insisted. “When he had Malory in that fantasy, when she was painting, we could see her. We all saw her, just standing there in that attic.”
“Her body, perhaps part of her consciousness—she has a strong mind—remained. The rest…” Rowena drew a breath. “The rest of what she was had traveled to the other side. And if harm had come to her. To her body,” Rowena explained, holding out one hand. “To what you can call her essence.” Then the other. “On either side, the harm would be to all of her.”
“If she cut her hand in one existence,” Jordan said, “it would bleed in the other.”
“He could prevent it.” Obviously troubled, Rowena rose to pour more wine. “If, for instance, I wished to give you a gift, a harmless fantasy, I might send you into dreams, and watch over you to keep you from harm. But what Kane does is not harmless. He does it to tempt, and to terrorize.”
“Why didnt he just shove my head under the bathwater while I was out of it?”
“There are still limits. To maintain the illusion, he cant touch your corporeal body. And as it is your mind that forms the texture of the illusion, neither can he force you to harm yourself. Lie, yes. Deceive and frighten, even persuade, but he cant make you do anything against your will.”
“Thats how she broke back through.” It was the answer that Jordan had needed confirmed. “First, by choosing to see it as a trick, she changed the texture, as you said, of the world. Instead of paradise, nightmare.”
“Her knowledge and fear, and Kanes anger, yes,”Pitte agreed. “The fruit you dropped,” he said to Dana. “Your mind saw it then as rotten in the center. This was not your paradise but your prison.”
“And when she dived into the sea rather than let him take what she was, rather than accept the fantasy or the nightmare, she broke through both,” Jordan concluded. “So her weapon against him is staying true to herself, whatever he throws at her.”
“Simply put,”Pitte agreed.
“Too simply.” Rowena shook her head. “Hes wily and seductive. You must never underestimate him.”
“Hes already underestimated her. Hasnt he, Stretch?”
“I can handle myself.” His easy confidence went a long way toward quieting her nerves. “Whats to stop him from hitting onZoe , screwing with her while were focused on him screwing with me?”