“Not with us?” Doyle turned away from his watch. “I’m sworn to guard it.”
“As am I. If we keep it with us, we risk her getting through us—we all know she won’t stop trying just that. But if it’s not with us, even if she gets through, she won’t have it.”
“I don’t much like the idea of not being able to keep an eye on it,” Riley said. “Just where are you talking about?”
“It’s best to show you. I’ll be a minute.”
When he left the room, Riley scowled into her beer. “If it’s not with us, what’s to stop her from finding the hiding place, just walking the hell away with it?”
“I’m not risking that. And she damn well won’t get through me.”
Like the others, Sawyer studied the star. “I’ve got to lean with Riley and Doyle on this. I’ve spent damn near ten years looking, and now we’ve got the first of them, and burying it somewhere doesn’t sit right. We’ve handled what she’s thrown at us so far.”
“Bleeding, nearly drowning,” Sasha pointed out. “And with the opinion she’s just been playing with us. What happens when she gets serious?”
“If it’s away from us, how can we know it’s safe?” Tentatively, Annika reached out a hand for the globe. When her fingers brushed it, the star inside pulsed.
“We’re still not a team, not a unit. Even after all this.” Weary, Sasha turned to the sink to wash blood and salve from her hands. “You don’t trust, not enough to wait to see and understand what he means to do. You don’t trust what we are if you really believe we can only keep it safe if we can see it, or touch it.”
She turned back, grabbed up Riley’s beer, took a deep gulp. “For God’s sake. For God’s sake! I’m standing here after yet another battle with—I don’t know what to call them—her minions? That’ll do. Her minions. Cleaning up blood while this god-star sits on the kitchen counter as casually as a toaster. I’m standing here with a mermaid, a lycan, a man who can zip through time and space—and whatever the hell Doyle’s got going he hasn’t decided to tell us. I was fine living my life. Fine! My work, my house, the quiet. I’d learned to deal with what I had—or to ignore it so I could just live the life I thought I wanted. Now I’m fighting some power-crazed god who’d like to end my life altogether. I’m in love with a magician and shooting a crossbow. And I’m drinking beer when I don’t even like beer.
“Every one of you, every single one, has been on this—this quest—or known about it for years. I’ve known for weeks, so why am I the only one here who can reach down and pull out some goddamn trust when the person with power tells us he has a way?”
“Ass,” Sawyer muttered, “consider yourself kicked.”
“I don’t want to kick anyone’s ass. I don’t want to rant like this, and I can’t seem to stop. God, I think I need to sit down.”
As she started to, she saw Bran in the doorway, his gaze—dark and intense—locked on her face.
“Just had a little meltdown,” she managed, and did sit. “I’d apologize to everyone, but I think I had some valid points mixed in with the tirade.”
“More valid points than tirade,” Riley told her.
Annika poured a glass of wine, brought it to Sasha. “I’m apology.”
“I’ll give you waiting to hear the plan.” Doyle leaned back on the counter, nodded to Bran. “So let’s hear it.”
“I thought of it sitting on the terrace of the hotel, the first day. It needed some work,” he added, and laid the painting on the table.
“My painting—the one you said you’d bought.”
“Before I met you, yes. I sent for it. I told you I knew these woods, this path. Because I’ve walked that path through those woods, toward that light. I have a place there, of my own.”
“In Ireland.”
“Yes, near the coast in Clare. A place I happened upon some time ago. It spoke to me, so I built a home there, though Sligo had always been mine before. This place, at the end of the path and into the light called to me. And to you, or why else would you have painted it? Why else would I have wandered into that gallery and seen it, and known it for mine? There’s a purpose in things, and this is clearly purposeful. The star will be safe there. I believe with all I am it will be beyond her there.”
“Okay.” Riley shoved up to pace. “Okay, I get it. That’s a powerful and strong connection. And I’m giving Sash her valid points. We should have more trust. But how do we get it there? Tap Sawyer for another zip—can you get us all that way?”
“If I had the coordinates, yeah, I think so.”
“I’ve a better way, the way I’m sure it stays beyond her. I can send it through the painting.”
“That’s fucking genius. Is that even possible?” Riley demanded. “Because it’s fucking genius, and makes me want to kick my own ass for doubting you had a solid plan.”
“It’s my place, and Sasha’s vision of it, here. It’s possible, yes.”