“Takes one to know one.”
Thorne gave her a half smile with a short chuckle. “I’m going to ask for your patience on those answers of yours. I’ve got more than a few questions myself. This has taken me by surprise, too.”
“What did Khan tell you?” The information disconnect was unsettling, but her sense of displacement was more so. She normally felt like she didn’t belong, a remnant from her childhood. Now she felt like the ultimate outsider. Magic? Madness. Where the hell was Khan? Why did she have that . . . that pain attack?
Thorne sighed. Scratched his head. Shrugged. “Some business about a gate. I’ll have to make a call before I know what he was talking about.”
“A gate?” Layla felt sick to her stomach.
Thorne dropped his arm. “You see one recently?”
In a nightmare. When I was knocked unconscious. But she didn’t verbalize it. She’d sound like she was out of her mind. And after today, she just might be.
Another chuckle. “Well, it must be pretty bad.”
It’s evil, the blacksmith, Khan, had said.
“But not real,” Layla replied. “Right?”
Adam gave her a look of extreme patience. “You tell me. You’re the one who just passed through Shadow to get here.”
There was that word again: Shadow. Khan’s term for magic. Just how far did his power extend? Could he mess with her dreams?
“Can you tell me what he is?” Maybe then she’d be able to get a handle on what had happened. If she listened closely she could almost hear that damning kat-a-kat.
“So you can put it in your story? Expose him and his kind to the masses? I don’t think so. And anyway, it’s not my place.”
If Khan and his kind had this much power, the masses had a right to know. “Khan didn’t seem to have a problem filling me in.”
Adam gazed at her long enough for her to feel utterly stupid.
Of course. Khan had told her only what he wanted her to know. And then he’d delivered her to a place where she could be controlled. She was finally inside the castle of secrets and magic. She’d thought the place was scary before; now she found it utterly terrifying. And no one even knew she was there.
Adam’s expression mellowed. “You obviously know quite a bit more than you did a few days ago. And if you hang out here long enough, you’re bound to discover more. Frankly, I worry for the safety of my wife and children should you make public certain private matters.”
“It is not my intention to hurt anyone.”
“I’m saying, be careful.”
There was no mistaking the warning that time. Why the hell were they going to let her stay? Just because Khan said so? “If it were up to you, I’d already be on your plane back to New York. Why am I here? What is Khan’s hold over you?”
“You jump to a lot of conclusions. It’s a dangerous habit.”
“Then set me straight.” Tell me something.
Adam looked down at the floor for a long moment. When he raised his head again, Layla knew that answers would not be forthcoming. “I’ll arrange for a room and, uh, give my wife a heads-up that you’ll be staying with us. If you’re hungry, kitchen’s through there. Help yourself to whatever you like. How about I find you there in say”—he looked at his watch—“an hour? I should have everything ready by then.”
He’d have to answer her questions eventually, but for now, she let it go.
“The kitchen,” she agreed. Felt weird to accept hospitality from him, though. He was supposed to be one of the bad guys. Now she didn’t know what to think.
Layla watched in amazement as Adam strode through the large connecting rooms to the elevator. No guards left behind. Just her. Alone.
“Okay, then,” she said to break the silence. “Food.”
Layla turned in the direction Adam had indicated—couldn’t be that hard to find—and halted, perspiration slicking her skin with one thud of her heart.
A semitransparent child of eight or nine stood before her, her fancy little dress accented by a large, triangular collar of lace. Her hair was coiled in fat yellow ringlets around her face. Her shiny black shoes stood primly together. Her hands were fisted. But it was the naked loathing and spite in the child’s eyes that made Layla go fish cold. She didn’t dare breathe.
Ghost. She was seeing things again. The child couldn’t possibly exist.
“How dare you bring him here?”
Bring whom? Khan? Layla shook her head and took a slow step back from the little girl. “N-no. He brought me.”
“The worst of them. The darkest of them.” The little girl wrinkled her nose. “You let him touch you.”
It wasn’t like that, Layla wanted to assure her. Khan just had a way about him that . . .