Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)

Nikolas opened his arms wide. “When else, Sophie?” he snarled. “My men are going to be here soon. We’re all alone, just you and I. Tell me, when else should we be talking about this?”

She looked down into Robin’s eyes. He looked so sad. Stroking the puck’s head, she said softly, “We were all in the manor house, and I knew we’d been looking for the answers to the broken pieces of crossover magic. It’s just background to the vision, that knowledge. It puts everything in place, you know? Then I was on my own, somewhere in a big room, or maybe a long one. I was really excited about something, but someone came up from behind, put his hands around my throat, and started choking me. I fought, but he was really strong, as… as I’m sure you can imagine. He was tall too, maybe as tall as you are or even taller. A big man, with big hands, not someone as small as a puck.” She kissed the monkey and whispered to him, “It wasn’t you, was it?”

Ooh-ooh, the monkey mouthed, eyes wide and solemn. He shook his head.

Telepathically, she asked, Robin, why did you interfere with the vision?

She didn’t expect a reply. By then, she had stopped expecting Robin to answer anything she said to him, so it was with a sense of immense surprise that she heard a voice, dry like the rustle of autumn leaves, say in her head, Because you needed to know. Though he may not forgive Robin for it, he needs to know. Some of us are not who we seem, dear love. The puck patted her throat with both hands. Robin did not realize his interference might hurt you.

Some of us are not who we seem. What did the puck mean by that?

It’s okay, she whispered back. But don’t do it again.

His response was fervent. No, never again.

Robin, did you interfere with my first vision of Nikolas? As the monkey hung his head, she said, You did, didn’t you? What were you hoping for?

Help, the puck whispered. A puck was hoping for help. The Queen made him do things he didn’t want to do. Create fog, hide murders, dance like a monkey to her wicked whims.

“Hoping for help…,” she murmured aloud, staring at him. Once her mind started piecing things together, it wouldn’t stop. “Robin, did you have anything to do with my car breaking down the night I found you on the road?”

Because it really was unusual for her technology curse to cause something as big as the car to stop working. And it was even more suspect that the car had started again perfectly, right afterward.

A puck was hoping for help, waiting for so long, Robin whispered. Waiting for someone to notice he was gone, taken and lost, but no one ever came. So Robin helped himself. When you arrived, no matter how the terrible rope fought and bit him, he broke free and threw the last of his strength at a Sophie.

He sounded so distressed she hugged him tightly. “Nobody understood where you had gone, but you have help now, I promise. You’re not alone anymore.”

On the other side of the table, Nikolas stood with his hands on his hips, staring at them. He carried so much bitter anger his Power felt like a volcano about to explode, all the more dangerous for that he had himself so contained.

“He’s finally talking, isn’t he?” Nikolas said abruptly. “He’s talking to you.”

“The Queen forced him to do things,” Sophie said. “When he created the fog, he did something more that must have interfered with my vision like he did just now. He said he was looking for help. He also made my car break down when I first arrived, and he threw the last of his strength into escaping.”

As she spoke, it took a concentrated effort to meet the dark, forceful blaze in his eyes. She could no longer tell if Nikolas was her ally, and it was astonishingly difficult to confront that reality. She had grown so quickly accustomed to the rapport that had been developing between them.

“Robin, did you help the Queen’s Hounds find me that day?” Nikolas’s fury seemed to reach its peak. “Did you?”

Robin seemed to shrink in Sophie’s arms. Patting her throat again gently with his spidery hands, he whispered in her head, Robin tried to show you. Things are not what they seem to be. A brother is not a brother. A house that is broken might still hold the key. The strongest force might still yet win the day, and holding true can create and heal all worlds, but dear love, beware the false one who betrays. He looked sidelong at Nikolas. He cannot hear these words. He loves too well in the wrong places.

A brother is not a brother.

Beware the false one who betrays. Oh dear God.

As the heavy message in Robin’s words sank in, her arms loosened. Robin said in Sophie’s head, Robin must go to create a storm.

Just as Nikolas strode forward to try to grab at Robin, the puck leaped away and disappeared down the hall. “Stop,” Sophie said to Nikolas. When he made as if to lunge down the hall after Robin, she threw herself in front of him and grabbed his arms. “Nikolas, stop it! Leave him alone! Robin didn’t have anything to do with how the Hounds found you. All he did was create the fog.”

“How can you still believe him after the way he hurt you?” Nikolas snapped. He glared at her. “By all the gods, Sophie. You. Stopped. Breathing. What would you have done if you’d been alone?”

“That didn’t happen.” Somehow she managed to say the words more or less steadily. “Nik, you may not believe Robin. That’s your choice, but I believe him. He didn’t mean to hurt me. It was a mistake, and he’s sorry. Listen—Listen!” As he shrugged off her hold angrily, she caught at him again. “He tried to influence the vision, but he wasn’t in control of it any more than I was. That’s the whole point of divination magic, do you understand? I don’t force my needs and desires to make up images. I open myself up to the images that come to me, based on the questions I ask, and the visions always carry some element of truth to them. Robin’s interference that first time might have made us see each other, which is definitely not normal, but it wasn’t false.”

For a moment she thought she hadn’t broken through to him. The violent emotions thrumming through his taut body felt like an arrow, notched and pulled to its most taut point before being loosed in a killing shot.

Then the tension pulled back, and he stopped straining against her hold. In a low voice filled with reluctance, he muttered, “I hear you.”

Relaxing slightly, she let her hands fall from his arms, and she realized for the first time that her neck actually felt sore. Clearing her throat, she said huskily, “I guess we accomplished something then.”

But at what cost?

“I need some air,” Nikolas said. Not looking at her, he turned and walked out.

The cottage felt strange after he had gone: bigger, colder, and emptier. At a momentary loss, Sophie looked around at the scattered stones, the magic-embroidered cloth on the table, and the brandy bottle still sitting on the counter.