But that skeleton of factual knowledge couldn’t begin to convey the uniqueness of a woman like Justine. Vivid, glowing, with the raffish spirit of an adventuress. And yet there was something agreeably settled about her … she had found her place in the world, and was happy in it.
Happy, but not altogether content. He wanted, on the most instinctual level, to fill that space between what she had and what she needed.
It was an unwanted complication, this compelling attraction to her. It made him regret the necessity of having to use her, to take what she valued most.
But he needed magic in the most literal sense, and it could only come from a witch, a spellbook, and a key.
* * *
Justine felt shaken and hollow as she went into her cottage. She wasn’t entirely certain what had just happened, only that she had started a casual game and Jason had turned it into something threatening. Something sexual.
Her gaze went to the clock on the wall. A quarter to midnight.
Just enough time to prepare for the spell.
All thoughts of Jason Black fled from her mind as she glanced at the shadowy space beneath her bed, where the Triodecad waited.
Am I really going to do this?
She had to try. There was no choice, now that she knew about the geas. She couldn’t rest until it was broken.
She went to her bedroom closet to pull out a besom broom with a cedar handle. Cinnamon fragrance flourished upward as she began to sweep the floor in a counterclockwise direction, widdershins as it was called in the craft. The ritual broom would whisk away negative energies.
After a few minutes of vigorous sweeping, Justine replaced the broom in the closet and stood on her toes to reach the top shelf. She took down a Mason jar filled with a mix of stone and crystal … quartz, calcite, pyrite, obsidian, agate, turquoise, and other varieties poured around a candle in the center. After lighting the candle, Justine set the jar on the floor. The last necessary element for spell-casting was to create a protected area. She retrieved a bundle of soft hemp rope cord from the closet and unwound enough to form a large circle on the floor.
She retrieved the Triodecad from under the bed. The book felt warm and vibrant in her hands. Unwrapping the book from its linen covering, she carried it to the center of the circle and sat with it in her lap.
She grasped the fine chain around her neck, withdrew the key from beneath her shirt, and unlocked the spellbook. It opened immediately to page 13. Justine stroked her fingers across the parchment as words appeared. She had always wondered why anyone would cast a spell that had been predestined to end in disaster, and now she understood: Sometimes you wanted something so much that you didn’t care about the consequences.
She concentrated on the candle flame, the flick of blue at its heart, the radiant yellow outer layer, the dancing white summit. Her mouth was dry. She was nervous. Not because she was afraid the banishment would fail, but because she knew it was going to work. And nothing would be the same afterward.
She read the banishing rite once … twice … thrice.
But it wasn’t enough. Her heart was still a tight knot. Nothing had changed.
Something more was needed.
A tear slipped down her cheek as she cradled the spellbook in her lap. She remembered watching Marigold in the middle of a particularly tricky act of spell-casting. “These are the bones of magic,” Marigold had once told her, sifting through handfuls of minerals and crystals in a bowl. “Everything taken from the earth … stones, fibers, roots … all are the tools of our art. Let their energy guide you. When a spell isn’t working, it means you’re not focusing clearly on your goal. Use the crystals as the spirits direct.”
Following instinct, Justine blew out the candle flame, poured the jar of stones and crystals into a heap on the floor, and combed through them with her fingers. She closed her eyes and picked one that seemed especially vibrant, its energy singing to her.
A hematite, its surface silvery and liquid-smooth. An easily magnetized stone, good for improving the blood’s circulation and for turning negative energy into love.
She pressed the hematite to the center of her chest, over her heart. She covered it tightly with her palm. “Help me, spirits,” she said humbly, swallowing against a lump in her throat. “I need to love someone. Even if it doesn’t last. Because one day of something wonderful is better than a forever of nothing special.”
Slowly a white glow collected outside the window. Moonlight. It broke into separate rays, thin silver splines that reached through the glass and trailed down the wall and along the floor. The light moved toward her like outstretched fingers, sliding through the circle.
Justine felt dizzy, unable to catch up to her own heartbeat. Her thoughts darted out of reach, hummingbird-fast. She closed her eyes against a sensation of falling slowly, a tumble into clouds and midnight and soft-carded dreams.
It could have been minutes or hours as she lay there. Eventually the moonlight awakened her, teasing her closed lids and playing with her lashes until she stirred. She discovered that she was lying on her side, on the floor, her head cradled on the spellbook. The pages were smooth beneath her cheek, wafting out a crisp scent of cloves. She was cold, but it was a pleasant sensation, like drawing in fresh air after having been trapped beneath a smothering blanket. She felt vulnerable. She felt … free.
Uncurling her fingers, she stared at the silvery hematite in her open palm.
A curse contained in stone.
Seven
Justine started the day by walking down to the Spring Street dock. The morning mist had diffused the sunrise into layers of pink and peach. The tide was slack, the water pinned by the reflected bristle of boat masts. A boat loaded with crab pots headed out of the harbor, followed by a pair of seagulls that split the air with squeaky-hinge cries.
Justine went out to the farthest boat slips with the hematite in her hand. She drew back her arm and threw the stone as far as possible. As it disappeared beneath the surface of the water, taking the geas with it, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
No excuses now. Nothing to stand in the way of whatever life dared to throw at her.
She felt as if she could jump up into the sunrise and be caught by a cloud. She felt fragile and raw. Newborn.
A fractious breeze came out of nowhere, carrying the promise of rain. Narrowing her eyes against the cool rush, she saw that the sky had darkened near the horizon. Waves slapped against the dock pilings like a dog lapping from its bowl.
By the time Justine walked into the kitchen at Artist’s Point, Zoë had arrived and started breakfast. The air was laced with the tang of coffee and the scents of browning butter and hot ovens.
“Good morning,” Justine said exuberantly. “What are we having?”
“Brioche French toast with berry compote.”
“Yum.” Justine’s attention was caught by the sight of the nearby blender, half filled with vivid green sludge.
“Mr. Black’s health shake,” Zoë said with a grimace.
Justine poured a small quantity into a glass and sampled it. The flavor was fresh and fruity, the texture light. “Did you remember to put in the hemp protein powder?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because a Green Monster smoothie is supposed to be a glutinous slop … and this is delicious.”
“I may have adjusted the ingredients a little,” Zoë said. She frowned as she saw Justine’s reaction. “I know. But it was so disgusting.”
Justine grinned. “It’s supposed to be. Has Priscilla already taken a glass up to Jason?”
“Yes.” Zoë began to slice homemade brioche loaves, golden and cakelike with shiny puffed tops. “I’ve never seen anyone multitask the way Priscilla does. She just drank a triple-shot espresso and had conversations on two cell phones and texted on a third. Simultaneously.”
“According to Jason, they’re all on a working vacation,” Justine said dryly. “Makes you wonder what their normal day is like.”
“Alex and his lawyer are going to spend most of today with him.”
“That should be interesting,” Justine said. “I’d love to hear Alex’s take on him.”
“Did you get to meet him last night? What did you think?”
“My first impression was that he’s a smug, self-aware, manipulative narcissist with spectacular cheekbones.”
They both jumped a little as a new voice entered the conversation. “I disagree,” Priscilla said, walking into the kitchen, carrying a glass of the green health shake.
Justine gave her a contrite glance, but before she could apologize, Priscilla continued, “Once you get to know him, the cheekbones are only a little above average.”
Zoë came forward to take the full glass from her. “He didn’t like it?” she asked in concern.
Priscilla shook her head, her copper-colored hair swinging. “He says it tastes too good,” she said. “I swear, he’d complain if someone hung him with new rope.”
“I took liberties with the recipe,” Zoë confessed sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I’ll make another one.”
“I’ll do it,” Priscilla began, but she was forced to pause as her cell phone rang. “’Scuse me.” She retreated to the corner of the kitchen, muttering fiercely into the phone. “Toby.” A brief pause. “Don’t even try. You really expect I would give that sorry excuse to Jason? The software patch we sent out to fix the frame-rate problem made everything worse and now people are raisin’ hell ’cause they got weapons malfunctioning and dragons flying ass-backward. You’d better come up with some kinda brand-new patch to fix it, or … hold on.” Another cell phone went off, and she grabbed it out of a bag slung over her shoulder. “Yeah,” she said into the second phone. “I got the as**ole on the other line, trying to convince me everything is all MoonPies and salted peanuts.”
Justine caught her eye, gestured to the blender, and said sotto voce, “I’ll take care of it.”
Priscilla nodded and kept talking with quiet ferocity.
Zoë brought a colander of freshly washed spinach leaves to the blender. “I can give it another try,” she said, heaving a sigh.
“No, leave it to me,” Justine said. “You need to make breakfast for everyone else. Where’s the recipe?”
“I printed it out,” Zoë said, nudging a piece of paper to her.
In less than five minutes, Justine had blended the ingredients into a smoothie that approximated the color of an oxidized avocado, and poured it into a glass. Seeing that Priscilla was still talking and making furious notes, she said, “I’ll take it up to him.”
The assistant sent her a grateful glance and snarled into the phone, “Oh, really? ’Cause about a million geeks have e-mailed about the PS3 version freezing up every ten or fifteen minutes. Here’s an idea—why don’t we get the dadgum game right before we start selling it?”
Justine left the kitchen quietly and carried the shake upstairs. On the way, she passed a couple of guys who were descending to the first floor. “Good morning,” she said. “The coffee cart is in the lobby.”
“Great,” one of them said, his eyes friendly behind wire-rimmed glasses. “I could use some caffeine.”
The other, who was stocky and middle-aged, gave Justine a blatant once-over and said, “I could use some room service.”
Both men chuckled.
Justine was in such a good mood that she only smiled and said, “Trust me, you’d rather have breakfast downstairs.”
Making her way to the Klimt room, she saw that the door was ajar. She knocked on the jamb.
“Priscilla,” came a curt voice. “I need the report from the emerging-markets group. And I want to know who we’re sending to the E3 Expo. Also, get me a hard copy of the exhibitor list and a plan of the show floor—”
“Save your breath,” Justine said. “It’s me. I have your breakfast shake.”
A short silence ensued. “Are you coming in?”
“Are you decent?”
The door opened fully to reveal Jason dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt printed with the Inari logo, the I formed in the shape of a stylized dragon. “I’m clothed,” he said. “Decency is open for debate.”
His black hair was damp from a recent shower, his face clean-shaven. Forcing herself to look into those cool coffee-dark eyes, Justine felt her heart jam up against her ribs until every throb was a sharp little pain. Even though she kept her gaze on his, she was aware of every detail of him, the carnal mouth, the long, superbly conditioned body. The indefinable threat was still there, raising the fine hairs on her arms and neck … something physical, something shadowy.
Something erotic.
She extended the drink to him, careful not to let their fingers touch.
“Who made this one?” Jason asked.
“I did.” She smiled at his dubious expression.
Taking a sip of the shake, he nodded in approval. “Just the way I like it.”
“What a relief,” she said. “Because if I’d had to bring up a third one, I might have added a splash of hemlock.”
“You wouldn’t poison me,” he said, and took another swallow.
“You have that much faith in my integrity?”
“No. It would be too much trouble for you to drag me outside and bury me in the yard.”
Justine grinned reluctantly.
Jason stared at her in the unsettling way he had, taking in every detail. “I made you uncomfortable last night,” he said.
Her smile faded instantly. “No harm done.”
“So … we’re good now.”
“No, I still don’t like you.”
A glint of humor entered his eyes. “Justine, you have to admit—” He broke off, appearing to think better of what he’d been about to say.
“What?”
Jason set the health shake on the table beside his laptop. “You were the one who suggested playing truth or dare.”
“And you were the one who turned it into a cat-and-mouse game.”
He didn’t bother to contradict her. They both knew she was right. And he didn’t look the least bit remorseful. “I should have warned you that I don’t play well with others.”
“Yeah, I’m clear on that now,” Justine muttered, turning away. “Let Priscilla know if you want the rest of what’s in the blender. God knows no one else will touch it.”
“Wait,” he said as she began to leave.
She turned back to him reluctantly. “Yes?”