“Did I wake you?” he asks, his voice sounding small, distant. “Cuz if I did, well, be glad you’re not me. My body clock’s been screwed up for days. I sleep when I should be eating, and eat when I should be—Well, strike that, since it’s Italy and the food is amazing, I pretty much eat all of the time. Seriously. I don’t know how these people do it and continue to look so smokin’. It’s not fair. A couple days of the old dolce vita and I’m a pudgy, bloated mess—and yet, I’m lovin’ it. I’m so serious. It’s amazing here! So, anyway, what time is it there?”

I glance around the room, but not finding a clock I just shrug and say, “Um, early. You?”

“I have no idea, but probably afternoon. I went to this amazing club last night—did you know you don’t even have to be twenty-one to go to a club or drink here? I’m telling you, Ever, this is the life. These Italians really know how to live! Anyway, well, I’ll save all that for later—for when I get back—I’ll even reenact it for you and everything, I promise. But for now, the cost of this call is already giving my dad a coronary, I’m sure, so I’ll just get to it and say that you need to tell Damen that I stopped by that place Roman told me about and—hello? Can you hear me—are you there?”

“Um, yeah, I’m still here. You’re breaking up a little, but, okay, you’re good.” I turn my back to Damen and move several steps away, mostly because I don’t want him to witness the horrible mask of dread that’s displayed on my face.

“Okay, so anyway, I stopped by that place Roman was going on and on about, in fact, I just left a few minutes ago—and, well, I gotta tell you, Ever, there’s some really freaky stuff in there. And I mean really freaky. Like, someone’s got lots of explaining to do when I return.”

“Freaky—how?” I ask, feeling Damen’s presence hovering right behind me now, his energy shifting from relaxed to full-scale alert.

“Just—freaky. That’s all I’m gonna say about it, but—crap—can you hear me? I’m losing you again. Listen, just—ugh—anyway, I sent some photos via e-mail, so whatever you do, do not delete it without seeing them first. Okay? Ever? Ever! Stupid—damn—phon—”

I swallow hard and press end, feeling Damen’s hand on my arm when he says, “What did he want?”

“He sent me some photos,” I say, voice low, eyes never once leaving his. “Something he really wants us to see.”

Damen nods, arranging his features into an expression of determined acceptance, as though the moment he’s been waiting for has arrived, and now he’s just anticipating the fallout, to see how I react, to see how much damage has been done.

I click to the home page, then over to mail, watching as the little connecting swirl goes around and around until Miles’s e-mail is displayed. And then, the second it pops up, I just hold my breath and tap it—my knees going all wobbly the very moment I see it.

The picture.

Or rather, the picture of the painting. Photography wasn’t yet invented back then, wouldn’t be invented for several hundred more years. But still, there it is, flaunted before me, and there’s no mistaking it’s him. Them. Posing together.

“How bad is it?” he asks, body perfectly still as his eyes graze over me. “As bad as I expected?”

I glance at him, but only for a second before I’m focusing back on the screen, unwilling to tear my eyes away. “Depends on what you were expecting,” I mumble, remembering how I felt that day in Summerland when I spied on his past. How sick, how completely green with envy I was, when it got to the part where he hooked up with Drina. But this—this isn’t anything like that. In fact, not even close. Oh sure, Drina is stunning—Drina was always stunning, even at her ugliest and most vicious she was breathtaking, or at least on the outside anyway. And I’m sure no matter what decade she was in, be it the era of bustles or poodle skirts, I’m sure she was stunning then too. But the fact is, Drina’s gone, so gone that the thought of her, the sight of her, doesn’t really bother me anymore. In fact, it doesn’t bother me at all.

What bothers me is Damen. The way he stands, the way he gazes at the artist, and how—how arrogant and vain and, well, full of himself he is. And even though he carries a trace of that outlaw edge that I like, this isn’t quite so playful as what I’m used to. It’s a lot less let’s-ditch-school-and-bet-at-the-track and a lot more this-is-my-world-and-you’re-just-lucky-I-let-you-live-in-it.

And the more I gaze at the two of them, Drina sitting demurely in a straight-backed chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, dress and hair adorned with so many jewels and ribbons and shiny things, it’d look ridiculous on anyone else—while Damen stands behind her, one hand resting on her chair, the other hanging by his side, his chin tilted, brow arced in that cool, haughty way—well, there’s just something about him—something about that look in his gaze that’s—well—almost cruel, ruthless even. Like he’d be willing to do whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to get what he wants.

And even though he’s made plenty of mention of his “before picture” of his former, narcissistic, power-hungry self—it’s one thing to hear about it, it’s quite another to see it so clearly displayed.

But even though there are three more portraits attached, I only give them the most cursory glance. Miles is only interested in the fact that Damen and Drina were captured on canvas hundreds of years ago, and that in each passing portrait, some of them painted centuries apart according to their plaques, they somehow manage to remain young, beautiful, and eerily unchanged. He could care less about Damen’s demeanor, the way he carried himself, the look in his eyes—no, that was my surprise.