There was a paddock behind the house, attached to a low, gleaming white stable. Even as he approached, he heard the whicker of greeting. The sound was so ordinary, so simple and welcoming that he smiled.

There they were, the sleek black stallion and the proud white mare, standing so still that he thought of two elegantly carved chess pieces, one ebony, one alabaster. Then the mare flicked her tail in a flirtatious gesture and pranced to the fence.

They could leap it, he knew. Both had done so more than once, with him in the saddle. But there was a trust between them, an understanding that the fence was not a cage but a home.

"There's a beauty." Sebastian lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, her long, graceful neck. "Have you been keeping your man in line, Psyche?"

She blew into his hand. In her dark eyes he saw pleasure, and what he liked to think was humor. She whinnied softly when he swung over the fence. Then she stood patiently while he passed his hands over her flanks, down over her swollen belly.

"Only a few more weeks," he murmured. He could almost feel the life inside her, sleeping. Again he thought of Morgana, though he doubted his cousin would care to be compared to a pregnant horse, even as fine an Arabian as Psyche.

"Has Ana been taking good care of you?" He nuzzled against the mare's neck, comforted by her quiet good nature. "Of course she has."

He murmured and stroked for a while, giving her the attention they had both missed while he'd been away. Then he turned and looked at the stallion, who stood alert, his handsome head high.

"And you, Eros, have you been tending to your lady?"

At the sound of his name, the horse reared to paw the air, trumpeting a cry that was rich in power and almost human. The display of pride had Sebastian laughing as he crossed to the stallion.

"You've missed me, you gorgeous beast, admit it or not." Still laughing, Sebastian slapped the gleaming flank and sent Eros dancing around the paddock. On the second trip around,

Sebastian grabbed a handful of mane and swung onto the restless mount, giving them what they both wanted. A fast, reckless ride. As they soared over the fence, Psyche watched them, her eyes as indulgent—and as superior—as a mother watching little boys wrestling.

Sebastian felt better by the afternoon. The hollowness he'd brought back from Chicago was gradually being filled. But he continued to avoid the little yellow teddy bear sitting lonely on the long, empty sofa. And he had yet to look at the photograph.

In the library, with its coffered ceiling and its walls of books, he sat at a massive mahogany desk and toyed with some paperwork. At any given time, Sebastian might have between five and ten businesses of which he was either sole owner or majority partner. They were hobbies to him—real estate, import-export firms, magazines, a catfish farm in Mississippi that amused him, and his current pet, a minor-league baseball team in Nebraska.

He was shrewd enough to make a healthy profit, wise enough to leave day-to-day management in the hands of experts, and capricious enough to buy and sell on a whim.

He enjoyed what money could give him, and he often used those profits lavishly. But he had grown up with wealth, and amounts of money that would have startled many were hardly more than numbers on paper to him. The simple game of mathematics, the increasing or decreasing, was a never-ending source of entertainment.

He was generous with pet charities, because he believed in them. His donations were a matter not of tax breaks or philanthropy, but of morals.

It would probably have embarrassed him, and it would certainly have irritated him, to be thought of as an unshakably moral man.

He pleased himself until sunset, working, reading, toying with a new spell he hoped to perfect. Magic was his cousin Morgana's speciality. Sebastian could never hope to equal her power there, but his innate competitive streak kept him struggling to try.

Oh, he could make fire—but that was a witch's first and last skill. He could levitate, but that, too, was an elementary talent. Beyond that and a few hat tricks—that was Mel sneaking back into his mind again—he was no magician. His gift was one of sight.

In much the same way that a brilliant actor might yearn to sing and dance, Sebastian yearned to cast spells.

After two hours with little success, he gave up in disgust. He fixed himself an elaborate meal for one, put some Irish ballads on the stereo and uncorked a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine with the same casualness another man might show in popping open a can of beer.

He indulged in a lengthy whirlpool, his eyes closed, his mind a blessed blank as the water jetted around him. After slipping into a silk pajama bottoms, he pleased himself by watching the sun set in bleeding reds. And then he waited for night to steal across the sky.

It couldn't be put off any longer. With some reluctance, Sebastian went downstairs again. Rather than flick on lights, he lit candles. He didn't need the trappings of the art, but there was comfort in tradition.

There was the scent of sandalwood and vanilla. Because they reminded him of his mother's room at Castle Donovan, they never failed to soothe him. The light was shadowy, inviting power.

For several long moments, he stood by the sofa. With a sigh—very like a laborer might make on hefting a pick—he looked at the photograph of David Merrick.

It was a charming, happy face, one that would have made Sebastian smile if his concentration hadn't been focused. Words gathered in his head, ancient words, secret words. When he was sure, he set the picture aside and lifted the sad-eyed yellow bear.

"All right, David," he murmured, and his voice echoed hollowly through the empty rooms. "Let me see."

It didn't happen with a blaze of light or a flash of understanding. Though it could. It could. He simply drifted. His eyes changed, from smoke to slate to the color of storm clouds. They were fixed, unblinking, beyond the room, beyond the walls, beyond the night.

Images. Images. Forming and melting like wax through his mind. His fingers were gentle on the child's toy, but his body had stiffened like stone. His breathing remained steady, slowing, evening out as it would in sleep.

To begin, he had to fight past the grief and fear that shimmered through the toy. Without losing concentration, he had to slip past the visions of the weeping mother clutching the bear, of a dazed-eyed father holding them both.

Oh, but these were strong, these emotions of sorrow and terror and fury. But strongest of all, as always, was the love.

Even that faded as he skimmed past, going deeper, going back.