“I hate you.”

“Hey, a guy’s got to have a hobby.”

“The ’63 Stingray’s my fantasy car. The one I’m going to have one day, when all my dreams come true.”

He smiled a little. “What color?”

“Black. Serious business black. Four-speed manual tranny. Doesn’t have to be the 327, though that’d be the cream. Gotta be the convertible, though. The coupe just won’t do.”

She fell silent for a few minutes, just enjoying the ride.

“Zoe mentioned you’d fixed her car.”

“I stopped over. Timing was off, and the carb needed a little work. Nothing major.”

She made herself say it. “It was a nice thing to do.”

“I had the time.” He shrugged a shoulder, stretched his legs out a little more. “Just figured she could use a hand with it.”

Suddenly she understood, and felt ashamed for her initial reaction when she’d heard he’d gone to Zoe’s. The hardworking single mother, raising a young boy.

Just like his mother.

Of course he’d gone by to help.

“She really appreciated it,” Dana told him, but kept it light. “Especially since you don’t make her nervous the way Brad does.”

“I don’t? I think I’m insulted and will now be honor-bound to work harder to make her nervous.”

“What kind of watch you got there?”

“Watch?” Baffled, he turned his wrist. “I don’t know. It tells time.”

She shook her hair back and laughed. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Sorry, you’re never going to make her nervous.”

She slowed, reluctantly, as they approached the gates. Then she stopped, looking at the house through them as she dug her brush out of her purse. “Some place,” she commented, brushing out the knots and tangles the wind had tied into her hair. “You live in a place like this, you could have that classic ’Vette. Keep it in a big, heated garage like it deserves. I wonder if Pitte and Rowena drive.”

“That’s some segue.”

“No, really. Think about it. They are what they are, and they’ve been around since way before anybody even thought about the combustible engine. They can do what they do, but has either of them ever taken driving lessons, stood in line at the DMV, haggled over insurance?”

She dropped the brush back in her purse, looked over at Jordan. His hair was as windblown as hers had been, yet, she noted, it didn’t look unkempt. Just sexy.

“How do they live?” she continued. “We don’t really know what they do, when it comes to ordinary things. Human things. Do they watch TV? Play canasta? Do they cruise the mall? What about friends? Do they have any?”

“If they do, there’d be a regular turnover. Friends, being human, would have that annoying habit of dying.”

“That’s right.” She said it quietly as she looked back toward the house. “It must be lonely. Painfully lonely. All that power doesn’t make them one of us. Living in that great house doesn’t make it their home. It’s weird, isn’t it? Feeling sorry for gods.”

“No. It’s intuitive. And just the kind of thing that’s going to help you find the key. The more you know and understand them, the closer you come to figuring out your part of the puzzle.”

“Maybe.” Suddenly the iron gates swung open. “I guess that’s our invitation.”

She drove, in the twilight, toward the great stone house.

The old man she’d come to think of as the caretaker hurried up to the car to open her door. “Welcome. I’ll see to the car for you, miss.”

“Thanks.” She studied him, trying to get a gauge on his age. Seventy? Eighty? Three thousand and two? “I never got your name,” she said to him.

“Oh, I’d be Caddock, miss.”

“Caddock. Is that Scots, Irish?”

“Welsh. I’d be from Wales, in the original way of things, miss.”

Like Rowena, she thought. “Have you worked for Pitte and Rowena long?”

“Yes, indeed.” His eyes seemed to twinkle at her. “I’ve been in their service a number of years now.” He looked past her, nodded his head. “There’s a fine sight, isn’t it, then?”

Dana turned, and stared at the huge buck that stood on the verge between lawn and forest. His rump seemed to glimmer white in the soft haze of twilight, and his rack shone silver.

“Traditional symbolism,” Jordan said, though he was no less struck by the buck’s magnificence. “The seeker sees a white deer or hare at the start of a quest.”

“Malory saw it,” Dana murmured over the lump in her throat. “The first night we came here. But I didn’t, Zoe didn’t.” She walked to stand beside Jordan. “Does that mean it was already ordained that Malory would search for the first key? That it had nothing to do with the luck of the draw? That was just show?”

“Or ritual. You still had to choose to reach into the box for a disk. You decide to follow the deer, or turn away from it.”

“But is it real? Is that deer really standing over there, or are we imagining it?”

“That’s something else for you to decide.” He waited until the deer faded back into the shadows before he turned.

Both the old man and the car were gone. After the initial jolt, Jordan slid his hands into his pockets. “You’ve got to admit, that is very cool.”

The entrance doors opened. Rowena stood dead center, the foyer lights spilling over her fiery hair, glinting on the long silver dress she wore. “How lovely to see you both.” She held out a hand in welcome. “I was just pining for company.”

Chapter Seven

PITTE was already in the parlor, wearing a black shirt and trousers that echoed Rowena’s casual elegance.

Dana wondered if they sat around looking beautiful all the time. Something else to think about, she supposed. Like did they ever have bad hair days, indigestion, sore feet?

Or were those things too mundane for gods living in the mortal world?

“We were just enjoying the fire, and a glass of wine. You’ll join us?” Rowena asked.

“Sure, thanks.” Welcoming the heat, Dana walked toward the snapping fire. “You guys hang like this every evening?”