“You know us commercial fiction hacks. We just knock ’em out in a couple weeks, then lounge around on our royalties.”

“I don’t mind if the two of you want to fight, really, I don’t.” Malory dumped her briefcase, fat with notes, on the crate. “But maybe you could take it to another room.”

“We’re not fighting.” Jordan replied. “This is foreplay.”

“In your dreams.”

“Stretch, in my dreams you’re usually wearing a lot less. Let me know if I can help you out with anything, Malory.” He straightened, then strolled away.

“Be right back.” Dana was after him like a rocket. “In the kitchen, hotshot.” She streamed by, then gritted her teeth while she waited for him to catch up.

He moved at his own pace, she thought, and always had. Her temper sparked as he wandered in. She was readying the first salvo when he stepped right up, gripped her hips, and covered her shocked mouth with his.

The blast of heat blew straight through her.

That had always been, as well.

Fire and flash and promise all balled together in some sort of molten comet that exploded in the brain and left the system wrecked.

Not this time, not this time. Not ever again.

With considerable force she shoved him back a step. She wouldn’t slap. Too predictable and female. But she very nearly punched.

“Sorry. I thought that was what you called me out here for.”

“Try that again, and you’ll be bleeding from various fatal wounds.”

He shrugged, sauntered over to the coffeepot. “My mistake.”

“Damn right. Any rights you had to touch me expired a long time ago. You may be part of this thing because you happened to buy that damn painting, and I’ll tolerate you because of that. And because you’re Flynn’s friend. But as long as you’re here, you’ll abide by the rules.”

He poured two mugs of coffee, set hers on the counter. “Spell them out for me.”

“You don’t ever touch me. If I’m about to step in front of a damn bus, you don’t so much as reach out to pull me back to the curb.”

“Okay. You’d rather be run over by a bus than have me touch you. Check. Next?”

“You’re a son of a bitch.”

Something that might have been regret flashed across his face. “I know it. Look, let’s step back a minute. Flynn’s important to both of us, and this is important to Flynn. That woman out there’s important to him, and she’s important to you. We’re all connected here, whether we want to be or not. So let’s try to figure it out. He was in and out of here in about three minutes flat this morning. I didn’t get much more out of him then, or when he called last night, than that Malory’s in trouble. Fill me in.”

“If Malory wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

Hand her an olive branch, he thought, and she rams it down your throat. “Still a hard-ass.”

“It’s private stuff,” she snapped. “Intimate stuff. She doesn’t know you.” Despite a thousand vows, she felt her eyes fill. “Neither do I.”

That single tearful look punched a hole in his heart. “Dana.”

When he stepped toward her, she snatched a bread knife off the counter. “Put your hands on me again, I’ll hack them off at the wrist.”

He stayed where he was, slid his hands into his pockets. “Why don’t you just stick it in my heart and get it over with?”

“Just stay away from me. Flynn doesn’t want Malory left alone. You can consider this your shift, because I’m leaving.”

“If I’m going to be guard dog, it would help to know what I’m guarding against.”

“Big, bad sorcerers.” She yanked open the back door. “Anything happens to her, I’ll not only jam that knife in your heart, I’ll cut it out and feed it to the dog.”

“Always were good with imagery,” he drawled after she’d slammed out.

He rubbed a hand over his stomach. She’d tied it in knots—something else she was damn good at. He looked at the coffee she hadn’t touched. Though he knew it was foolishly symbolic, he picked up the cup and poured the coffee down the sink.

“Down the drain, Stretch. Just like us.”

MALORY studied the paintings until her vision blurred. She made more notes, then stretched out on the floor to stare at the ceiling. She jumbled what she knew in her head, hoping it would form a new, clearer pattern.

A singing goddess, shadows and light, what was within herself and outside herself. To look and see what she hadn’t seen. Love forged the key.

Hell.

Three paintings, three keys. Did that mean there was a clue, a sign, a direction in each painting for each key? Or was there a compilation in the three paintings for the first key? For hers?

Either way, she was missing it.

There were common elements in each portrait. The legendary subject matter, of course. The use of forest and shadows. The figure cloaked by them.

That would be Kane.

Why was Kane in the portrait of Arthur? Had he actually been there at the event, or was his inclusion, and Rowena’s and Pitte’s, symbolic?

But still, even with those common elements, the Arthurian portrait didn’t seem part of what she was certain was a set. Was there another painting, to complete the triad, of the Daughters of Glass?

Where would she find it, and what would it tell her when she did?

She rolled over, examined the portrait of young Arthur once more. The white dove at the right top. A symbol for Guinevere? The beginning of the end of that shining moment?

Betrayal by love. The consequences of love.

Wasn’t she dealing with consequences of love now, within herself? The soul was as much a symbol of love and beauty as the heart was. Emotions, poetry, art, music. Magic. Soulful elements.

Without a soul, there were no consequences, and no beauty.

If the goddess could sing, didn’t that mean she still had her soul?

The key might be in a place where there was art, or love. Beauty or music. Or where the choice to keep them or discard them was made.

A museum, then? A gallery? The Gallery, she thought and bolted to her feet.

“Dana!”

She dashed toward the kitchen, pulling up short when she saw Jordan sitting at the scarred table working on a small, sleek laptop.

“Sorry. I thought Dana was in here.”