All three of them looked at Robin, sitting quietly in her lap. The puck seemed to be watching shadows move on the wall, appearing to pay no attention to them.

“My turn,” Nikolas said. The intensity in his expression sharpened. “Where were you a fortnight ago, and what were you doing?”

For some reason she felt a flush warm her cheeks as if she had been caught spying on him, when she had done no such thing. “I was in Los Angeles, where I’ve been living, and I was casting runes for a reading. I focused on my near future, threw the stones, and a vision of you appeared. You were holding a bloody sword, you saw me, and you threw something at me. I could feel it coming, and it didn’t feel good, so I scattered the stones and broke the connection. End of story.”

She paused. Both men were listening to her intently and watching every move she made. She had no doubt that they had highly developed truthsense and were using it. “My turn,” she said. “What were you doing two weeks ago? Why was your sword bloody? And why did you attack me?”

“I had just been attacked myself, and I thought you were part of the ambush. I was defending myself.” His eyes narrowed. “Were you a part of it?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “Absolutely not. I’m going to say this as clearly as possible so you can hear the truth in my voice. I have never met you before. I’ve never heard of either one of you before. I have no idea what you’re up to, or who you are fighting, and I did not have anything to do with what happened to you. In fact, I don’t know why my reading didn’t behave normally. You should never have been able to see me, and I wasn’t scrying—I was working divination. They’re two totally different magics.”

“Of course they are,” Gawain muttered, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

“Then how did we collide like that?” Sophie asked. She was eager for some explanation, because she never wanted to have it happen again.

Ever since that morning two weeks ago, she hadn’t felt easy about casting the runes. She had still done it a few times anyway, but she was always on highest alert for any danger, and she had never felt that way before about her rune readings. They used to be a source of comfort and information, and she missed the familiar ease with which she had done them.

“There was other magic that day.” Nikolas leaned back and crossed his arms. The corner wall light threw part of his face into shadow while emphasizing the inhuman beauty in his bone structure. His black shirt fell open at the collar, revealing the strong, pure line of his throat. He regarded the puck narrowly. “Something else was in play. I’m still working to discover what. I thought it was part of the ambush too, but now I’m not so certain. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.”

Their conversation was interrupted as Arran walked up with a tray of food and drink.

Sophie used the time to regroup as she considered everything they had discussed.

She did not have the highly developed truthsense that many of the Elder Races acquired with experience and age, but she still didn’t believe they had lied to her. They had a dangerous enemy, who was also the one responsible for abusing Robin.

Nikolas had believed she’d helped to attack him. It explained why he had responded the way he had, both two weeks ago and just earlier. It didn’t make him likeable or friendly, and it certainly didn’t make him any less dangerous, but knowing that did ease her tension.

Suddenly the plate of beef stew and homemade bread that Arran set in front of her smelled appetizing, and she thought she might be able to eat at the same table with the two males after all.

When the food arrived, Robin began to tremble so violently he almost slid off her lap.

She offered him a piece of the fragrant bread. He nearly bit her fingers as he snatched at it. “I’m going to put some stew in a dish for you,” she told him gently. “Since you’re in the form of a dog, you’ll be more comfortable eating on the floor.”

As he worked at gulping down the bread, she lifted him onto the floor. When she straightened, she caught Nikolas watching her, his expression inscrutable. His close attention made her uncomfortable. She decided the best thing to do was to ignore it.

Ladling stew onto her bread plate, she picked out the choicest pieces of beef and potatoes as she said to Nikolas, “One thing rang true out of this. I asked for a vision of my near future, and you were in it. And now we’ve done it. We’ve met. So that bit is over. We can all move on and go our separate ways.”

She set the filled bread plate on the floor, and Robin attacked it. It was hard to watch him bolt the food while his body still trembled. Her eyes prickled with a flood of moisture, and after a moment, she had to look away—back at Nikolas, as it happened, who had not stopped watching her.

“Why are you in England?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

Blinking away the wetness, she focused on her food. “That’s a long story. The short version is, I’m on vacation for three months. I’m here to see if I can somehow get into the old Weston manor. If I can, then I’ll inherit it and the grounds, along with an annuity. Kind of kooky, huh?”

While Nikolas hadn’t picked up a utensil yet, Gawain ate with a kind of single-minded attention that said he thoroughly appreciated a hot, filling meal. Gawain asked, “What do you do in LA?”

“I was a witch consultant for the LAPD,” she told him as she slipped another piece of bread to Robin. She hesitated. She should make herself talk about it. It’s just a thing that happened in her past. Say it. Be done with it. Move on. “There was a shooting. I was involved. I needed a break, so when this opportunity came, I leaped at it.”