“Add,tothat how those tendrils spread out,” Dana went on. “How they hooked Jordan and Brad in. Connecting them to us, to the quest, to Rowena andPitte , and to the daughters. I think thats an important point. Each of us has a role, each of us has to be here for this thing to go through.” “Then theres Kane.” Malory slid her copy out of the envelope. “The way you describe him, Jordan, its so spooky—and so accurate. As if youd seen him through my eyes.”

“Seeing him through my own was enough. I think we need to look at him as more than the bogeyman, more than a foe. Hes another element to the quest.”

“I agree with that.” Brad nodded. “Hes as essential to this as the rest of us are. In the end, I think, its not going to be just a matter of outwitting him, as Malory did, or twisting his game to our advantage, as Danas done so far. Its going to be a matter of destroying him.”

“How do you destroy a god?”Zoe demanded.

“I dont know, but first Id say by believing you can do it.”

“Maybe. But right now Ill settle for getting my hands on the key.” Dana sat up. “Ive only got a few more days.

And heres what I know. While I may have to find it on my own, Jordan is essential to the search. Kane has tried to separate us or pull us apart, and its not just because he doesnt want us to live happily ever after. What he did, however, was push us closer together. Hes not going to be pleased by that.”

She reached over, peeled a round of pepperoni off a slice of pizza and nibbled; “And he miscalculated by showing me the past. That was one of the steps I had to take, and might not have, at least not as decisively, if he hadnt thrown me back in time. Past, present, and future. Ive resolved and accepted the past, Ive made my peace with the present, and…”

She held up her ring hand. “Im looking toward the future. This is important stuff, not only to me personally but to what Im meant to do. One of the constants in those three time frames is Jordan.”

“Thanks, Stretch.”

“Dont get all puffed up. Some of this is just fate. Now if you read some of this stuff…” She plucked the copy out of Malorys hands. “You start to feel it, see it, even if you werent part of that particular event. You get a good, clear picture. Here—that blue fog that took over Indulgence. The bone marrow chill of it, the oddness of the light, the color, the texture. You start to feel it creeping over your skin.”

“Writers tools,” Jordan said.

“Yeah, and youre damn good with them.”

“Excuse me?” Mildly annoyed with the interruption, she glanced up to see him staring at her with a kind of narrowed intensity that brought heat to her face. “I said you were good. So what?”

“So… theres a first time for everything. Need another drink,” he said and walked out of the room.

Dana shifted, then huffed out a breath. “Short break,” she announced, and followed Jordan to the kitchen.

“Whats the deal?”

He pulled a soda out of the refrigerator. “No deal.” he popped the top, then shrugged. “You never—well; since I moved to New York, youve never had a good word to say about my work.”

“I was pissed at you.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He started to take a swig, then set it down. Truth, he thought again. No matter how it exposed him, there had to be truth between them.

“The thing is, Dana, it mattered. Theres nobodys opinion I respect or value more when it comes to books than yours. So it mattered what you thought of my work.”

“You want to know what I think of your work? My honest opinion?”

“Yeah, lets be honest.”

“Well, you did buy me this really terrific ring, so I guess I should come clean.” She took the soda, sipped, handed it back. “You have such an amazing talent. You have a gift, and its obvious that you nurture and appreciate it. Every time Ive read one of your books Ive been astonished by your range, your scope, your skill with the language. Even when I hated you, Jordan, I was proud of you.”

“How about that,” he managed.

“Im not sorry I swiped at it before. Maybe it made you work harder.”

He had to grin at her. “Maybe it did.”

“Are we okay now?”

“Were a lot better than okay.”

“Then lets go back, because I havent finished. And Im going to be very interested in what you think of what I have to say next.”

She walked back out to the living room, settled down on the floor again. “Okay,” she said, raising her voice over the conversations. “Breaks over. The point I was trying to make was that however skilled Jordan might be, this is more than a writers point of view. Its more than a series of events entertainingly woven together in story form. When you read it, you start to see how often hes linked to one of those events, or is to one of the people involved in the event. In fact, he was the first, years ago, to see or feel anything, well, otherworldly about the Peak, He once thought he saw a ghost there.”

She stopped, amused to see Malory pick up a highlighter from the crate and begin to mark the sections under discussion on Flynns copy.

“Jordan was the first of us to see, and own, one of Rowenas paintings,” Dana continued. “Flynns my brother, Brads my friend, but Jordan stepped up from being a kind of brother, from being a friend, to being my lover.”

“He broke your heart.” Malory meticulously coated typed words with bright yellow. “A shattering of innocence. Sorry,” she said to Jordan, “but theres a very strong kind of magic in that.”

“And it was Jordans blood that Kane shed.” Nodding at Malory, Dana smiled. “Hes the one who left home— orphaned, alone, young, on a quest. And came back,” she concluded, meeting Jordans eyes, “to finish it.”

“You think I have the key.” Fascinated, Jordan sat back. “I follow the logic, and the traditional elements of your theory, Dane, but where? How? When?”

“I cant know everything. But it makes sense. It just plays through. I havent hammered it all out yet. Theres still that business about goddesses walking and waiting. Walking where? Waiting for what? Then theres that image I saw when I was trying to put myself into a trance.”

Something started to click in his head, then shut off again at her last statement. “When you did what?”

“An experiment. Like meditation. Blank out the mind, that sort of thing, and see what formed. I saw the key, just sort of floating on this blue-green field. Probably my wall at Indulgence, as thats what Id been staring at.-It was like I could reach out and touch it. But I couldnt.”

Frowning, she looked back, imagined it all again. “Then the field changed. White with these blurry black lines running across it. And I heard these words in my head.”

“You heard voices?” Brad asked her. “Not exactly. But I heard the words. Wait a minute, let me think, get it right. „She walks the night, and is the night with all its… all its shadows and secrets. And when she weeps, she weeps for day.

“So, doesnt it make sense that shes the goddess— whoever the hell she is? Thats got to be one of the last pieces to put into place.”

“I can put it in place,” Jordan told her. “Its mine. I wrote that. Phantom Watch.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone began talking at once.

“Hold it!” Brad got to his feet, held up his hands. “I said hold it! Lets not lose the thread. First, lets eliminate any coincidence. Dana, did you read the book?”

“Yes, but—”

“You did?”

She rolled her eyes at Jordan. “Im not going into another round of pumping your creative ego. Yeah, I read it, but it was years ago. Even I dont remember every line of every book Ive ever read. I didnt recognize it when I heard it.”

“I read it, too.”Zoe raised her hand like a girl in a schoolroom, then, mortified, immediately lowered it. “It was great,” she said to Jordan. “But the woman, the one you wrote about walking at night, wasnt a goddess. She was a ghost.”

“Good point,” Brad put in. “But its an interesting touch that Jordan wrote that book about Warriors Peak, that he created that ghost because he thought he saw her one night.”

“You did?”Zoe asked. “Thats so cool!”

“We went up there to camp. Brad and Flynn and I. Brad managed to… liberate some beer and cigarettes.”

NowZoe turned to Brad. “Is that so?”

“We were sixteen,” he muttered.

“As if that makes it better.”

“Scold him later,” Dana demanded. “Lets pull this thread through.”

“I saw her walking on the parapet,” Jordan continued. “In the moonlight. Washed in light and shadows with her cloak streaming in a wind that wasnt there. I thought she was a ghost, and when I wrote her I drew her as one. Lonely, trapped in the night and weeping for the day. But she wasnt a ghost.”

Dana laid a hand on his knee. “She was a goddess.”

“She was Rowena. I understood that today, when I went to see them at the Peak. I didnt know what it meant until now.“

“You were the first to see her,” Dana said softly. “And you wrote of her, in whatever form. You gave her another kind of substance, another kind of world. She, the key holder. The keys in the book.”

Her hand trembled as it slid into place for her. “The white field with black lines across. Words on a page. And the key melted into it. Into the page. The book.” She sprang to her feet. “Flynn, youve got a copy.”

“Yeah.” He looked around the room. “Im not exactly sure where. I havent unpacked everything yet.”

“Why should you? Youve only lived here nearly two years. Well, find it,” Dana demanded.

He gave her a weary look, then rose. “Ill go upstairs and look.”

“Ive got a copy at home,”Zoe put in. “A paperback. Ive got all your books, but my budget doesnt run tohardcovers ,” she said in apology.