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The process feeling far too familiar, she focused her senses to determine who’d violated the sanctity of her retirement this time. It was too soon for a reply from the queen, and it had been too long for Tristan and the royal messenger to have turned back, even for an emergency. Besides which, she’d made it clear that they should never return, either of them, an edict that Tristan had received with piteous sorrow and the royal messenger with easy relief.

The visitor wasn’t on the road to the world of men, however,and she had to correct her initial assumption, scanning for the correct direction…

The sea steps.

Stearanos.

She stilled, hating that her heart pounded with heightened excitement. What washedoing here, especially when he’d said he’d await an invitation? She had very specifically and carefullynotstolen from him again. It seemed he was being polite, however, nothing more than that light knock on her wards, standing back, knee-deep in the surf, until she answered. He sensed her attention, lifting his head to meet her mental gaze and giving her a sardonic salute along with a slight twist of his thin lips, an expression too severe to be called a smile.

How aggravating that he’d caught her away from home. She didn’t care to make him wait, lest he take it into his head to break her wards again and then taunt her with his ability to do so. Neither was she going to admit him through the wards into her home without being present. Deciding it was the best option, and though the Dream was thin and tenuous at that time of day, she told Bunny to meet her at home, and stepped into the Dream, for the short series of steps to greet Stearanos.

30

The waves surged around his boots, Oneira’s whimsical pink-pebble beach stretching to the cliff on the other side of her wards. The view wavered ever so slightly with the invisible wall between, an indication of her less-than-expert warding, which he had faithfully replicated when he reconstructed them. Of course, only a purist like himself would care. Still, Stearanos took pride in his ability to set wards that were truly undetectable to all but magical senses—until the unwary mundane stumbled into them—and he planned to grab on to every bit of superiority he possessed over Oneira.

Perhaps she was correct that they’d always compete to some extent, but he didn’t mind that. It would keep things interesting.Ifshe ever forgave him for what he was about to ask of her. It seemed she hadn’t yet detected his presence, despite that he stood so close to the wards they shimmered against his face, as palpable as standing near a fire in a cold room. He could teach her to fix that, too. Ah well, no sense delaying any longer. Time to beard the dragon in her den and face her ire. Or disappointment in him, which would be infinitely worse.

Tapping against her wards with his magic, he politely knocked this time and awaited her notice. Almost immediately, shelookedat him, from somewhere above. Meeting her insubstantial gaze, he gave a little salute. With a bit of surprise, he realized she wasn’t gazing at him from inside her wards, but from somewhere outside of them. Where was she? It irritated him irrationally not to know.

She vanished, and for a moment he wondered if she’d ignorehim, and what he’d do in that case. He’d promised not to punch through her wards again, but even without that, he could make himself obnoxious and annoying enough that ignoring him would become a trial to her very quickly. Again, not really in line with his purpose.

Discovering she wasn’t inside her wards changed things, however. Could he find her in that case? Several spells for locating a known person came to mind, though she doubtless wouldn’t like that either.

To his relief, the point became moot. The Dream tickled the edges of his mind with unsettling unreality, more familiar to him now, and then she stepped onto the shore. She stood there, a couple of arms’ lengths away, startlingly vivid and lovely. Glaring at him with a frown knitting her high brow. “What do you want?” she demanded ungraciously.

“Hello, Oneira,” he said, unable to resist needling her, just a little. “It’s lovely to see you, too.”

“Except it’s not lovely to see you,” she countered. “You promised you wouldn’t return without an invitation.”

“And here I am, standing in the sea that belongs to all, awaiting that invitation.”

Her frown deepened to an outright scowl. “I should extend my wards to deeper water.”

“You really should,” he agreed. “I could assist with that, and teach you a few other tricks to make them better all around.”

“I don’t want to learn any of your tricks, Stearanos, magical or otherwise.” She pressed her lips down, as if withholding any further incautious words, and he grinned at her revealing slip of the tongue.

“So you have been thinking about my potential tricks,” he said, observing how her light blush deepened. “I’ve thought of little else,” he confided.

“Clearly you don’t have enough to do,” she informed him crisply.

“In truth, I have far too much to do to be thinking of you as much as I have been, but it turns out I’m weak where you’re concerned.”

She laughed, a dry, disbelieving huff. “Why are you here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Raising a brow, she conveyed her doubt and disdain. “Talk.”

“Only talk,” he promised, then figured he’d better leave the option open for more. “Unless you decide otherwise. But yes, my primary objective is a conversation.”

“About what?”

He mirrored her raised brow. “It’s sensitive. Not with your wards between us.”

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea to let you in.” She glanced off to the side, an inscrutable expression on her face. “For more reasons than you likely suppose.”

“Then you come out. We can talk somewhere besides knee-deep in saltwater if you’ll tell me where to meet you. The road?”