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“It takes no wizardry to bewitch a man,” her mother observed, fastening up the row of buttons.

“However, if you are determined to despair, you entirely correct; you will never play the role of his Eve.” She turned Miranda around to face her.

“Do not hold yourself lightly, my dear, or fear to take a chance. There is naught worse than living with the knowledge that love might have been yours, if only you had reached out to grasp it.”

“What if he comes to fear us when he realizes the truth of the Wodesby blood?” Miranda whispered, hardly daring to voice her worry. “Or worse still what if he disbelieves, and despises me for taking part in a farcical séance?”

“Then he is not worthy of you,” Lady Wodesby said, staunchly, drawing her daughter close. “But I think you underestimate him, just as you underestimate yourself.”

. . .

The clock on the mantle struck the midnight hour as Damien rose and gestured toward the shelves of the enormous Wodesby library.

“So you see, Lord Brand, the practice of magic is something of a science, with its own set of governing rules, as logical in their own order as any of Newton’s theorems. But just as one must have Leyden Jars to store the force of electricity, one must have the proper vessel to handle magic. ”

“The Blood?” Adam asked, wondering how young Wodesby was managing to keep himself upright. As far as he could determine, the man had not yet slept and exhaustion was taking its toll. Still, there was too much at stake to do the pretty and let the fellow take to his pillow.

Damien nodded. “And knowledge. An untutored witch can be a dangerous force, milord. But knowledge without the Blood?—"

“Like Miranda,” Adam ventured.

“Make no mistake milord,” Damien said, his eyes flashing with sudden fire. “Though she has no Gift, my sister is of Blood as pure as my own, in direct lines from The Merlin himself.”

Intimations had been strewn throughout the conversation, but the challenge in Wodesby’s expression made his meaning clear.

“I do not deny her place in your magical peerage, Wodesby,” Adam said cautiously.

“I only seek to understand. In the normal course of events, what would happen to a woman of your people who shared your sister’s circumstances? ”

“A match is arranged,” Damien declared, deliberately making it sound like a fait accompli.

Though Miranda had mentioned that there was a suitor waiting in the wings, it was somehow different to hear her brother state it outright. “So, you would not entertain Ropwell’s suit?”

“It did not take long to ascertain his true purpose,” Damien said, his lips thinning to an angry line as he recalled the interview.

“It was as you said. He is seeking the jewels that his wife hid away. Offered me a share if Miranda could find the cache, as if I would deign to take money from a murderer. I saw blood on his hands.”

From the fury raging in the mage’s eyes, Adam found himself close to believing that Wodesby’s claim was literally true.

“Would that the authorities have such discerning sight. Unfortunately, it seems that the missing Ropwell treasures will be his only punishment.” Then, suddenly, the green of the younger man’s eyes deepened to the color of an unfathomable sea.

“No, there will be retribution,” Damien said slowly, the familiar shimmer of the Vision coming upon him as the dim shadows of future events began to take shape in his mind’s eye.

Foreboding filled him and he struggled to see more distinctly into the time of Will Be.

But weariness was too heavy upon him for clarity of focus.

Only Ropwell, transfixed by some unknown terror was discernable, but there were others with him, innocents who somehow shared his danger.

Damien closed his eyes against the horror, the recurring sense of helplessness.

No matter that he had been a Seer since the age of thirteen.

Twenty years of visions had not inured him to that terrible feeling of impotence.

Wodesby opened his eyes and the deep sadness in the young man’s expression filled Adam with sympathy and an uneasy feeling. Had the mage discerned some fragment of the future? “Do you see anything regarding Miranda?” Adam asked.

Damien shook his head, steeling himself against the first flash of searing agony.

Never before had he experienced a Vision in such a state and now, he was about to pay in pain.

He had to lie down before the full onslaught, yet at the least, he felt obliged to calm the obvious worry in Brand’s eyes.

“I did not see her,” he said evasively, struck by a pang of guilt.

It said much that Miranda had been Brand’s first concern.

“But it appears that Ropwell is destined to receive his just due.”

Every Gift had its cost, Miranda had told him. What was the price of prophecy? Adam wondered. Somehow, he could not imagine a Seer’s knowledge as anything other than an unbearable burden. Angel rose from his place by the fire and went to nuzzle her master with a low bark of canine anxiety.

“You will have to excuse me, Brand,” Damien said, rising with effort and walking to open the library door. “I can no longer see or think clearly. Angel will escort you home.”

“As I explained to you earlier, I see no further need for your protection,” Adam said, wanting to offer his help but knowing that Wodesby would likely refuse it.

“If Gutmacher was the ‘Tailor’ that your mother perceived as a threat, then Miranda foiled his plans and the ghostly encounter that Lady Wodesby predicted has seemingly occurred. So it would seem that the dangers have passed.”

“Indeed,” Damien inclined his head in agreement, feeling inwardly relieved that matters had been simplified.

In truth all debts were balanced, Brand’s inadvertent deliverance of Miranda reckoned equal against the rescue that she staged, a life for a life.

Moreover, it would be far easier to steer Miranda away from an ill-advised liaison if Brand were not at the end of a Wodesby tether.

A shame, it was, that the marquess lacked the Blood.

Damien found himself rather liking the Outsider.

“Very well then, I will call off our watch, if that is what you wish. However, should you ever be in need of our shield or aid, Brand, you have only to call.”

Adam’s solemn nod was a barometer of the measure of change in him.

Just yesterday, Wodesby’s regal offer might have garnered him a disbelieving smirk if not the outright laughter that had greeted his sister’s promise of protection.

Less than two weeks had passed since he had first met with Miranda, eating and talking in the warmth of the kitchen.

But it almost seemed as if that had been some other man.

“And Miranda? If there is any change, you will notify me?”

“Of course,” Damien told him, trying to convince himself that separating his sister from the marquess would ultimately be best for both. “She will be fine, Brand.”

“I can find my own way out,” Adam said, his mind wandering back to a time when he had heard similar promises.

Your mother will be fine, Adam, his father’s voice echoed from long ago.

There is no need for worry . . . no need .

. . Although it was foolish, the marquess wanted to hear that assurance from someone else’s lips.

While Lord Wodesby was all that was amiable, Adam had sensed a reserve that seemed to harbor a disturbing level of disapproval.

No wonder, considering the home truths that he had voiced during the interview.

But there had been something more in the discussion than the simple umbrage of wounded pride, a distance that was courteous, but cool.

“If you do not mind, sir, I will go down to the kitchen and make my farewells to Tante Reina. I would not want to give her insult.”

“Only a fool would insult Tante Reina,” Damien said with a sleepy semblance of a smile. “May Fortune favor you, Lord Brand.”

“And you, Wodesby,” Adam returned.

“When it comes to her servants, I fear that Dame Fortune is not a kind mistress,” Damien said, his eyes clouding with recall as the full weight of his responsibilities came to rest upon his shoulders.

A husband would have to be found for Miranda.

However, the mage had the unsettling premonition that it might be simpler to split the Channel with a staff, than to find a man who could make her forget her infatuation with Brand.

Adam watched anxiously as the young man climbed the stairs grasping the baluster as if the polished wood rail alone kept him upright. His shadow of a hound trailed close behind like a nervous nursery maid, until they reached the upstairs landing.

“Meowrrr!” Thorpe purred softly, rubbing at Adam’s ankle to capture his attention.

“My regrets, Thorpe, I still cannot converse in feline,” Adam apologized.

Thorpe swished his tail like a furry flag. He padded toward the kitchen stair and looked over his shoulder impatiently.

“You wish me to follow?” Adam asked.

A satisfied mew was an obvious “yes.”

Adam shrugged. With any luck at all, he would find the old Gypsy woman and confirm Miranda’s condition.

As he trailed the cat down the steps, the Mage’s words whirled in his mind.

Magic! Not the manipulations of mountebanks or the cheats of charlatans, but a force as natural as gravity or electricity.

Difficult as it was to credit, the evidence was mounting in favor of the existence of those marvelous abilities.

He felt like a blind man trying to grasp the concept of color, unable to comprehend even the simplicity of light and dark.