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“At this point I find myself willing to consider things differently,” he acknowledged, finding it difficult to put in words.

“My father possessed magic, Miranda, in the form of my mother. Although I was but a boy, there was no mistaking the strength of the love between them. When the two of them were together in a room, I vow, I almost felt lonely. When she died, he spent the rest of his life and fortune trying to regain what he had lost.”

“An impossible task,” Miranda said, wondering at the change in him.

Before when Adam had spoken of his father, there had been a brooding resentment, his expression tight with lines of anger.

Now there was sympathy. “Such efforts are entirely wrong-headed. Among witchkind, Orpheus is considered more the fool than the hero for seeking out his Eurydice in Hades. Love is one of the few gifts given to mortals that may survive death. He had only to wait.”

“Easy to say. But I suspect that few lovers feel that utter certainty.” Adam looked down at his plate, concerned she would see his feelings naked in his eyes.

“I have begun to think that fear is love’s inevitable companion.

Perhaps Orpheus and my father worried that love might not survive time and separation.

Emotions change. And once you have known love, I suspect that it is difficult to survive without it.

In a way, ‘tis much like your witchcraft. Even myself, though I never really felt love, I know that I’ve yearned for it, if only in my secret heart.

Deep down, I envied those few of my friends who have found it, even as I mocked it.

And now, it’s no wonder to me that my father refused to let go.

I have to admit that the very thought of that level of obsession frightens me to the marrow. ”

Even myself, though I never really felt love .

Like an echo, the phrase reverberated inside her head over and over again.

With all the rigor of a grammarian, Miranda parsed it to fit the framework of her fears.

Perhaps her mother’s instincts were wrong?

He had excluded himself from the category of lovers.

What if that gentle look in his eyes was naught but a friend’s concern?

And that soul-searing kiss had been nothing more than the combination of his loneliness and her desperation?

Adam met her gaze, puzzled by the sudden transformation in her countenance.

Gone was that glowing aura and in its place he found familiar melancholy.

Impossible though it seemed after her tryst with death, she was still thirsting for sorcery.

How could he tell her that she did not need witchery to weave a spell without declaring himself outright?

“I had a friend once, by the name of Andrew,” he began hesitantly, hoping that Lord Hapbourne would forgive him for revealing his story.

“A great lover of music, was Drew, played the harp like an angel. His ship was engaged in battle and Drew was near the mouth of a cannon when it fired. Burned him fairly badly, but worse, it left him deaf as a stone.”

“Sweet Hecate,” Miranda whispered, biting her lip as she absorbed the import of the injury.

“Indeed,” Adam said, his eyes clouding as he recalled Drew’s face on that long ago night. “He seemed to be bearing up rather well, until his sister dragged him to the opera. There was a young lady, it seems, who was willing to ignore his infirmity for his purse.”

“A stranger might be excused for her carelessness, but how could his sister be so cruel?” Miranda asked, feeling the prick of tears. “Did she hate her brother so, that she would wish to see him tortured?”

“She was simply an unthinking fool who meant no harm,” Adam said, pleased that Miranda had grasped the direction of his theme.

“Drew knew full well what his ears were missing. He followed very flourish of the violinists’ bow, every wave of the conductor’s baton, until he could stand it no more and closed his eyes.

When the orchestra reached the first crescendo, the vibration chased him from the box.

I found him weeping in his coach, a pistol in his hand, ready to put a period to himself. ”

She hardly dared to ask, yet she did. “What happened?”

“I wrestled it from him. Due to Drew’s condition, there were always writing materials at hand.

I vow, I have never scribbled so quickly in all my life.

” He smiled, noting the faint upturn of her lips with satisfaction.

“Told him about a musician I’d met in my travels, fellow by the name of Ludwig Beethoven. ”

“The composer?” Miranda asked startled.

“The same. In fact, Ludwig had just completed his Eroica when we were introduced, wanted to see some of my magic for an idea that he was working on. We became friends. The German is an irascible man, but his temperament is entirely understandable, considering that he has been going progressively deaf since the turn of the century.”

“How horrible!” Miranda gasped. “But his music, how . . .?”

Adam tapped his temple. “In here Miranda. Ludwig hears it inside. Drew understood that, deciding that life might be worth something after all, but inner music is not enough for him. Last I heard, he was travelling the world seeking for a cure at any pain, any price. I pray that he can reconcile himself to his loss, one day, before the quacks kill him. There are people who will hear for a hundred years and not listen half as well as Drew can, even without his ears; just as there are composers who will never create music like Ludwig’s, though they can detect the drop of a pin. ”

“Perhaps your friend will find his magic before he loses hope,” Miranda said. “Desperate people can do desperate things.”

“As you did?” he asked, his hand stealing across the table to clasp her fingers, twining them in his.

“Most of the world lives without magic, Miranda, unaware of its existence and yet, content enough in their ignorance, as I was. My eyes were always earthward, denying the stars. But now that I have looked up, I can see that the stars are real.”

“Damien can touch them,” Miranda said longing in her voice. Despite herself, she felt a tremor at his grasp, like a distant flicker of lightning heralding a storm.

“And you and I can still enjoy their glow and rejoice that they shine,” Adam said, leaning forward, squeezing with gentle pressure as if he could convince her with the force of his earnest belief. “There are so many kinds of magic, Miranda.”

“Hear him child,” Tante Reina said from her place by the stove. “He speaks truth.”

“But you do not fully comprehend how important it is,” Miranda protested, disentangling her fingers as she rose from her place.

“Since the time of King James we were hunted. How many died, we will never know, for there were so many accused and condemned for witchery. If you understood, Adam, you would weep, at what was lost, the heritage forgotten. There are so few true witches now, that I had to try; don’t you see?

And if I thought there was a chance of success, I would attempt the trip again.

Cripple I may be, but I am still a Wodesby. I know what I owe my Blood.”

Adam rose, her words crushing hopes that he hadn’t known he harbored.

She could never accept him, any more than she could accept herself.

Out of a sense of duty, Miranda would doubtless acquiesce to the suitor that her brother had chosen, the man whose affection she doubted.

The marquess was honest enough to admit that in the matter of the Blood, he was less than a mongrel.

As the implications of her statement unfolded, Adam realized that his chances of winning Miranda were slim, even if he could somehow win her brother’s approval.

With a husband who shared her birth, there might be a better chance that her children would possess the Gifts that she herself lacked.

Such sentiments were laudable, similar, in fact, to part of Society’s code that he had hitherto accepted as a matter of course.

Ancestry and breeding were the currencies that were valued far beyond mere coin.

Yet comprehension did nothing to quell the rage roaring within him.

While he could almost accept himself an unsuitable match, he could not abide the term “cripple,” coming so casually from her lips again.

How could the mate her brother had chosen; a man who, by her own admission, did not love her, come to value her is she did not value herself?

In five strides Adam was around the table grasping her shoulders in his hands.

“Because I cannot make music like Beethoven or capture the world on canvas like Turner, am I any less of a man? And if you cannot cast a spell or conjure a ghost it makes you no less of a woman. So do not dare to call yourself a cripple again, Miranda Wilton, not when there are so many in this world who have far less than you ever shall, who will never know that there is magic.” Heedless of Tante Reina and Thorpe, he pressed his lips to hers mercilessly, kissing her with all the frustration of his stillborn hopes.

Her blue eyes glistened as he looked down at her.

“Sometimes, we are crippled by our own minds, Miranda. Unfortunately, those disabilities are usually the hardest to overcome.” Without a backward glance, he headed up the stair.

Miranda managed to hold her tears until she heard the sound of the front door closing above. “He is gone, Tante Reina,” she said, sinking down into her chair and reaching up to touch her bruised lips “How he must despise me.”

“Despise you?” Tante Reina shook her head as she put a comforting hand on the young woman’s shoulder.

“So little you know of men, child. Only now has he realized what he feels; it frightens him.

To find that he needs so badly, is shock to a man.

Could I but read your palm, I would tell you what your future is with him, but those of the Blood?—"

“Aye, I know,” Miranda said, bitterly cutting the old Gypsy off, “my lines of destiny cannot be read by the Rom. Even the cards can be deceiving when it comes to those who inherit the Blood. What good does it do me, this blood of mine, Tante Reina, other than set me apart?”

The older woman’s eyes blazed. “He is right, the Gajo. Is not lacking magic that makes you the cripple, Miranda. Tonight, your man’s world is torn apart, much of what he believes turns upside down.

Yet, he sees your pain, he offers you comfort, he opens to you a window to his soul.

But do you recognize this? You think is easy to say what he says to you, girl?

You, who learned to read faces like books; did you not see how hard were his words?

” She shook her head. “Only yourself, you see; poor Miranda, whom we all must pity. Well, child, my pity is upon you, for Brand was ready to offer you the greatest of magics, but you could not grasp it because you close your hands and your heart.”