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  Johnny frowned, knowing she was right. He lowered his voice. “What about that stranger you called me about? Is this him?”

  She’d given Johnny a description of him, hadn’t she? “No. I mean, that was a mistake. I’m sorry. It’s okay, Johnny, really.”

  He turned to the others. “He have ID on him?”

  “We didn’t find anything on him,” the same cop said. “Well, a couple of twigs in his pocket.”

  Johnny left her to stroll over to Alex. He’d learned his swagger straight off a prime-time police drama.

  “You know it’s illegal to travel without proper identification?” Johnny said.

  Alex looked at him. He had the cold, still look of someone about to start a fight. Johnny must have seen it, too. He held his right hand on his hip, next to his gun, daring him. The men by the cars still had their guns drawn. If Alex threw a punch, as he seemed to want to do, somebody would shoot. Please don’t. . . .

  “Here it is,” Alex said at last. He pulled a wallet from an inside coat pocket and handed it to Johnny.

  Johnny glared at the cop who’d searched him. “I thought you said he didn’t have anything on him.”

  The guy held up his hands. “I didn’t find anything, I swear!”

  Johnny grumbled, mostly to himself, “Figures. Never patted down a guy in his life.” He opened the wallet, studied it, looked back at Alex. “I’m going to check this. Don’t move.”

  He returned to his car and began some arcane background-checking process. Alex put his hands in his coat pockets, settling in to wait. Evie watched him. He didn’t seem at all concerned that he might be shot if he so much as flinched wrong. She’d lived in L.A. for ten years; you didn’t mess with the cops.

  Alex had this tilt to his chin, this light in his eyes, a confidence that said he could take them all on by himself. Or he believed he could. And why not? He believed he was immortal.

  Finally Johnny returned and handed the wallet back to Alex. “There’s nothing on you. If Evie says you’re okay, I’ve got no reason to hold you.”

  “Thank you, Officer.” Alex tucked the wallet away.

  They both looked at Evie.

  “Can we go now?” she said, more bitingly than she had intended. She felt like she’d been holding her breath.

  Crossing back to her side of the car, Johnny said, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine, really.” She looked away so she wouldn’t glare at him.

  “He’s a stranger. You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”

  “It’s a wonder anyone leaves home anymore.”

  “Will you vouch for him? I’m going to have to report this. If I have a contact for him, it won’t look suspicious. As suspicious.”

  Alex looked at her across the roof of the car. She could say the word right now, and Johnny would arrest him on suspicion of—of being a stranger in a small town. She still didn’t know anything about him. For all she knew, he really was a terrorist bent on the destruction of Hopes Fort.

  Like anyone would notice the destruction of Hopes Fort.

  “Yes. Sure.”

  “Okay. I’m still going to keep an eye on him.”

  She and Alex were allowed to return to the car. They had to wait for the police cars to pull out of the way before they could continue on.

  They were well out of town, on the prairie road to the Walker house, before either of them said anything.

  “That could have gone badly,” she said.

  “They were more scared than we were, I think.”

  “You weren’t scared at all.” He certainly acted like he was immune to bullets.

  He laughed, shaking his head. The expression quickly turned somber again. “You didn’t have to stand up for me back there. You could have gotten rid of me.”

  And she may yet regret that decision, she thought. Evie pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. “Let me see that wallet.”

  She was surprised that he didn’t argue. He pulled the wallet out of the same pocket and handed it to her. Inside, she found a Georgia driver’s license with his photo on it, alongside the name Simon Philips. Hometown, Athens.

  “Not Alex?” He only glanced at her out the corner of his eye. “Johnny’s check came up clean. How’d you hide your wallet from them?”

  He swiped the wallet out of her hand and deliberately opened his coat to drop it in the inside pocket. “Magic,” he said. He opened the coat again. The pocket showed no obvious bulge. She resisted an urge to pat down his coat. “Also, letting people draw their own conclusions is not the same as lying.”

  Her sigh probably sounded excessively annoyed. She felt suddenly exhausted. Getting stopped at a police roadblock did that to a person.

  Mab was on the front porch, her head lifted, watching them approach the house. She didn’t leap forward, tail wagging, to greet Evie as she did with the elder Walker—Evie guessed she was still too new for the dog to feel protective. This time, Mab watched Alex.

  Evie walked ahead. “Hey, Mab. Hey, girl.” She hadn’t been around dogs since she moved away and felt awkward talking to this one, like she was as much a stranger here as Alex. She didn’t have a right to be talking to Mab this way.

  Mab glanced at her, twitched her tail slightly, then turned back to Alex, riveting him with her stare.

  Alex stopped. “She doesn’t like me, I think.”

  “She just doesn’t know you.” As she reached the first step of the porch, she noticed just how big Mab was. She must have weighed two hundred pounds. Evie offered her hand to the beast. Mab sniffed it, flattening her ears in a contrite gesture.

  When Alex put his foot on the first step, Mab growled.

  Evie almost jumped back. Instead, she forced herself to scratch the silky fur on Mab’s head. Mab looked back and forth between them, her brown eyes earnest, by turns beseeching when they looked at Evie, threatening when they came to Alex. He stood with his hands at his sides, his face calm.

  What would he do if Mab attacked him?

  Alex took a second step onto the porch. Mab’s growling doubled.

  Evie took the dog’s head in her hands and forced her to break eye contact with Alex.

  “Mab, it’s okay. He’s okay. Please.” She felt silly pleading with a dog, when she ought to be commanding her. But somehow she couldn’t talk like that to Mab, their guardian.

  While Evie was holding her head, Mab managed to slink her body around so she stood between her and Alex.

  This wasn’t working. Evie reached across Mab’s body and took Alex’s hand. She maneuvered around the massive dog until she stood side by side with him.

  “Mab, it’s okay, he’s a friend.”

  The dog stopped growling, but continued staring at Alex with uncertainty. He offered his hand. She smelled it—distantly, without letting her nose make contact. But her tail wagged a few weak swipes across the porch.

  Evie led Alex in through the front door. Mab stayed on the porch, watching them.

  “A very devoted animal,” Alex said.

  They were still holding hands. She dropped his quickly and took a step away, turning toward the door to the basement.

  She could see part of the living room from here. Her father wasn’t there. She almost called for him, then decided against it, not wanting to explain Alex and all that had happened that afternoon.

  Downstairs, Evie switched on the light, found the flashlight, and opened the door to the Storeroom. She had no idea what she was looking for. She thought of the woman’s dark eyes, her poise, and her desire. What could she want? Evie panned the flashlight over shelves and boxes, a rack of quivers filled with arrows, a bundle that looked like a rolled-up carpet, a Middle Eastern–style oil lamp, an obsidian knife, a dried-up ear of maize.

  “This was your idea,” she called back to Alex. “What am I looking for?”

  From the next room, Alex said, “I’m trying to remember the mythology and what was associated with Hera, any items that were particularly he
rs. Or rather, something that she wanted that wasn’t hers.”

  There, something tickled the back of her mind. Something the woman wanted, but not hers, or Evie could just have given it to her. She went to a chest of drawers, beside the wardrobe with all the shoes in it. The top drawer held crowns and tiaras.

  Alex hadn’t entered the Storeroom. He waited outside, framed by the doorway.

  “Can you come here, see if any of this reminds you of anything?”

  He glanced up the stairs, then back to her. “I can’t go in there.”

  She went back to the door. “Why not?”

  He was fidgeting, picking at his sleeves before shoving his hands in his pockets. His face looked tense. “I can’t cross the threshold. I shouldn’t even be in the house.” He drew one hand from his pocket and reached, and flattened it like he had touched a physical barrier at the threshold. It was almost exactly what the woman had done at the front door. “This house—that room—you. You all exist to keep people like me out. To keep us from taking what’s in there. Your dog was right to keep me away.”

  “But I invited you in. If I—”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll wait out here.” He moved to sit on the steps.

  What was he feeling that she wasn’t? She’d always felt safe in the house—and they probably never had to worry about thieves. She returned to the chest of drawers, to follow that nagging in her mind.

  The second drawer held jewelry boxes, rings, lockets, pocket watches. The third drawer held papers: old parchment, vellum, even a few fibrous sheets that must have been papyrus. Some had maps drawn on them, weathered pirate maps with X marks the spot; some letters with foreign postmarks; poems written in illegible hands in exotic languages. That drawer was filled with whispers tugging at the edge of Evie’s hearing.

  The bottom drawer held fruit. One apple there might have been real once, but was now a shriveled, petrified husk with a single bite taken from it. Several apples seemed to glow, but were too light to be made of gold. Two were made of solid gold. They rolled heavily on the wood base of the drawer when she opened it. When she tried to touch them, they skittered away from her, slipping against her skin, like they didn’t want to be held. She needed two hands to catch them, trapping them and lifting them one at a time. One was a plain gold apple. The other, she studied closer.

  It seemed to be cast in solid gold, complete with stem. It was cool against her skin, heavy in her hand. Her thumb touched a rough spot. Turning the flashlight to it, she found a design stamped into the gold—five shapes, figures made of the lines and squiggles of ancient writing:

  Who do you belong to?

  She felt an answer; then the answer faded. No one.

  But it was here to be kept safe. That was true of everything here.

  Who did you belong to? she asked, holding an image of the striking woman in her mind.

  No, not her. Close, but not her.

  She grasped for a deeper answer, but that was all she heard with that odd sense that felt so strong in this room.

  How ridiculous was it, to be holding a conversation with a cryptic antique?

  She brought the apple to the doorway, to the light from the other room, and showed it to Alex. “Do you recognize this?”

  He squinted at it, moving to the doorway, drawn to it though he held himself warily, inching toward her like he didn’t want to come too close.

  “It’s a golden apple.”

  “Do you know what the inscription means?”

  His expression turned leery. “What makes you think I would?”

  “You seem to know everything else,” she said.

  He stepped back. “I don’t want to touch it.”

  She sighed, exasperated. “Then just look at it.”

  He held himself aloof, as far away from it as he could and still study it. His gaze passed over the inscription, back and forth, his face still, emotionless. He swallowed.

  “The language is ancient Greek in its oldest form. The writing is Mycenaean. It hasn’t been used in over three thousand years. It says, kalisetei. It means, ‘For the fairest.’ This—” He pointed at the apple. “—started the Trojan War.”

  She felt like a child who’d been given a grenade without being told what it did. “It’s the language you were speaking to her. To the woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought Helen started the Trojan War.”

  “It goes back much further than that. Out of revenge for not being invited to the marriage of King Peleus and Thetis, the goddess Discord tossed the apple into the banquet hall. Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera argued over who, being the fairest among them, should have it. They chose a mortal man, Paris, to be the judge. And, being goddesses, they bribed him with wealth, fame, power—and love. Aphrodite offered him Helen. He chose her. And for ten years, two great civilizations fought a war over that choice.”

  For the fairest. It had fallen out of a story and into her hand. It was just an heirloom her grandfather or someone had picked up somewhere. The marks were just a pretty pattern. That was the trick, wasn’t it? How could she know what this was? How could he tell her this story about a thing that might as well be a movie prop, and how could she believe him?

  “Hera still wants it,” Alex said. “It still has power.”

  “Who are you?” She kept asking that. Why should he tell her now?

  “Cursed.”

  From upstairs, Mab started barking fiercely, as if battling demons. Evie jumped and almost dropped the apple. Alex glanced up the stairs.

  Rubbing her thumb over the inscription, she returned the apple to the chest of drawers. She closed the Storeroom door firmly behind her when she left.

  “Let’s see what’s wrong.” She tugged on his sleeve, and he followed her up the stairs.

  The kitchen door slammed shut.

  “Don’t close your door on me, Frank Walker! I know who you are and I know you have it!” A man shouted loud enough to hear in the basement, even over Queen Mab’s barking.

  When she got to the kitchen, her father had opened the door a crack. He must have been sleeping; he wore a bathrobe and slippers. He was hushing the dog, who was inside, whining and turning circles, her claws clicking on the linoleum.

  “Mab, down! What is it you think I have?”

  “Open the door. I will not stand here like a beggar or a supplicant.”

  Frank sighed, his shoulders slouching. He opened the door wide, cold air or no. Mab started to launch herself, lunging like she would tackle the visitor, but she stopped just inside the doorway, between Evie’s father and the stranger, barking like mad.

  The visitor glowered at her. “Quiet! If you please, madam!”

  Mab clamped her jaws shut. She ducked and backed a step, whining noises still straining at her throat, but she wouldn’t leave Frank’s side.

  The visitor was an older man, around her father’s age, with short steel-gray hair and a trimmed beard. He carried a walking stick, which he propped on the porch between him and the dog. He wore a tired brown tweed suit and an air of importance.

  “I’ve come for the sword,” he said.

  Frank looked the man up and down. “What sword?”

  “What sword?” the man said “What sword? The one sword, the sword of power that may be carried only by the true king. The sword that Viviane gave over to your family’s keeping fifteen hundred years ago. Didn’t she tell you I’d come for it one day?”

  Evie stared at the tableau like she was watching a play, with Alex breathing at her shoulder.

  “I don’t know. My family may have kept the sword for that long, but we don’t remember who gave it to us. How do I know you’re the one?”

  “How maddening, to be hindered by fools. Let me explain this to you: He is coming. The sword belongs to him. Not me, not you. Him. I must see that he gets it.”

  “Him. The true king?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Wait just a minute.”

  He turned a
nd started a moment, glancing with surprise at Evie and looking harder at Alex, but he nodded and moved to the basement door. The stranger started to enter the house, but her father looked back and pointed. “Evie, make sure he stays here.”

  The old man glared at her. She shrugged and took her place beside Mab when he tried to step inside.

  “Do you know who I am, young lady?” he said.

  She had a nagging suspicion she knew who he thought he was.

  “I could turn you into a frog. A hideous, ugly frog.” He raised his hands, fingers pointed in an arcane gesture.

  She crossed her arms.

  “I have a feeling she’s safe in this house, even from you,” Alex said.

  The old man stood for a moment, pointing expectantly as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Evie didn’t feel so much as a hair tingle at the back of her neck.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I almost forgot. This house, this family. I must hand it to Viviane—she always knew what she was doing.” He looked at Alex. “And who are you?”

  “A traveler. Like yourself.”

  “Hm, not like me at all. Sapling.”

  Alex stifled a chuckle with a hand over his mouth.

  Her father called from the basement stairs. “Evie? Take our visitor around back. I’ll meet you there.”

  She couldn’t do anything but play along. She gestured for the man to leave first, and they filed off the porch and went to the back of the house, Mab trotting close at Evie’s side.

  A few moments later, her father followed, carrying a sword, held upright. It was plain, nothing like the fantastic, gem-encrusted weapons with baroque hilts and engraved pommels that teenager Evie had drawn in the margins of class notes. Functional, well balanced, one that might sing if its bearer sliced the air with it.

  Both Alex and the stranger turned and stared.

  “By the gods,” Alex breathed.

  “Ah, old friend!” the stranger said, a warm smile deepening the creases on his face.