Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy 1)

“What did you see?”

“I—” She broke off at the knock on her door.

“Are you okay in there?” Sawyer called out.

“Yes. I’m coming down. I need to organize my thoughts,” she said to Bran.

“All right.” He ran his hand over her damp hair. “We’ll go down.”

They’d already gathered on the terrace, so she sat, took a breath. “I’m sorry because I don’t really understand what I meant, what I saw. It might have been a room

, it might have been a cave. Everything was gold and silver and shining. Like a really elegant house of mirrors. It was like I was standing there in it, but I couldn’t see myself. Then I picked up a mirror—but it wasn’t my hand. I think it was hers. Nerezza. She picked up this jeweled mirror, but when she looked in it, what looked back was not just old. Ancient. Gray and withered. Sunken eyes, thin gray hair. Hardly more than a skull. Nothing else reflected. The glass around that image was pure black.

“The glass shattered, and that face was in all the shards, hundreds of shards. And the shards went to smoke, and it all went dark.”

“You said the mirror sees the truth,” Riley reminded her.

“I know.”

“An allegory?” Sawyer suggested. “She’s ancient, being a god—but the mirror sees her soul or heart or whatever you want to call it as withered and dark?”

“We don’t need a seer to know that,” Doyle pointed out. “Maybe she’s got a Dorian Gray thing going.”

Struck, Riley pointed a finger at him. “And the mirror reflects what she really is. It ages, shows her sins and all that while she stays young and beautiful.”

“It’s a theory.”

“A good one. If there actually is a mirror, and we destroyed it—there lies her end.”

“I don’t know. What I saw . . . She destroyed the mirror. She’d hardly end herself.”

“Another mirror, another glass,” Bran suggested.

“I’ll do some digging on it.” Riley picked up her margarita again. “You said only the stars could change it. We can speculate that’s another reason she wants them so bad. There’s a way to end her—not just stop her, but end her. And if she gets the stars, the way’s done.”

“I’ll do some checking on mirror spells,” Bran added. “The stars remain first priority. Have you two chosen where we dive tomorrow?”

Doyle nodded. “We mapped out routes to three caves. We should be able to do all three, but we can hit two for certain. You’ll want to get a meal in before

sunset,” he said to Riley, “so—”

“Before we get into that,” Sawyer interrupted. “And whatever else is on today’s agenda, I’ve got something I need to explain. I needed to talk to my family first. My grandfather especially.”

“Regarding the compass,” Bran said.

“Yeah, that. There’s a little more to it.” He took it out of his pocket. “Using it with a map can show you where you should go, for what you need or want. But it can do more than show you. Even without a map.”

“Like what?” Riley demanded.

“Well. Like this.” Sawyer held the compass out in his palm.

And vanished.

“What the holy fuck!”

As Riley swore, Annika jumped to her feet. “Where did he go? Where is he?”

“Up here.” Sawyer called from the terrace, waved. Then vanished only to reappear in his seat at the table.