What, put gigantic luxury hotels in, bring in fancy labels, and charge a hundred bucks every time you turn around?
“That, and bottle and sell the mineral water. Though I explained to her that the qi dissipates completely if the water isn’t running freely. Her bottled water would be nothing more than high quality mineral water. Her response was yes, but the fools out there won’t know that.”
So she thinks desperate people are suckers? Wow, that does sound like she was raised by a plutocrat.
“The problem is, I believe I’m the first man to ever say no to her. Now it’s become personal. As if she must prove that she can get what she wants by whatever means. It’s the only way to get respect from her peers.”
Respect until they go after each other, Jen responded as Nikos topped the last bit and began his cool-down walk along the terrace outside the hall.
His step faltered when Jen swooped and dove, banked sharply then shot skyward before drifting around the aerie’s tower, and then gently gliding in to land beside him. He couldn’t help grinning foolishly. “I could watch you forever.”
Her sapphire eyes cocked toward him as she let out that trill of laughter like a fall of crystal. Then a more serious thought, Is Medusa tied up with Long Cang, or did Keraunos follow you and it was rotten coincidence that brought him to the landslide just when . . . no. I remember distinctly that Cang threatened me with Keraunos. He knew Keraunos was there. I don’t think I told you that, what with everything else that’s happened.
Nikos stopped dead, possibilities running through his mind, each worse than the last. “That’s the most disturbing news in several days of close calls, because it makes me wonder who is behind Long Cang, and how long their reach is. I’d better let Joey Hu know . . .”
He had just stepped onto the mosaic leading to the hall when Ava the eagle-shifter dropped out of the sky and shifted at the last second, her feet touching down as she said breathlessly, “The boat from Crete just arrived. Keraunos is on the yacht.”
EIGHTEEN
JEN
Jen mentally grounded herself. She had all the rest of the island to enjoy—but she would stay well away from the harbor, and that yacht where the creepy-sounding Medusa lurked, now in company with the even creepier Keraunos. Plus assorted evil minions. Oh, she and also had to avoid the stinky sulfuric valley—which for some reason she itched to see.
It was late at night when Jen sensed Nikos winding up some last instructions before he retreated to the aerie for the night.
She was tired. She sensed that he was as well, but it was a satisfied tired, the kind you get after a hard day of work. Jen zipped between pillars, practicing precision flying. It felt so good to get more control over her phoenix, the wind, the air . . . and it also kept her mind off the lure of that valley with its glowing heat far below the surface.
She didn’t know why it attracted her, but Nikos had said to stay away, so she would. This was his turf. He knew the dangers. She had been a phoenix for less than a week. Her phoenix still didn’t talk to her—she was more like a presence, and even that sometimes felt like her imagination.
She thought about the hetairoi as she finished one last circuit of the towers. Some of them were friendly, some a little wary, but all were polite. With that inner sense she was beginning to trust (though sometimes she was afraid she was just projecting) she wondered if the wary ones were having trust issues because of rough pasts.
She already knew a lot about Cleo, so bubbly and sweet. She’d had a terrible childhood, but her personality was sunny. She liked people. She wanted friends—and when she made one, it was clear to Jen that Cleo thought friendship better than presents, better even, she said earnestly one morning, than riding a bus. Within hours after their return, she’d been eager to visit her shifter and human friends in the harbor to tell them about her grand tour.
Petra was much quieter, but Jen sensed that she was that way with everyone. She was a forward-looking person, her past staying in the past. Life now was good, and took up all her attention.
Each one so different, so interesting. Jen wanted to get to know them, in order to . . .
What?
The future was still a big question mark. One Jen refused to think about now. Too early, and too late at the same time: too early in a totally different turn in her life, but too late in a long day.
As those not on night duty began drifting off to bed, Jen felt like one giant yawn. Her sense of time was still out of whack due to the time change of her transfer. What did you even call that? Not jet lag if there’s no jet!
Transfer . . . she realized she could go back to California to get more of her stuff, but she had to time it just right, when there was sunlight at both ends, or risk waiting hours until she could transfer back as a human. That weird Transfer Gate inside her simply didn’t work when she was a phoenix. She flew up to the aerie, and past Nikos’s open windows. His room was lit. She could see him sitting cross-legged on his bed, hands on his knees, eyes closed. He had to be talking on the mythic plane to Joey.
Was there mythic contact etiquette? She knew she could reach him, but she was afraid if she did, his focus would turn to her and he would lose the contact. Better to wait.
She flew between the arches, and landed on the long, beautiful patterned mosaic of the corridor. The pebbles felt odd beneath her claws. She hopped awkwardly into her room. She’d already discovered that she hated sleeping on the bed as a phoenix. It was too flat, and too hard to walk on.
She was eyeing the furniture, wondering if her talons would scratch up anything she perched on, when a knock came, and there stood Nikos in the open door, his shirt loose over his dark trousers.
Delight flooded through her.
“I’ve brought Joey up to date,” he said, leaning in the doorway. “Nothing has changed in California—Cang’s people are still watching Joey’s people. Stalking each other.” He shot her a crooked smile. “Time to catch up on lost sleep. I wish . . .” He held out a hand.
I wish, too. Can I come anyway?
His smile broadened to a real one, if a little rueful. “Please.”