Meanwhile, bad guys are plotting away. They dont take to human or half-human types in their rarefied world, especially in positions of power. Dark forces go to work. A particularly evilminded sorcerer (probably related to Library Joan) takes charge. A spell is cast on the daughters while teacher and warrior are starry-eyed. The daughters souls are stolen, locked in a glass box, known as the Box of Souls, which can only be opened by three keys turned by human hands. Although the gods know where to find the keys, none of them can break the spell or free the souls.
Teacher and warrior are cast out, sent through the Curtain of Dreams into the mortal world. There, in each generation three human women are born who have the means to find the keys and end the curse. Teacher and warrior must find the women, and these women must be given the choice of accepting the quest or rejecting it.
Each, in turn, has one moon phase to find a key. If the first fails, game over. And not without penalty—each would lose an undisclosed year of her life. If she succeeds, the second woman takes up the quest, and so on. An annoyingly cryptic clue—the only help teacher and warrior are allowed to give the three lucky women—is revealed at the start of the four-week cycle.
If the quest is completed, the Box of Souls will be opened and the Daughters of Glass freed. And the three women will each be awarded a cool one million dollars.
A pretty story, Dana mused, until you understood it wasnt a story but fact. Until you understood you were one of the three women who had the means to unlock the Box of Souls.
Then it just got weird.
Add in some dark, powerful sorcerer god named Kane who really wanted you to fail and could make you see things that werent there—and not see things that were— and the whole business took on a real edge.
But there were good parts too. That first night shed met two women who had turned out to be really interesting people, and soon she felt as though shed known them all her life. Well enough, Dana reminded herself, that the three of them were going into business together.
And one of them had turned out to be the love of her brothers life.
Malory Price, the organized soul with the artists heart, not only had outwitted a sorcerer with a few thousand years under his belt but had found the key, opened the lock, and bagged the guy.
All in less than four weeks.
It was going to be hard for Dana and their palZoe to top that one.
Then again, Dana reminded herself, she andZoe didnt have the distraction of romance to clog the works. And she didnt have a kid to worry about, asZoe did.
Nope, Dana Steele was footloose and fancy-free, with nothing to pull her focus away from the prize.
If she was next at bat, Kane had better set for the long ball.
Not that she had anything against romance, she mused, letting the notebook close as she watched the blaze and blur of trees through the window. She liked men.
Well, most men.
Shed even been in love with one, a million years ago. Of course, that had been a result of youthful stupidity. She was much wiser now.
Jordan Hawke might have come back toPleasantValley , temporarily, a few weeks ago, and he might have wheedled his way into being part of the quest. But he wasnt a part of Danas world any longer.
In her world he didnt exist. Except when he was writhing in pain and agony from some horrible freak accident or a debilitating and disfiguring illness.
It was too bad that her brother, Flynn, had the bad taste to be his friend. But she could forgive Flynn for it, and even give him points for loyalty, since he and Jordan and Bradley Vane had been pals since childhood.
And somehow or other, both Jordan and Brad were connected to the quest. It was something she would have to tolerate for the duration.
She shifted as Flynn turned to drive through the open iron gates, angled her head so that she could look up at one of the two stone warriors that guarded the entrance to the house.
Big, handsome, and dangerous, Dana thought. Shed always liked men who were—even if they were sculptures.
She scooted up, but kept the long length of her legs on the seat—the only way for her to ride comfortably in the back of the car.
She was a tall woman
with anamazons build that wouldve suited that stone warrior. She combed her fingers through her long swing of brown hair. SinceZoe , the currently unemployed hairdresser and Danas new best friend, had styled it and added highlights, it fell into that casual bell shape with little or no help from Dana. It saved her time in the morning, which she appreciated, as morning wasnt her best time of day. And the cut was flattering, which suited her vanity.
Her eyes, a deep, dark brown, locked on the elegant sprawl of black stone that was the house at Warriors Peak. Part castle, part fortress, part fantasy, it spread over the rise, speared up into a sky as clear as black glass.
Lights shimmered against its many windows, and still, Dana imagined, there were so many secrets in the shadows.
Shed lived in the valley below for all the twenty-seven years of her life. And for all of them, the Peak had been a fascination. Its shape and shadow on the rise above her pretty little town had always struck her as something out of a faerie tale—and not the tidied-up, bloodless versions either.