“Yeah.” Though she paled a bit,Zoe clasped hands with Dana. “The first time, all I could think was dont let me be first. Now I just dont know.”
“Me either.”
They moved down the great hall to the next parlor. It didnt help to brace himself,Jordan knew. The portrait swamped him, as it had the first time hed seen it.
The colors, the sheer brilliance of them, the joy and beauty of subject and execution. And the shock of seeing Danas body, Danas face—Danas eyes looking back at him from the canvas.
The Daughters of Glass.
They had names, and he knew them now.Niniane ,Venora ,Kyna . But when he looked at the portrait, he saw them, thought of them as Dana, Malory, andZoe .
The world around them was a glory of sunlight and flowers.
Malory, dressed in a gown of lapis blue, with her rich gold curls spilling nearly to her waist, held a lap harp.Zoe stood, slim and straight in her shimmering green dress, a puppy in her arms, a sword at her hip. Dana, her dark eyes lit with laughter, was gowned in fiery red. She was seated and held a scroll and quill.
They were a unit in that moment o
f time, in that jewel-bright world behind the Curtain of Dreams. But it was only a moment, and even then the end was lurking.
In the deep green of the forest, the shadow of a man. On the silver tiles, the sinuous glide of a snake.
Far in the background, under the graceful branches of a tree, lovers embraced. Teacher and guard, too wrapped up in each other to sense the danger to their charges.
And cannily, cleverly hidden in the painting, the three keys. One in the shape of a bird that winged its way through the impossibly blue sky, another reflecting in the water of the fountain behind the daughters, and the third secreted among the branches of the forest.
He knew Rowena had painted it from memory—and that her memory was long.
And he knew from what Malory had discovered and experienced, that moments after this slice of time, the souls of the daughters had been stolen and locked away in a box of glass.
Pittelifted a carved box, opened the lid. “Inside are two disks, one with the emblem of the key. Whoever chooses the scribed disk is charged to find the second key.”
“Like last time, okay?”Zoe gave Danas hand a hard squeeze. “We look together.”
“Okay.” Dana took a slow breath as Malory stepped up, laid a hand on her shoulder, thenZoes . “Want to go first?”
“Gosh. I guess.” Closing her eyes,Zoe reached into the box, closed her hand over a disk.
With her eyes open and on the portrait, Dana took the one that remained.
Then each held her disk out.
“Well.”Zoe stared at her disk, at Danas. “Looks like Im running the anchor lap.”
Dana ran her thumb over the key carved in her disk. It was a small thing, that key, a straight bar with a spiral design on one end. It looked simple, but shed seen the real thing—shed seen the first key in Malorys hand, burning with gold, and knew it wasnt simple at all.
“Okay, Im up.” She wanted to sit, but locked her shaky knees instead. Four weeks, she thought. She had four weeks from new moon to new moon to do if not the impossible at least the fantastic.
“I get a clue, right?”
“You do.” Rowena took up a sheet of parchment and read:
“You know the past and seek the future. What was, what is, what will be are woven into the tapestry of all life. With beauty there is blight, with knowledge, ignorance, and with valor there is cowardice. One is lessened without its opposite.
“To know the key, the mind must recognize the heart, and the heart celebrate the mind. Find your truth in his lies, and what is real within the fantasy.
“Where one goddess walks, another waits, and dreams are only memories yet to come.”
Dana picked up a snifter of brandy, drank deep to untie the knots in her belly. “Piece of cake,” she said.