"Well, that's a start." He took her hand, and had it to his lips before she could protest. "For luck."
"Oh. Thanks." She got quickly to her feet when Rowena came back into the room.
"If everyone's ready, we'd like to continue the tradition of beginning the quest in the next room."
Brad kept his attention on Zoe. She was a little pale, but she was holding her own. Still, as they started down the wide hallway, he noted how Malory and Dana moved in to flank her. They'd become a team, a triad, even a family over the last two months. He didn't think anything would change that now. They would need that unity through what was coming.
His heart took a bump when he stepped into the next room and looked up at the portrait that dominated it.
The Daughters of Glass, moments before their souls were stolen, gathered close. Just as the three women who shared the faces of those tragic demigoddesses now gathered close.
Venora, with Malory's vivid blue eyes, sat with a lap harp in her hands and a smile just blooming across her face. Niniane, with Dana's strong features and dense brown hair, sat beside her on a marble bench and held a scroll and quill.
Standing, a sword at her side and a small puppy in the crook of her arm, Kyna looked back at him. Her hair was a long fall of inky black rather that the short, sharp, sexy style Zoe wore. But the eyes, those long, topaz eyes, were the same.
They pulled at him, as if they'd dug hooks into his heart.
The three daughters radiated beauty, joy, innocence, in a world sumptuous with color and light. Yet, a closer look showed the hints of darkness to come.
In the thick green forest was the shadowy shape of a man. Just slithering onto the bright tiles was the sinuous figure of a snake.
In the corner, the sky was bruised with a brewing storm that the daughters were yet unaware of. And the lovers who embraced in the background were too wrapped up in each other to sense the danger edging close to their charges.
To look closer yet was to see the three keys worked cleverly into the painting. One, disguised in the shape of a bird, seemed to fly through the cerulean sky. Another hid itself within the lush green leaves of the forest. And the third reflected deep in the pool behind the daughters who were sharing their last moment of peace and innocence.
He'd seen how they'd looked after the spell. White and still as death in the crystal coffins as Rowena had painted them.
He'd bought that painting, titled After the Spell , months before he'd even come back to the Valley or known of this quest and these women. Been compelled to buy it, he thought now, as he'd fallen in love, or into fascination or
obsession—he wished to God he knew—with Zoe's face.
'Two keys are found," Rowena began. "Two locks are opened. Now there is but one." She moved to stand under the portrait as she spoke, with the fire snapping gold and red flames behind her.
"You agreed to this quest because you were curious, and you were each at a point where aspects of your life were unsettled and dissatisfying. And," she added, "because you were paid. But you've continued to quest because you're strong and you're true. No one else, not in three millennia, has come so far."
"You've learned the power of art," Pitte continued, and stepped over to join Rowena. "And the power of truth. The first two journeys bring you to the third."
"You have each other," she said to the women. "And you have your men. Together you make a chain. You must not let him break it." She stepped forward and spoke to Zoe as if they were alone in the room. "It is for you now. It was always for you to finish."
"For me?" Panic wanted to gush into her throat. "If that's true, why did we pick before? With Mal and Dana?"
"There must always be choice. Fate is the door, but you choose to walk through or turn away. Will you walk through?"
Zoe looked up at the portrait, and nodded.
"Then I'll give you your map, your clue to the key, and pray that it guides you." She walked over and took up a scroll.
"Beauty and truth," she read, "are lost without the courage to hold them. But one pair of hands can grip too hard, so that the precious slips through the fingers. Loss and pain, sorrow and will, blaze the rough path through the forest. Along the journey there is blood, and there is the death of innocence and the ghosts of what might have been.
"Each time the path forks, it is faith that chooses the way or doubt that blocks it. Is it despair, or will it be joy? Can there be fulfillment without risk of loss? Will it be an end, or a beginning? Will you move into the light, or return to the dark?
"There is one who stands on either side, with hands held out. Will you take one, the other, or close your hands in fists to hold what is already yours until it's ground to dust?
"Fear hunts, and its arrow strikes heart, mind, belly. Without tending, wounds fester, and scars too long ignored harden into shields that block the eyes from what needs most to be seen.
"Where does the goddess stand, her sword in hand, willing to fight each battle in its time? Willing, too, to lay down the sword when the time comes for peace. Find her, know her power, her faith, and her valiant heart. For when you look on her at last, you will have the key to free her. And you will find it on a path where no door will ever be locked against you."
"Oh, boy." Zoe pressed a hand to her stomach. "I can keep the paper, right? I'm never going to remember all that."