Bran merely waved a hand, whisked them away.
“Dry clothes can wait. I want another look at the star.”
Once again, Bran waved a hand. Riley let out a sigh as her clothes, her hair, even her boots went warm and dry. “Gratitude.”
“My pleasure. We’ll take the star upstairs, with the others. Secure it.”
“We’ve got no place to put it yet,” Sawyer reminded him.
“We do.” Bran slid an arm around Sasha. “Our fáidh painted until nearly half two this morning.”
“You didn’t tell us,” Annika said.
“Bran and I talked about it, after I’d finished. We both thought we should focus on getting the star. Until we did . . .”
“What did you paint?” Riley hopped down from the counter. “Let’s go see. And . . .” She wiggled her hand at Doyle.
He drew the star from his pocket, offered it.
“Weight and heat without mass. It’s just amazing. And the light. Clear and pure as Arctic ice. It pulses,” she murmured as they walked upstairs. “Like a heartbeat.”
She looked at Doyle, grinned. “We did it.”
He pushed her back against the wall, and with the star pumping between them, kissed her like a man possessed.
“I saw you fall. You were no more than a foot away from the rocks when I—we—managed to drag you back. You were going to cut the rope. You were going for your knife.”
“Of course I was going to cut the rope. I thought I’d gotten knocked loose, and I’d drag everybody down with me. You’d have done exactly the same.”
“I don’t die,” he reminded her, and walked away.
She looked down at the star, hissed out a breath, and stalked after him. “Is this really the time for attitude? We’ve just found the last star. We have in our possession something no one ever has but the gods. We—”
“Looking to put them in a museum with a plaque?”
She flinched—something he’d never once seen her do no matter the threat. Hurt looked out of her eyes at him, and that, too, was new. “That’s not right.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not. I apologize. I’m sorry.” He paced two steps away, paced back. “Very sorry. That was stupid and undeserved.”
She nodded slowly. “Bygones.”
“Riley.” He took her arm before she could walk away. “I saw you die in my head, saw you crushed on the rocks. In my head. It . . . screwed with my mood,” he decided.
“Still here. So adjust. The others are waiting for us, and the star.”
“Right.” He walked with her, in silence, into the tower.
Riley rolled her eyes as conversation stopped, everyone turned. “Excuse the delay. We were just . . . Holy shit.”
The painting glowed. Riley would have sworn it pulsed almost as visibly as the miracle of the star still in her hand.
“That’s . . . breathtaking. Sasha.”
“I don’t know how much I can actually take credit for.”
“All,” Bran told her. “All.”
She touched a hand to his cheek. “I was explaining, it came on around midnight. I’d prepped a canvas, just in case, and that was a damn good thing, as the need to paint this just blew through me. I didn’t just see it. I was in it. I could smell it, touch it, hear it. Every other vision or image I’ve had of it was pale, indistinct compared to this.”
“I just have to say it, okay?” Sawyer gestured elaborately toward the canvas. “Behold, the Island of Glass.”
On a gleaming indigo sea beneath a star-struck sky that held a wild white moon, it floated. Floated as if free to go and come on the wind. Its beaches shimmered white, diamond dust against the frothed edge of the sea. Its hills rolled, shadowed green with blurred color from wildflowers blooming.
On one such hill stood a palace, shining silver. On another a circle of stones, gray as the fog they swam in.
Small details came to life as Riley studied the painting. A gentle curve of a stream, the long spill of a waterfall, gardens lit as if with faeries in flight, a fountain where a winged dragon spewed water rather than fire.
“We have got to get there. And when we do, they have got to let me have a couple of samples. Some pebbles, some sand, a little dirt. There must be fossils. I mean—”
“Take it easy, Indiana.” Sawyer gave her a poke. “Star first.”
“Yeah, star first, but later.” Riley looked down at the star, up at the painting. “It makes you realize why, doesn’t it? They need to go back, need to be protected. It all does. The world gets screwed up regularly, routinely. But this one. It holds together. Maybe because it does, the rest of us don’t go off the edge.”
She held the star out to Bran. “Your turn, magick man.”
As he had with the other two, Bran enclosed the star in glass. They formed the circle, performed the ritual as guardians, to send the star safely into the painting. Away from Nerezza’s grasp.
“Now, gee, all we have to do is find the island, get there—with the stars—destroy the evil psycho god, and . . .” Riley shrugged. “Then the first round’s on me.”
“Hold you to it,” Sawyer said.
Riley frowned toward the window when thunder cracked. “You’re sure this is just a hissy fit?”
“I’m sure,” Sasha told her.
“Then I’m going to work on the next step. I’m damn well going to find the island. It’s what the hell I do.”