“And how did you know that I wondered at there being twelve Vestals?” he asked softly.
She drew back. Realizing her mistake, she turned evasive. “Iâ”
But he already had his answer. In his mind's eye he saw himself being led to the site of Vesta's temple, where he viewed not six, but
twelve
apparitions. And then only two days later, a twelve-year-old boy ticking off facts in his work tent in the Forum:
One: Aeneas brought the eternal fire to Vesta's temple from Troy. Two: It burned there for nine hundred years. Three: Twelve Vestals kept it going.
“Gods, it was you who led me to the temple, wasn't it? And you're . . .
Rico
.” His eyes whipped over her, hardly able to credit that this . . . person . . . was the very same being as the girlish apparition, as well as the boy he'd known in the Forum five months ago. Suddenly, a woman who'd already intrigued him became the most fascinating creature he'd ever met. “You're actually telling the truth. You're an Ephemeral, and you took Rico as host in order to gain access to the Forum excavations.”
Twin splotches formed, stark on her pale cheeks. Though she looked completely mortified that he'd guessed, all she gave him in reply was a simple, “Yes, next question.”
Bastian shook his head slowly, still trying to digest the fact that this woman and Rico were one and the same. He and Rico had worked long, late hours together. Supped together, joked, argued. The boy had alternately annoyed him and amused him. They'd shared a true passion for the digs. How much of that was her? What did she look like in her true form? He lifted the opal and turned it in his palm. Her eyes trained on it. “Why don't you simply make yourself an apparition now, take this opal, and flee with it?” he asked.
“Because, as a noncorporeal form, I can't carry it. And that makes six questions.”
“I'll add a seventh. Are you female?”
She nodded, looking uncomfortable at the turn in his conversation.
“One who seems to have a deleterious effect on those you come in contact with. Will you kill me as well?”
“I didn't
kill
Rico. Or Michaela!” she railed, seeming to lose the tight rein she'd thus far held on her control. “I didn't want either of them dead. I
loved
Michaela, I told you. Far more than you did. And I was fond of Rico. But he was dead when I met him. Or dying, anyway, from a rat bite. He was a stranger to me, one I lent life to for weeks beyond his natural existence. And Michaela
was
murdered that night in Monti. There was nothing I could do to stop either of them from dying. There never is!”
“You're distraught. But that has an honest ring to it at least.” He stood and went to his well-stocked beverage cart, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the clink of crystal.
She eyed the contents of the bottle from which he poured. “And you are an unpleasant drunk, signor. I hopeâ”
Having poured two glasses, he slammed the crystal decanter on the cart. “I begin to note your resemblance to Rico more and more as time goes on. His observations often irritated as well.” He took one glass to her, then tossed his own back.
After sniffing hers, she drank, obviously having realized it was only water and lemon. “Ask your last two questions so that I may go.”
Silvia didn't look up as Bastian came and stood over her, his long fingers tapping his goblet. What was going through his mind? she wondered as she gazed into her drink. The concept of an Ephemeral both fascinated and repulsed others by turns. Did she disgust him?
Was he reviewing all the conversations he'd had with Rico, as she was? It had been so easy to banter with him when she'd masqueraded as a twelve-year-old. But now he suddenly knew that all those teasing remarks had actually come from her. And that the camaraderie he'd shared with Rico had, in actuality, been a closeness shared with her.
She groaned inwardly, remembering those erotic cards that morning in his tent, and their discussion about the ElseWorld Rites of Purification. Dozens more small embarrassments flitted through her mind. She straightened, telling herself they didn't matter and amounted to nothing in the overall scheme of things. She would have what she wanted from him and her freedom soon enough.
Another question came, his ninth by her count. “How old are you?”
She breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a slight smile. “Forever twenty-three,” she said. But even to her own ears, her tone had a poignant edge, rather than the whimsical one she'd intended. She shifted and sat forward, pushing his legs aside and going to stand at a large bay window. Outside, the storm had worsened. Some said Venice would drown one day in the violence of such a storm. She turned to look at him where he still stood before the chair. “Next.”
“Something puzzles me.” He looked at her over the rim of his goblet, then set his drink aside. “If Michaela died in Monti that night I was drunk . . .” His eyes sharpened on her. “Then who lay with me that Calling night?”
Her eyes went wide.
Gods, no! Don't let him guess.
“You,” he said softly, answering his own question. “You took her as host and then spent that Moonful with me. Fucking me. On the night your dearest friend died.”
She stepped back as if struck, then leaped to her own defense. “You think me callous. But you know nothing.”
“Explain, then. And that's a command, not another question, just so we understand each other.”
Silvia wanted him to understand; needed him not to think ill of her in this matter. So she answered. “When a host dies, they always leave some personal matter undone. I do my best to accomplish whatever final task they ask of me. To fulfill their last wish. For instance, Rico wanted a home for Sal.”
A light dawned in his eyes. “And you found one for him. Mine.”
She nodded. “And Michaela, she . . . she wanted to lie with you again.”
“I see.” He lifted the opal from the table, turning it over and over in his hand. “And so you accommodated her.”
She stared at the jewel in his strong fingers and nodded again.
“You did so with gratifying enthusiasm. And for weeks.”
She reddened, feeling naked before him now and vulnerable, and wishing the floor would open so she might drop through it. “You've had your ten questions. I believe we are done, signor. You owe me one opal and my freedom.” She went to him and proffered a hand, palm upward.
The opal went into his pocket. “I'm afraid you miscounted. I answered that last question myself.”
Her jaw dropped. “You're a cheat, signor!” she said, outraged. “Well, ask another, then, and let's be done!”
“As soon as we've eaten. Let's call respite from your counting until we mutually determine to begin again. Agreed?” He tugged at a tasseled pull, summoning servants.
When her lips tightened mutinously, he gestured toward the window. “The storm has grown furious. The canals will be impassable until it eases. Until then, stay with me. Old friends sharing a meal. Come, we have been friends in the past, have we not? And I know how you like to eat.”
Silvia only glared at him and then went to stare down into the canal, seeing immediately that he was right. Not a single boat had dared brave the tremendous waves below. The rain was so impenetrable that she could barely see the row of pastel buildings across the canal from his home. She sighed. “Do you have any
cioccolato?
” And he smiled at that, knowing he'd gotten his way.
They ate together there in his library, and she regaled him with the life she'd lived in Rome from age six to twenty-three, before the temple had been destroyed. And as his servants seamlessly attended to them, he seemed determined to be entertaining, telling her stories of his boyhood. This was a side of him she hadn't seen. The urbane gentleman, with an efficient, well-trained staff he seemed to take for granted.
“How did you grow up?” she asked at length, curious about him. “You and your brothers?”
He seemed to close off his emotions then, even as he provided the information. “In ElseWorld, until I was eleven years old. Then we all came here to Italy.”
“Why here?”
He sat back from the table. “A tale for another time. Your story is the one to fascinate tonight.”
“It wasn't so fascinating a life,” she said. “On the day we entered the temple, we were legally emancipated from the authority of our fathers. We vowed chastity for thirty years without knowing what we said.”
“A vow you broke. With me.”
She only shrugged, not wanting to get into the bizarre nuances of the matter of her virginity with him. She looked toward the window. “It grows late.” She pushed back her chair and he caught her wrist before she could move away.
“You feel guilty because you lay with me while in her form. Despite what you said before.”
She refused to look at him. “Kayla was my best friend. And she was in love with you.”
He stood before her and brought her hands to rest over his heart, his own warm atop them. “I could not love her as she wanted me to. We would have parted, even if she had not died. Even if you had not come along.”
“Give me the opal,” she whispered into his chest. “And let me go.”
“I'm in love with you.”
She laughed, a harsh, angry sound, and shoved him away. “You are
not
in love with me.”
He regarded her, unfazed. “Hardly the reply I was hoping for, my beloved.”
“Don't patronize me. I'm not stupid. What do you think to gain by telling me this lie? The opals? It won't work.”
“There, we have that out of the way, then. I cannot possibly be telling you I love you in order to have them.”
“You told Michaela you could not love,” she accused, backing away as he came toward her.
“That I could not love
her
,” he corrected.
She threw up her hands. “How stalwart you are! You could not love a Companion who'd slain the hearts of thousands of other men? And yet you love me, whom you have not even met? Never seen in true form?” She stopped and pushed against him. “And stop stalking me!”
His eyes burned over her. “Show me, then. Show yourself to me.”
She laughed bitterly. “As Michaela did? She made herself mortal for you!”
This shocked him. “By showing herself to me in solid Ephemeral form?”
She folded her arms, nodding. “And giving you her true name. That's all it takes.”
“I didn't ask it of her.” He ran fingers through his hair. “Gods, she was feyâa mortal when I met her. I didn't know she'd ever been anything else.”
“I've seen you work night after night to puzzle out the merest fragment of pottery. Yet you didn't take time to puzzle Michaela out. She loved you. And you hurt her.”
He glared at her. “Unintentionally.”
She poked a finger on his chest. “Do you know what I think? I think she was a challenge to you. You wanted to prove you were strong enough to withstand the thrill of a Companion's touch. I've never known of another man who could.”
“That would indicate that
I
was the challenge to
her
rather than the reverse.”
“What?”
“Michaela wanted what was unobtainable. In time, I think she would have grown bored with any man who loved her.”
Silvia shook her head. “Don't speak of her that way.” But a small part of her wondered if he could be right. Impossible to know now that Michaela was gone.
A pause, then his voice came at her again. “I've been advertising the stone I possess since you disappeared. Where have you been for the last five months?”
“The auction was a trap, then?”
“Yes, and only look what I've caught.” There was more than a hint of masculine satisfaction in his tone. “It seems I had only to employ the right bait.”
“You've asked more than your quota of questions by now. Are you going to give me the opal? You swore on your God.”
“We agreed to mutually determine when the official count would recommence.”
She eyed him. “You have no intention of giving it to me, do you?”
“I'll keep to my bargain. In fact, let us agree that this next question is to be number ten: “Why is it so important that you have the opals?”
She turned the tables. “Why do
you
want them so badly?”
He answered easily. “Because I believe they're powerful. And I believe that if I can gather all six here in Rome again, they will protect all of ElseWorld kind in this world. Think of itâno more need for a constant reinforcement of the magic that hides us here. No more fear of discovery.”