The next moment, I sensed someone behind me, all size and impatience and body heat.
And not in a nice way.
"So you decided to be good, huh, Maggi?" The voice was too thick to be pleasant even if its owner tried.
He didn't.
I recognized billionaire slimeball, Phil Stuart, even before I turned. And here I'd thought that this one-thousand-dollar-per-plate event was exclusive.
"I'm always good," I told him, masking my unease as I turned anyway. Phil was nobody I wanted at my back. "But if you mean well-behaved… maybe not."
"You gave up on those stupid goddess cups, right?"
Gave up
? It hadn't been two months since I'd rescued the antique chalice of my ancestors, a holy relic called the Melusine Grail, from thugs sent by this guy. Since then, I'd been preoccupied helping nurse my sometimes-lover Lex back to health after a vicious knife attack.
By more thugs.
Probably sent by this guy.
Supposedly the two incidents were unrelated. I didn't need psychic abilities to doubt that Either way, I'd had an excellent reason for not seeking out a second chalice.
Really.
I didn't need Phil tossing out double-dog dares.
Phil Stuart always looked a little off to me. Like a poor imitation of something better. Other than to check for the bulge of a gun—or a ceremonial knife—under his tux, I barely glanced at him before noting the two suited gentlemen lurking by the ancient stone archway. Was he kidding?
"Bodyguards, Phil?"
"
Right
?" He leaned closer, into my personal space. "You've given up on those stupid goddess cups?"
"Not your business." I knew how to stand my ground, even in two-inch, ankle-flattering heels. "Back off."
"Or what?"
He wasn't an
immediate
danger to me. This may sound weird, but…ever since I'd drunk from the Chalice of Melusine—my family goddess, a goddess renowned for her prophetic scream—my intuition had sharpened to the point that my throat tightened whenever something threatened me. And my throat felt fine just now.
Then again, Phil rarely did his own dirty work.
He raised his voice. "Or
what
?"
A smooth voice beyond him said, "Or you'll make your date jealous."
Speaking of deception, cross-purposes, and old wounds…
Lex, my sometimes lover and current escort, had returned from fetching champagne. Beside him stood a small, blond woman in an expensive gown. A
black
gown, naturally—this was a
GQ
models would envy, was the one on whom my gaze lingered.
Alexander Rothschild Stuart in wasn't so tall he towered, nor so athletic that he bulged. His ginger-brown hair sported an expensive but conservative cut His face revealed generations of upper-class ancestors, all pulling together in the sweep of his jaw, his cheeks, his nose, understated and yet, well…perfect.
Maybe too perfect But, good or bad, it was
hint
. Lex was what Phil, his cousin, could never copy. When I wanted him, that was great. When I felt unsure of our relationship, it really complicated matters.
Lately, things had been very complicated.
"Maggi," Lex said coolly, passing me a champagne flute, "have you met Phil's new girlfriend, Tammy?"
"Let's go," said Phil—but I was already taking Tammy's manicured hand in my own.
"Pleased to meet you," I said. "I'm Magdalene Sanger. Are you sure you know what you're doing with mis guy?"
"Hey!" Phil protested.
Tammy's eyes widened. Her lips parted. "Why do you… ?" Then, quickly, she looked down at our hands.
I'm not psychic, sore throats aside. I just knew Phil.
"
Now
," Phil insisted. But this reception was for patron-circle members, on a Monday night when the museum was normally closed to the public. If he made a scene, he would do so in front of the crème de la crème of city society. 1 hadn't pushed him that far. Yet.
Then again, this was my first drink of the evening.
Tammy slid an annoyed glance toward Phil, then said, "Pleased to meet you, Magdalene. That's a fascinating necklace you're wearing."
"Thank you. It's called a chalice-well pendant. It—"
"Enough!" At Phil's exclamation, several patrons turned to see who had been so gauche. Even Lex's lips twitched, which is about as close to a guffaw as my ex-lover is capable. "Stop talking to her, damn it!"
Tammy blinked, as if seeing him for the first time, then laughed. "Why in the world should I not talk to her?"
"Probably because his wife left him after talking to me," I guessed. That had been shortly after Lex landed in the hospital. The woman had good reason to be concerned.
Now
my throat tightened in warning.
I spun in my heels and nailed Phil with a glare that stopped him cold, before he'd surged forward an inch. Everything about his posture said he'd meant to strike out at me, public place or not. And so it began.
Or continued.
"Here, Phil?" I warned softly. "
Now
?"
And since most bullies are cowards, he said nothing.
This time when someone stepped up behind me, the sense of solidity and body heat belonged to Lex. So was he backing me up, or readying to help his cousin?
Either way, my bare back welcomed his nearness.
"You know," murmured Tammy into the uncomfortable silence that followed, "perhaps I'll catch a cab home. Thank you for the invitation, Phillip, but—"
"You can't leave," protested Phil, and Tammy arched an eyebrow at him in challenge.
"Thank you, Magdalene," she said as she turned away. "It was a real pleasure to meet you."
"For three minutes?" Phil's heavy head swung back to me for one last glare before he trailed his girlfriend from the gallery. "You met her for three freakin'
minutes
. Tammy!"
His bodyguards trailed after them.
"I hope she'll be all right," I murmured in their absence. I'd felt jittery all evening. Not sore-throat jittery, but still…
"Phil's made mistakes." Lex took a sip of his champagne. "But he's a Stuart. There are lines even he won't cross."
I did a double take. Did he honestly believe that? Did he mean it as
assurance
?
Then he distracted me by sliding a hand across the small of my back and murmuring, "Why do you keep doing that?"
So he'd noticed, too. Phil's wife. A nurse who stood up to a condescending doctor. A waitress who suddenly found the strength to take down a rowdy customer.
A little girl, whom I'd helped to her feet when Lex and I were jogging in the park, who finally hit her brother back.
She never does that
, exclaimed her surprised mother…
"And don't say,
doing what
," Lex continued, his voice mild but his hazel, almost golden eyes demanding.
"I'm not doing anything. Not deliberately." That would mean I had some kind of…well…
magic
. I didn't, sore throats aside. I wasn't sure I wanted the responsibility.
He looked particularly inscrutable.
"But maybe," I admitted, mulling it over. "Maybe the Melusine Grail is."
In a nearby display case sat a small, ornate goblet of blue faience. It wasn't a goddess cup, but I turned under Lex's hand and escaped for a closer look anyway.
My name's Magdalene Sanger. I'm a professor of Comparative Mythology at
Stamford
,
Grailkeepers
. Like me.
Until recently, guarding the knowledge of these lost chalices had been enough. But Phil Stuart and a secret society of powerful men had gone after my family's cup. I'd rescued it—and learned the truth, which was this:
After hundreds, maybe thousands of years, mere knowledge was no longer enough.
Lex's reflection appeared in the glass case, over my shoulder. "How's an old cup that's not even here making women more—" he frowned, at a loss "—
more
."
"Legend says the goddess grails will increase the power of women a hundredfold," I reminded him. "And I do still have the Melusine Grail. Sure, it's hidden away for now… "
He didn't ask where. I definitely didn't tell him.
"But still, I drank from it. I took the essence of
goddessness
into me. Maybe that connection is what's empowering other women…at least when I touch them."
"So you don't need to go looking for more cups?"
"Of course I do."
His ghostly image scowled. In some ways, I thought, he's more dangerous than Phil.
At least I felt certain about where Phil stood.
Even when I turned and looked at Lex straight on, I knew damned well I wasn't seeing all of him.
He breathed out his next question. "
Why
?"
"You know as well as I do. Because a secret society called the Comitatus are after them. They destroyed the Kali Grail in
New Delhi
—"
"You can't know that was…them."
"You're right, because they work in
secret
?" I frowned into my champagne. "But I know some of them went after the Melusine Chalice. I know they came after me. Is there any reason I should give them the benefit of a doubt?"
Lex's mouth flattened as I kept talking.
"That's the problem with secrets," I continued. "I could have been dating a member of the Comitatus for years—hell, I could've dated one of its most powerful members—and never known it. I could have considered
marrying
him, and because of some stupid vow of secrecy, he would never have told me who he really was."
"I can't talk to you when you're like this." Lex's reflection turned away from mine and faded, like a ghost's.
Whether I wanted it to or not, my heart lurched. I turned after him. "That's our problem.
You can't talk to me"
Because that whole previous speech had been a big, fat load of sarcasm.
Turns out, Lex
was
one of the most powerful members of the Comitatus. From what I'd pieced together, the only reason he wasn't in charge was that a childhood illness had taken him out of the running as a leader of supposed warriors. More's the pity.
Despite our own problems—previous deceptions, and cross-purposes, and scars that might or might not yet heal—I had to believe things would have been different with him as the leader.
I
had
to.
I caught up to him and put a hand on his arm, hard and fit beneath his tuxedo jacket. "I have no reason to trust them. And since you
can't
talk to me—"
"I can," Lex insisted. "About anything but that."
"It's a hard thing not to talk about. You must know something good about those men, something worth saving, but I haven't seen any proof of it. And now—"
Now Phil Stuart scowled at us from across the room, bodyguards instead of a date at his side. His fear of me, of what he couldn't understand, made him dangerous. I looked from him to Lex again, noting how tight Lex's jawline had gotten with the strain of his own secrets, and I consciously chose
against
fear.
"I trust you," I vowed softly, hopefully. "I trust that you know what you're doing, that it's something honorable and right. I've got to believe that, for both our sakes… "
My voice faded, the closer his face leaned toward mine, the more intently his golden eyes focused on my lips. The nearer he came, the shorter my breath fell.
But again, not in a good way. I wasn't ready.
The last time we'd been lovers, before his attack, I'd known nothing of his involvement with the Comitatus. Learning the truth had just about broken my heart. I
did
want to trust him…but maybe hearts are slower to heal than knife wounds.
He must have seen something in my eyes, in my posture. We've known each other since childhood, after all. He reads me pretty well.
Abruptly, he turned away. "I'll get us another drink."
And then I was alone in the crowd, feeling cold and foolish and more than a little frustrated… which is when I saw it.
It was another glass case, another small sculpture in blue faience, apparently the Egyptians' earthenware of choice. This one wasn't a cup but a tiny figurine, a woman on a throne with a child in her lap.