Hoyt lowered his hands, brought her slowly back, as he closed the circle. Her eyes cleared, blinked.

"So? Did I pa.s.s the audition?"

Glenna smiled at her, then walked to the table, lifted one of the crosses. "This is yours now."

Blair took it, let it dangle. "It's nice.

Beautiful craftsmanship, and I appreciate the gesture. But I have my own." She tugged the chain from under her shirt. "Family thing again.

Like an heirloom."

"It's lovely, but if you'd-"

"Wait." Hoyt s.n.a.t.c.hed at the cross, stared at it as it lay in his palm. "Where did you get this? Where did it come from?"

"I told you, family. We have seven of them. They've been pa.s.sed down. You're going to want to let go of that."

When he looked up into her eyes again she narrowed hers. "What's the problem?"

"There were seven, the G.o.ddess gave me, on the night she charged me to come here. I asked for protection for my family, the family she ordered me to leave behind. And these were what she gave me."

"That was what, nine hundred years back?

It doesn't mean-"

"It's Nola's." He looked over her head to Cian. "I can feel it. This is Nola's cross."

"Nola?"

"Our sister. The youngest." His voice thickened as Cian moved closer to see for himself. "And here, on the back, I inscribed it with her name. She said I'd see her again. And by the G.o.ds, I am. She's in this woman. Blood to blood. Our blood." "There's no question?" Cian said quietly.

"I put this around her neck myself. Look at her, Cian."

"Aye. Well." He looked away again, then moved to the window.

"Forged in the fire of the G.o.ds, given by the hand of a sorcerer." Blair breathed deep.

"Family legend. My middle name is Nola. Blair Nola Bridgit Murphy."

"Hoyt." Glenna touched his arm. "She's your family."

"I guess you'd be my uncle, a thousand times removed or however it works." She glanced over toward Cian. "And isn't it a kick in the a.s.s? I'm related to a vampire."

In the morning, under a weak and fitful sunlight, Glenna stood with Hoyt in the family graveyard. The storm had soaked the gra.s.s, and rain still dripped from the petals of the roses that climbed over his mother's grave.

"I don't know how to comfort you."

He took her hand. "You're here. I never thought I would need anyone to be with me, not the way I need you. It's all so fast, all of this. Loss and gain, discovery, questions. Life and death."

"Tell me about your sister. About Nola."

"She was bright and fair, and gifted. She had sight. She loved animals-had, I think, a special affinity for them. Before I left, there were puppies born to my father's wolfhound.

Nola would spend hours in the stables playing with them. And while the world turned, she grew to a woman, had children."

He turned, rested his brow against Glenna's. "I see her in this woman, this warrior who's with us now. And inside of me is another war."

"Will you bring her here? Blair?"

"It would be right."

"You do what's right." She tipped up her head so her lips brushed his. "It's why I love you."

"If we were to marry-"

She took one quick, jerky step back.

"Marry?"

"Sure that hasn't changed over the centuries. A man and a woman love, they take vows, make promises. Marriage or handfasting, a tie to bind them to each other." "I know what marriage is."

"And it disturbs you?"

"Not disturbs, and don't smile at me that way, as if I'm being endearingly stupid. Give me just a minute here." She looked over the stones, toward the sparkling hills beyond. "Yes, people still marry, if they like. Some live together without the ritual."

"You and I, Glenna Ward, we're creatures of ritual."

She looked back at him, felt her stomach jitter. "Yes, we are."

"If we were to marry, would you live here with me?"

It was a second jolt. "Here? In this place, in this world?"

"In this place, in this world."

"But... don't you want to go back? Need to?"

"I don't think I can go back. Magically, aye, I think it's possible," he said before she could speak. "I don't think I can go back, to what was. To what was home. Not knowing when they'll die. Knowing that Cian is here- that other half of me. I don't think I could go back knowing you would go with me, and pine for what you left here." "I said I would go."

"Without hesitation," he agreed. "Yet you hesitate at the rite of marriage."

"You caught me off guard. And you didn't actually ask me," she said with some annoyance. "You more posed a hypothesis."

"If we were to marry," he said a third time, and the humor in his voice had her fighting her own, "would you live with me here?"

"In Ireland?"

"Aye, here. And in this place. It would be a kind of melding of our worlds, our needs. I would ask Cian to let us live in the house, to tend it. It needs people, family, the children we'd make together."

"Leaps and bounds," she murmured. Then took a moment to settle herself, to search herself. Her time, his place, she thought. Yes, it was a loving compromise, could be-would be-a melding of spirits.

"I've always been a confident sort, even as a child. Know what you want, work to get it, then value it once you have it. I've tried not to take anything in my life for granted, or not too much. My family, my gift, my lifestyle."

Reaching out, she brushed her fingers over one of his mother's roses. Simple beauty.

Miraculous life. "But I've learned that I took the world for granted, that it would always be-and that it would roll along, pretty much without my help. I learned otherwise, and that's given me something else to work for, to value."

"Is that a way of saying this isn't the time to speak of marriage and children?"

"No. It's a way of saying I understand the little things-and the big ones-the normal things, life, become only more important when it's all on the line. So... Hoyt the Sorcerer."

She touched her lips to his cheek, then the other. "If we were to marry, I would live here with you, and tend this house with you, and make children with you. And I'd work very hard to value all of it."

Watching her, he held up a hand, palm to her. When hers met it, their fingers linked, firm and strong. Light spilled out of their clasped hands.

"Will you marry me, Glenna?"

"Yes."

He cupped the back of her neck, drawing her to him. The kiss spun out, full of promise and possibilities. Full of hope. When her arms came around him, she knew she'd found the strongest part of her destiny. "We have more to fight for now." He turned his face into her hair. "More to be now."

"Then we will be. Come with me. I'll show you what I'm working on."

She took him with her closer to the house where there were targets set up for archery training. The sound of hoofbeats had her looking over, just in time to see Larkin ride the stallion into the trees.

"I wish he wouldn't ride in the woods.

There are so many shadows."

"I doubt they could catch him, if they were lying in wait. But if you asked him," Hoyt said, running a hand down Glenna's hair, "he'd keep to the fields."

Her brows lifted in puzzlement. "If I asked?"

"If he knew you worried, he'd give that to you. He's grateful for what you do for him. You feed him," Hoyt said when she frowned.

"Oh. Well, he certainly likes to eat."

Glenna looked toward the house. Moira, she imagined, was having her morning session with the books, and Cian would be sleeping. As for Blair, it would take a little time before Glenna learned the newcomer's routine.

"I think we'll have lasagna for dinner.

Don't worry." She patted his hand. "You'll like it-and it occurs to me that I'm already tending the house, and the family in it. I never thought of myself as particularly domestic. The things you learn. And now."

She drew her dagger, moving she realized, with complete ease from cookery to weaponry.

The things you learn.

"I worked on this yesterday."

"On the dagger," Hoyt prompted.

"On charming the dagger. I thought I should start small, eventually work up to a sword. We talked about doing something about weapons, but with one thing and the other, we haven't really gotten down to it. Then I thought of this."

He took it from her, skimmed a finger up the edge. "Charmed in what way?"

"Think fire." His gaze moved back to hers. "No, literally," she said as she stepped back a pace. "Think fire. Visualize it, skimming over the blade."

He turned the dagger in his hand, then shifted to a fighting grip. He imagined fire, pictured it coating the steel. But the blade remained cool.

"Are there words to be said?" he asked her. "No, you just have to want it, to see it.

Try it again."

He focused, and got nothing.

"All right, maybe it only works for me- for now. I can refine it." She took it back from him, drew out the image, and pointed the dagger toward the target.

There wasn't so much as a spurt.

"d.a.m.n it, it worked yesterday." She took a closer look to make certain she hadn't grabbed the wrong weapon that morning. "This is the right one, I inscribed a pentagram on the hilt.

See?"

"Yes, I see it. Perhaps the charm is limited. It wore off."

"I don't see how. I should have to break the charm, and I didn't. I put a lot of time and energy into this, so-"

"What's going on?" Blair strolled out, one hand tucked in the front pocket of her jeans, the other holding a steaming cup of coffee. There was a knife in a sheath at her hip, and the glimmer of moonstones dangling from her ears.

"Knife-throwing practice?"

"No. Good morning." She lifted an eyebrow at the irritation in Glenna's voice. "For some of us anyway. Nice dagger."

"It's not working."

"Let's see." Blair s.n.a.t.c.hed it from Glenna, tested the weight. And sipping coffee, threw it toward the target. It stabbed the bull's- eye. "Works for me."

"Great, so it's got a pointy end, and you've got excellent aim." Glenna stomped toward the target, wrenched out the dagger.

"What happened to the magic?"

"Search me. It's a knife, a nice one. It stabs, it hacks, it slices. Does the job. You start counting on magic, you can get sloppy. Then somebody puts that pointy end into you."

"You have magic in your blood," Hoyt pointed out to her. "You should have respect for it."

"Didn't say otherwise. I'm just more comfortable with sharp implements than voodoo."