“Did you?”
“Yes. It’s what I do. In my spare time.”
Nico grinned. “I want you to meet Lili, show her what you did. She’s my assistant, and a very talented computer expert. She wipes the internet of anything to do with me on a regular basis. So if you found me, she needs to know where.”
“There’s one other thing,” she said, when he would have risen to take her immediately to meet Lili. The guy really liked his privacy, apparently.
He sat back down. “Yes?”
She glanced at Dragan who had turned to listen, then said, “Before we left the house, Sotiris’s house . . . he had a lot of museum-type collections there. Dragan took some knives, but I took. . . . I need my bag.” She looked to where it sat next to the door and made a move to get up, but Dragan beat her to it, walking over to pick up her computer bag, as well as the canvas duffle that held his sword and the other blades he’d taken from Sotiris’s collection.
Sitting down again, he handed the computer over to Maeve, but reached into the duffle first, saying, “Mae has something interesting for you, but I have this.” He pulled out the short sword with a flourish and held it out to Nico, hilt first.
Nico’s eyes lit up with surprised pleasure as he took the blade. “Where the hell—?”
“The bastard had it in his collection. I figured maybe he stole it after . . . well, after.”
Nico stood and turned sideways, giving himself enough room to swing the weapon in a complex pattern too fast for Maeve’s eyes to follow, the steel singing with the movement, despite its smaller size. “Just as sweet as ever,” he murmured, in much the same way she imagined he’d compliment a woman. These guys were really serious about their blades.
“Thank you,” Nico said, holding the blade down and turning to grip Dragan’s shoulder. “I never thought I’d see it again.”
Dragan shrugged. “We didn’t have much time, but the minute I saw that one hanging on the asshole’s wall—as if he’d earned it—I knew it was leaving with us.” He stroked a big hand gently over Maeve’s hair. “But Mae’s got something far more interesting, I think. Show him what you found, my sweet.”
Maeve ducked her head to hide a blush as all eyes turned to stare at her, pretending to be occupied with reaching into the compartment behind her laptop and pulling out the purple velvet box. “It was the most protected item in his collection,” she said softly. “At least, the parts I saw. So I figured it might be important.” She opened the box lid and held it out.
The others all crowded behind as Nico swore softly and dropped down to sit in front of her again. Except for Damian who’d thrown himself in front of Nico the moment she’d opened the box. He now stood with an unapologetic shrug. “I don’t know you,” he said simply.
Dragan snarled angrily, but she touched his arm.
“He’s right. I should have done that differently.” She looked to Nico to apologize, but found him staring in rapt amazement at the rock.
“Fuck. Me,” he whispered reverently, despite the irreverent words. “He’s had this the whole time. I thought she had it.” He glanced up abruptly, as if he’d said more than he’d intended.
“What is it?” Damian asked crouching next to Nico again. “I feel . . . I don’t know what I feel. It’s not dead, but—”
“It sucks at my magic,” Dragan agreed. “It can’t grab it, though it sure would like to. But it’s as if it’s looking for a specific kind of magic, or maybe a specific person.”
Nico met his gaze. “Sotiris,” he said, still whispering in awe. “It was designed to nullify Sotiris’s magic, specifically.”
“Is that possible?” Dragan asked.
“Yes. If you have his blood.” He stood without warning. “How the hell did he keep in his house without activating it?”
He hadn’t addressed the question to Maeve, but she answered anyway. “It was under two separate glass shields. Maybe one of them—”
“Was warded,” he finished for her. “Damn. All this time,” he murmured, then louder, “I have to secure this in the vault. Maeve, Dragan, you’re with me.”
She startled a bit at the command, but let Dragan pull her to her feet and follow the sorcerer down the hall, past a room filled with computer equipment, and on to a huge office with a curved wall of windows overlooking the water. “That must be beautiful in sunlight,” she murmured.
Nico heard her and turned. “It is. I work too much, and this reminds there’s a world out there. That’s the Intracoastal Waterway, by the way.”
She smiled. “I was wondering.”
He smiled back, and she just knew that he’d charmed many a woman with that smile. Fortunately, she wasn’t interested. She took Dragan’s hand, thinking she preferred wings with her smiles.
Nico did something with the bookshelf that she missed, because she was gazing up at Dragan. But they both turned at a sound like that of a big freezer popping open. “Wow,” she said, eyes wide. “When you said ‘vault,’ I didn’t think—”
“Sotiris doesn’t have one of these?”
“Not that I ever saw.”
“Come in, then.” Walking in ahead of them, he laid the short sword on a narrow table below a hanging display of blades, then carried the rock in its velvet box to a glass cabinet on the far wall. While he pulled out his keys to open the case, Maeve stood and stared.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” she whispered to Dragan.
“We didn’t have such elaborate rooms in our world. Nico always had a room set aside in the castle where we lived, when we weren’t at war. But no, nothing like this.”
Nico closed the cabinet, with the rock now inside it, and turned, walking back to join them. “You have no idea what you’ve brought me, do you?”
She shook her head mutely. Somehow, this vault, all these artifacts, made her feel as if she was in a museum. One where people whispered as they studied the collection.
“It’s called the hexagon. Small ‘h,’ he added with a wink. “It is ancient, in the sense that some generations ago, a sorcerer created it. It was created in my lifetime, as matter of fact, back then, before . . .” He gave Dragan a sorrowful look, reaching out to grip his upper arm, as if in silent apology. He drew a breath and continued. “Before the events that brought us all to this place and time.”