They left the main road and went down winding country lanes, barely a single lane wide. When they met another vehicle coming the other way, one or the other had to pull over to the side. Trees laden with fruit drooped over the road. They had to stop at one point for some goats to cross the road.
"Your guy really loves his privacy," Reive remarked.
"I didn't call him a reclusive billionaire for nothing." Jess checked her phone. "I've emailed him a couple more times, but I haven't gotten a response. I really hope he doesn't mind us dropping in."
"If nothing else, he'd probably appreciate being warned that a magic-using douchebag with a bunch of pet gargoyles might gate-crash him to steal his books."
"True," Jess admitted. "And that's the sort of news that's hard to tell someone over the phone."
Just when it seemed that their road couldn't possibly get any narrower and still be a road, they pulled up at a gate between two stone walls. Reive parked, and they both got out. It was very quiet here, the late-afternoon heat draped over them like a soft blanket. Goats bleated in the distance, and the leaves of the trees rustled with a dry rattling sound that was different from the ocean-wave whisper of leaves back home. Jess found that she was listening for something and realized that she kept expecting the rushing shirr of cicadas. There were insect sounds here, but they were different.
"Ideas?" Reive asked.
"I'm not sure."
They went up to the gate. It was black wrought iron in a spiraling design. Through the gate, Jess could see that the road curved away through serried ranks of olive trees. She could just glimpse the low white walls of what was probably a house through the trees.
"There's an intercom here," Reive pointed out. "Should we call up to the house?"
She pressed the button, hesitated for a minute, and then said, "Hello? This is Jess O'Dell. I'm the American who's been emailing you."
The intercom squawked, and someone said something in Italian. Between the static and the language barrier, she couldn't figure out enough by analogy to Latin to have the slightest clue what had been asked.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't speak Italian. Does anyone there speak English?"
There was a pause, and then a calm, deep voice with only the slightest accent said, "You are the young American lady who has been trying to contact me? The librarian?"
"That's right," Jess said, her heart pounding. "I'm so sorry to bother you like this, but I'm here with a friend. We're at your gate right now, and we have a terribly urgent need to speak to you."
The gate buzzed, jerked, and then began slowly to slide on rollers to the side.
"Come up," the deep voice said. "You can park in front of the house."
"Thank you," Jess exclaimed. "Uh ... grazie!"
"I look forward to meeting you, young American lady, and your friend," the voice said, and the intercom clicked off.
"Trap?" Reive murmured as they went back to the car.
"Why would it be?"
"Just stay alert."
Reive drove slowly through the winding lane between the olive groves. The gate clunked shut behind them, and Jess tried not to feel trapped. Now that Reive had mentioned the possibility, she could feel all her senses going on high alert. Her fingertips began hardening and lengthening again. She clenched her teeth and forced them back to normal.
The white house she had seen through the trees was a low, rambling villa, its walls gleaming creamy pale gold in the evening sun. Reive parked the car on a curving drive of crushed white stone. The house was flanked with shrubs and trees, draped in flowers. Their perfume was strong enough to make Jess lightheaded.
They got out of the car. Jess left her suitcase in the trunk. It wasn't the kind of place where you expected to have things stolen. If they ran into trouble here, light-fingered villa employees were going to be the least of their problems.
It surprised her, in a way, that the villa wasn't bigger. She was expecting a more McMansion-like building, several stories tall with vast, sprawling wings. Instead it was a rambling one-story structure, most of which was hidden behind flowering trees and gardens. There was a fountain on the lawn, with a statue shaped like a youth pouring water out of a vase.
She was too busy looking around to notice for a moment that Reive wasn't with her. She looked back. He was still by the car, shoulders hunched as if in pain, left hand lightly chafing his right arm through the leather jacket.
"Reive? Are you all right?"
He jerked his hand down and straightened up. "Fine."
Jess frowned at him worriedly when he joined her at the edge of the lawn. He looked gray.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"Jet lag," he said shortly, and started up the pathway to the house.
Jess sighed and lengthened her stride to fall in step. The path was surfaced in the same crushed pale stone as the driveway. There was a low stone wall on one side, draped in flowering vines, and an ornamental hedge flanking the other side. The door, recessed in an archway, was up a short flight of stairs, each made from a large slab of rough-finished stone.
It opened at their approach, and a woman held the door for them. She was middle-aged with curly graying hair and wore a dark dress that made it impossible for Jess to tell if she was an employee or a relative. A crinkling web of lines around her eyes suggested that she smiled often, though she was solemn as she bowed briefly and held out a hand toward Reive. She asked a question in Italian.
"I think she asked about taking your coat," Jess said.
Reive shook his head. "No thank you, I'm fine."
The woman offered another small bow, a dip of her head, and turned, gesturing them to follow her.
The villa was more extensive than it had appeared from the front, and a lot of it, Jess discovered, was outside, or at least not roofed over. They went through a series of courtyards filled with flowers, one big enough to contain a swimming pool. The sun by now was below the villa's walls, and the courtyards were filled with shadows, the pool's water a deep blue-green as it lapped at the ornately tiled edge.
Beyond the pool room, they came to a small terrace looking down onto a sloping field of olive trees. There was a small grouping of outdoor furniture, and two men sitting at a white patio table, with glasses of wine in hand and the demolished remains of some kind of light meal spread out between them.
The two rose as Reive and Jess came in. The older of them stepped forward.
"You are the American librarian," he said in the deep voice she'd heard over the intercom. "I am Giovanni Romano."
Giovanni Romano was tall and lean, with a shock of gray hair. She guessed he was about seventy, but he could have been older—or perhaps younger, his skin and hair prematurely aged by the intense sun. There was no trace of an old man's trembling in his warm, strong fingers as he took her hands in his, and kissed their backs.
"Oh," Jess said. No one had ever done that before. Beside her, Reive subtly bristled. "Oh, uh ... yes, I'm Jess O'Dell, and this is my friend Reive. Thank you for having us, um, Signor Romano."
"You are both very welcome in my home," Giovanni said. "Please, call me Gio. Are you hungry? Maria!" he called to the curly-haired woman. "Please bring refreshments for my guests. The olives are locally grown, as are the grapes for the wine, and the oil is pressed here. Come, sit—oh, and I am being rude! This is my friend Mace MacKay."