Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(48)

The day was gorgeous, a perfect hot summer day in England. Bees droned by. Lavish, untamed greenery spilled from underneath trees, barely held in check by the simple, crude mowing job that kept the wide lawn from turning into an overgrown pasture.

Soon her shirt began to stick to her back, and she almost wished she had put on a pair of shorts. She asked him, “How many gables do you see?”

He had crossed his arms again and stood with his chin tucked close to his chest. At her question, he gave the house an indifferent glance and shrugged. “Five.”

Smiling, she shook her head at him. “There’s more than five. I want to walk around the whole house.”

His attention sharpened, and he gave the house a second, more thoughtful look. “How many gables do you see?”

“I’ll tell you after I’ve gone all the way around.”

They strode the circuit around the massive house in silence. For the first time since she had arrived, she caught a glimpse of the small lake behind the house. Nikolas remained watchful, his expression grim. It must still be difficult for him to be in the place of such a painful defeat. He had lost friends and comrades here. She couldn’t imagine how that must feel, actually, and since she couldn’t find the right words to say in sympathy, she left him to his own thoughts.

When they finally stood in the same spot in front of the house again, she said, “How many did you see?”

“Still five,” he told her. “What about you?”

“On this side of the house, I can see seven. But there’s an eighth gable tucked around the back.”

“I want to say that’s impossible, but mostly I think it’s inexplicable,” Nikolas muttered. “How do you see more gables than I do?”

She held up her hands and gestured around her. “I think it’s the land itself. The crossover passageway is broken, but all the pieces of that magic are still here. Kathryn, the surviving member of the Shaw family, said that when her father was young, he was able to get into the house, but that was quite some time ago. She didn’t say exactly when, but she indicated it had been hundreds of years ago.”

“They’re not human,” he said.

“No, they’re Wyr. From the story she told me, I gather her ancestor fought for the Light Court. The last time her father tried to get into the house, the key turned in the lock but the door wouldn’t open. Nobody can break a window, she said, or make the door budge.” She turned sparkling eyes to Nikolas, who was listening to her with close attention. “I think it’s because the house isn’t fully here. It’s mostly here, but it’s slightly—ever so slightly—not in sync with this Earth where we stand.”

He frowned. “But we can see and touch it.”

“You can see some of it and touch some of it. I can see more of it.” She put her two fists together, side by side and aligned the knuckles of each finger to their opposite. “Think of tectonic plates, and then the earth moves. Maybe it’s a massive earthquake, or maybe it’s just a small shift.” She moved one fist slightly. “Then all of a sudden, the two plates don’t match up the way they had before and the land isn’t quite aligned as it was. I’m wondering if this is something like that, only more so. This isn’t just a place shift. This is a time, place, and dimension shift.”

He was wholly engaged now, listening closely to every word. He jerked his chin at the house. “Do you think you can see more of it because you’re part Djinn?”

“Yeah, maybe. If I’m right.” Looking back at the house, she chewed on a thumbnail. “Kathryn said the family had gotten experts to try to get into the house, but she didn’t say who those experts were or what they were experts in. It had all happened so long ago, and nobody had kept decent records of what they had done. I’m guessing they didn’t engage a Djinn as one of their experts. Why obligate yourself in an unnamed, possibly dangerous favor to a Djinn for something that was, to them, merely an exasperating mystery?”

“And why would they consider a Djinn for the job anyway?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They could see and touch the house, just as we can.”

She nodded. “Exactly. But I noticed the anomaly in the photos Kathryn showed me. The camera had captured something of the magic in this place. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I’ve been dying to see it in person.”

His dark eyes studied her. “And you still think you might be able to get into the house.”

“Maybe. I’m not a full Djinn. I can’t dematerialize—not fully—and whisk off to the other side of the world within a few moments, but I do have a certain affinity for manipulating my placement in time and space.”

“You can’t dematerialize fully,” he repeated. Fascination gleamed in his eyes. “Are you saying you can dematerialize partially?”

“No, not that.” She paused, frustrated with the limitations of language. “I can slightly shift things around me. Or a better way to say it is, I can shift myself in relation to everything else around me. Slightly. Not enough to really dematerialize, but enough sometimes to go unnoticed when I want to.”

“Is that how you hid with Robin from Gawain?”

“Yes. In my mind, I say that I pulled shadows around me, but really what I’m doing is stepping into shadows that existed at some time in that specific place. It’s—it’s like turning a corner. I know that sounds kind of mind-bendy, but believe me, it’s nothing like listening to full Djinn carry on a conversation. They literally don’t experience reality the same way we do.”