“I’m going to vote that’s probably the way it’s supposed to be. Especially if you feel strongly about it. And it’s part of the trust,” Riley added. “Right?”

“No bubble helmet for Riley, no tanks for you.” Sawyer glanced at Bran, Doyle. “Any objections?”

“I think not, and don’t believe Sasha would have any.” As he spoke, Bran glanced up toward the terrace.

“You’re trying not to worry about her, but you are. Go check,” Sawyer suggested. “Then we’ll all stop worrying about her.”

“She’s learned control and focus so quickly, accepted as a gift what was, all of her life, a burden to her. It goes to trust, but . . .” As he couldn’t settle, Bran got to his feet. “I’ll just have a look.”

“If she must paint,” Annika said as Bran walked into the villa, “it will be something we need.”

“Odds are.” Thoughtfully, Sawyer picked up the compass, felt it vibrate softly in his hand. “And I’ve got something we could use, if it works for everybody.”

“We could gear up here,” Riley said. “And you could just zap us to the grotto after the moon. No boat needed.”

“That—and with that no patrols wondering what a dive boat’s doing in that vicinity at night. But I’m more thinking why wait?”

“Because I’m not scuba diving in wolf form, cowboy, awesome or not.”

Sawyer simply turned the compass, revealed the watch.

“Well, shit.” On a half laugh, Riley shook her head. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Forward or back, either way, we wouldn’t have to wait to go.”

“Back. I did think of it.” Doyle shifted to give the watch a closer study. “And back far enough there’d be no patrols. When did all the tours and tickets and regulations start? You’d know,” he said to Riley.

Since it was a simple matter for her to flip through the encyclopedia in her mind, Riley shrugged. “A couple of Germans—writer and pal—visited the cave in the 1820s, guided by local fishermen. The writer wrote a book about it, and the statuary they saw. By the 1830s, it was a tourist destination. Back,” she murmured, and her archaeologist heart glowed in her eyes. “We could go back to the time of Tiberius, even Augustus, and . . . that’s not what this is about.”

She propped her elbows on the table, nested her chin in her fists. “But man, it’s cool to think about.”

“So to be safe, before 1820?”

“Yeah. And you’d probably want to avoid the French occupation, the back and forthing there, early 1800s.”

“Believe me,” Doyle confirmed. “You do.”

“You can do this?” Annika asked. “Do the travel to a different place, a different time, at once?”

“Yeah. It’s a wilder ride, but I’ve done it.”

“I won’t mind the wild.”

He grinned at her, and unable to resist, kissed her hand. “You’ll get it. Riley should pick the when. I’ll get the coordinates for where. Once Bran and Sasha are on board, we can start prepping for the trip. One thing.” Sawyer looked at Riley. “If we can do this before sundown in the now—there and back, it won’t matter to you. If we can’t get back until after sundown, what happens to—with you?”

“Never done it, but I’m going to say the change will hit me like a mother. I can handle it. But there and back before the moon? Better.”

“Nerezza will be on us,” Doyle said. “Either in the cave when we find it, or when we come back.”

“The shift—time and place?” Sawyer lifted a shoulder. “I’m not saying don’t be ready, but I think it might be enough to at least confuse her. But yeah, once we have it, she’ll hit. So, battle plan.”

Annika also considered it an honor to be part of the council of war. “We must protect Bran, so he can make the star safe if I find it. But . . . the compass doesn’t say where to go when we have it safe.”

“Not yet.”

“It’s a lot to take on faith.”

“Got a better option, Mr. Bright Side?” Riley asked Doyle.

“We go anywhere. Get the star, secure the star, then go anywhere until we know. I’ve looked for centuries, and never got close, to the star or Nerezza, until the day in the cave on Corfu. If we’re booking odds, they’re long for us to find all three in a matter of months. And then find the Island of Glass?”

“We’re six.” Sawyer took Annika’s hand in a firm grip. “We have two months more, and that’s it. I don’t believe, not for a second, we won’t find them before that.”

“If I must go back to the sea before . . . I can still help. I will help.”

“We’re not even going there,” Sawyer began, pausing only when Bran came out. “Everything okay?”

“It is. She’s . . . amazing. I didn’t disturb her—doubt I could have.”

“What’s she painting?” Riley wanted to know.

“Beauty, and I believe the place to send the Water Star. I believe the place we’re to go once we have it.”

“Where? If we can pin it down, I can start working on a house or villa, or a bunch of pup tents.”

Bran merely smiled at Riley. “If I’m reading the painting correctly, that won’t be necessary. As it’s my house in Ireland she paints—to my eye. The house I built at the end of a path, the painting she created before any of us met. The one I bought before I knew her.”