On an oath, Jordan grabbed her arm, spun her back to him. “Don’t tell me it’s not possible.” He felt a jolt, a shock that sang straight up his arm to his shoulder, but he kept his grip firm.

“Take your hand off my woman,” Pitte said very softly.

“What are you going to do, smite me? My woman’s lying there helpless, going through Christ knows what, because she gave her word to you. And you’d stand here and do nothing?”

“He conjured this world he took her into. It’s his power that holds there.” In a rare sign of agitation, Rowena pushed at her hair. “There’s no way of knowing what he’s done there, or what would become of you if I attempted it. And I’m not permitted to take you beyond your own world. To do so would break the vow I took when I came into this place, when I was given charge of the keys.”

“I conjured this world,” Jordan tossed back, and threw the book on the bed beside Dana. “That’s my mind in there, my words, and I’ve got a real problem with some self-serving god threatening the woman I love, and plagiarizing me to do it. I don’t care how many vows you break, you’re not leaving her in there alone. You’re sending me after her.”

“I can’t.”

“Rowena.” Taking her shoulders, Pitte turned her to face him. “He has the right. Listen,” he insisted as she started to speak. “A man shouldn’t be stripped and bound while his woman fights alone. It was Kane who broke an oath, and doing so crossed beyond all honor. He was not meant to take her life. He was not meant to touch the key by hand or mind or sorcery. It’s a different battle now. We fight on his terms or we lose.”

“My love.” She curled her fingers around his arms. “If I do this, even if I succeed, you know what it may cost us.”

“Can we live, in this prison, and do nothing?”

The sigh ached in her breast as she lowered her forehead to his heart. “I’ll need you.”

“You’ll have me. Always.”

She nodded, drew a deep breath, then looked at Jordan with eyes that seemed to burn. “Be sure. If I do this thing, her life, yours, and all are at risk.”

“Do it.”

“Send us all.” Zoe grabbed Dana’s hand again. “Send all of us in. You said we’re stronger together, and we are. We’ll have a better chance of getting her back if we all go.”

“Valiant warrior.” Pitte smiled at her. “This is not for you. But if gods are willing, you’ll have your turn.”

“Give him a weapon,” Brad demanded.

“He can take nothing with him but his mind. Lie beside her,” Rowena told Jordan, then picked up the book. She closed her eyes, and it began to glow. “Ah, yes, I see. Take her hand.”

“I’ve already got it.”

Rowena opened her eyes. The blazing blue was nearly black against the pure white of her skin. Her hair seemed to lift in an unseen wind. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Bring her back.” Flynn drew Malory close to his side as he looked down at Jordan. “Bring her home.”

“Count on it.”

He felt that wind blow through him, fast and warm. He felt it whirl him through time, through space, through shimmery silver curtains that parted with a sound like the sea.

And he was standing in the moonstruck night, staring at the black peaks and towers of Phantom Watch.

He sprinted toward it, noting the smoking fog, the scream of an owl. A dog would bay at that fat, full moon, he remembered, and felt a curious satisfaction when the sound echoed through the air.

Last chapter, he realized, and confirmed it when he saw the broken window.

Time to do a little revising, he thought, and climbed through the shattered glass.

Chapter Twenty

“WHAT can we do?” Malory held tight to Flynn. “There must be something we can do besides stand here and wait.”

“Keep close,” Pitte told her.

“Perhaps there’s a bit more.” Rowena sat on the side of the bed, with the book in her lap. “We’ve already broken our vow,” she said to Pitte. “If there is punishment, it won’t change if we do more.”

“Watch, then.” He ranged himself beside her. “But they deserve the chance to win this on their own. Read.” He laid his hand on her shoulders and merged his power with hers. “So the others can watch as well.”

She nodded and opened the book to the last chapter.

“ ‘She took the stairs at a limping run, and the fear was all around her, crowded close in the shadows of the Watch.’ ”

AT the landing Dana started to veer right. There were dozens of rooms, hundreds of places to hide.

But for how long?

He would find her. The dark was no barrier for him.

Would he kill her? Could he? Kate had saved herself in the end, but she had fought a man, flesh and blood against flesh and blood.

How could she know how much of this was Kane’s world and how much was Jordan’s? Even, she realized, how much was her own creation brought on by bits and pieces she remembered from the book, spiked by her own fear?

At the sound below, she whirled to see the shadow of Kane and the long white scarf glowing faintly blue in the path of the moonlight.

And she saw the fog, now cold and blue, begin to crawl up the steps toward her.

“I’ll find you, Kate.” He crooned it. “I’ll always find you.”

The killer’s words, she thought. She heard her answer spill out of her mouth without conscious thought. “I won’t make it easy for you. It won’t be like the others.”

She pivoted on the landing and charged up the next flight of stairs.

She needed distance, she thought frantically. Enough distance to buy enough time to clear her mind. Fear was clouding it, making it harder for her to separate herself and her actions from the character’s.

She batted madly at cobwebs, had to stifle a scream as they clung to her hair and face. But somehow the innately human disgust steadied her.

Find the truth in his lies, she remembered, as her breath began to puff out in thin vapors.

“I’m Dana!” she shouted. “I’m Dana Steele, you bastard from hell, and you’re not going to win this one.”

His laughter chased her down the wide corridor where doors swung open, slammed shut with bulletlike snaps. The mist was sneaking along the floor, added a hideous glow to the dark and curling ice around her feet. The sweat sliding down her back and temples went clammy with cold as she stumbled into a maze of hallways.