It hardly mattered which direction she chose. She could walk endlessly in circles or stand perfectly still. It wasn’t a matter of finding her way, or being misdirected now. It was, she realized, nothing more than a battle of wills.

The key was here. She meant to find it; he meant to stop her.

“It must be lowering to pit yourself against a mortal woman. Wasting all your power and skill on someone like me. And still, the best you can do is this irritating blue-light special.”

An angry red glow edged the mist. Though Malory’s heart plunged, she gritted her teeth and kept moving. Maybe it wasn’t wise to challenge a sorcerer, but aside from the risk she realized another side effect.

She could see another door now where the red and blue lights merged.

The attic, she thought. It had to be. Not illusionary corridors and turns, but the true substance of the house.

She focused on it as she walked forward. When the mists shifted, thickened, swirled, she ignored them and kept the image of the door in her head.

At last, her breath shallow, she plunged a hand through the fog and clamped her fingers around the old glass knob.

Warmth, a welcome flood of it, poured over her as she pulled the door open. She started up, into the dark, with the blue mist creeping behind her.

OUTSIDE, Flynn navigated through the mean-tempered storm, edging forward in the driver’s seat to peer through the curtain of rain that his wipers could barely displace.

In the backseat, Moe whimpered like a baby.

“Come on, you coward, it’s just a little rain.” Lightning pitchforked through the black sky, followed by a boom of thunder like a cannon blast. “And some lightning.”

Flynn cursed and muscled the wheel in position when the car bucked and shuddered. “And some wind,” he added. With gusts approaching gale force.

It hadn’t seemed like more than a quick thunderstorm when he’d left the office. But it worsened with every inch of road. As Moe’s whimpers turned to pitiful howls, Flynn began to worry that Malory or Dana or Zoe, maybe all three of them, had gotten caught in the storm.

They should have been at the house by now, he reminded himself. But he would have sworn that the rage of the storm was worse, considerably worse, on this end of town. Fog had rolled down from the hills, blanketed them in gray as thick and dense as wool. His visibility decreased, forcing him to slow down. Even at a crawl, the car fishtailed madly on a turn.

“We’ll just pull over,” he said to Moe. “Pull over and wait it out.”

Anxiety skated up his spine, but instead of easing when he nudged the car to the curb, it clamped on to the back of his neck like claws. The sound of the rain pounding like fists on the roof of the car seemed to hammer into his brain.

“Something’s wrong.”

He pulled out into the street again, his hands vising on the wheel as the wind buffeted the car. Sweat, born of effort and worry, snaked down his back. For the next three blocks he felt like a man fighting a war.

There was a trickle of relief when he spotted the cars in the driveway. They were okay, he told himself. They were inside. No problem. He was an idiot.

“Told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said to Moe. “Now you’ve got two choices. You can pull yourself together and come inside with me, or you can stay here, quaking and quivering. Up to you, pal.”

Relief drained away when he parked at the curb and looked at the house.

If the storm had a heart, it was there. Black clouds boiled over the house, pumped the full force of their fury. Even as he watched, lightning lanced down, speared like a fiery arrow into the front lawn. The grass went black in a jagged patch.

“Malory.”

He didn’t know if he spoke it, shouted it, or his mind simply screamed it, but he shoved open the car door and leaped into the surreal violence of the storm.

The wind slapped him back, a back-handed blow so intense that he tasted blood in his mouth. Lightning blasted like a mortar directly in front of him, and the air stank with burning. Blind from the driving rain, he bent over and lurched toward the house.

He stumbled on the steps and was calling her name, over and over like a chant, when he saw the hard blue light leaking around the front door.

The knob burned with cold and refused to turn under his hand. Baring his teeth, Flynn reared back, then rammed the door with his shoulder. Once, twice, and on the third assault, he broke it in.

He leaped inside, into that blue mist.

“Malory!” He shoved his dripping hair out of his face. “Dana!”

He whirled when something brushed his leg, and lifted his fists, only to lower them on an oath when it turned out to be wet dog. “Goddamn it, Moe, I don’t have time to—”

He broke off when Moe growled deep in his throat, let out a vicious bark, and charged up the stairs.

Flynn sprinted after him. And stepped into his office.

“If I’m going to do a decent job covering the foliage festival, then I need the front page of the Weekender section and a sidebar on the related events.” Rhoda folded her arms, her posture combative. “Tim’s interview with Clown Guy should go on page two.”

There was a vague ringing in his ears, and a cup of coffee in his hand. Flynn stared at Rhoda’s irritated face. He could smell the coffee, and the White Shoulders fragrance that Rhoda habitually wore. Behind him, his scanner squawked and Moe snored like a steam engine.

“This is bullshit.”

“You’ve got no business using that kind of language with me,” Rhoda snapped.

“No, this is bullshit. I’m not here. Neither are you.”

“It’s about time I got treated with a little respect around here. You’re only running this paper because your mother wanted to keep you from making a fool of yourself in New York. Big-city reporter, my butt. You’re a small-time, small-town guy. Always have been, always will be.”

“Kiss my ass,” Flynn invited and threw the coffee, cup and all, in her face.

She let out one short scream, and he was back in the mist.

Shaken, he rounded once again toward the sound of Moe’s barking.

Through that rolling mist, he saw Dana on her knees with her arms flung around Moe’s neck.

“Oh, God, thank God. Flynn!” She sprang up, wrapped herself around him as she had the dog. “I can’t find them. I can’t find them. I was here, then I wasn’t, now I am.” Hysteria pitched and rocked in her voice. “We were together, right over there, then we weren’t.”