We’re all insane, she thought. So I might as well enjoy loving him while I can, because it doesn’t make any less sense than anything else we’re doing.

In the meantime, she threw up her hands. “If you guys think you can fit it in through the doors, by all means. It’s only a rental, but I didn’t take out extra insurance for siege warfare and decimation caused by Hounds of the Light Court, so you’ll be saving me some money.”

Once they had cleared everything moveable out of the cottage, even the curtains, Sophie shooed the men outside.

She told them, “Don’t step back inside now. We might be preparing for a siege, but we can also work on some misdirection. For whatever good it does, I’m going to clean everything with as many household chemicals as I can. Hopefully by the time Robin and I are done, nobody will be able to pick up yours or Robin’s scents, either in the cottage or anywhere outside on the property. The storm might bring Hounds nosing around the property, but with any luck, if Morgan doesn’t find anything, he should go away again, right?”

“We can hope,” Nikolas said, giving her a dark look. “Unless Morgan gets information from another source.”

By the mystified look on Gawain’s face, Nikolas hadn’t had a chance to tell the other man what they had learned from her most recent vision.

Her shoulders drooped. “Well,” she said tiredly. “We’ll do everything we can, and then we’ll see how things play out.”

Gawain patted her back. “That’s all anyone ever can do.”

Pulling out an extra burst of energy through sheer will, she attacked the interior of the cottage. Through the kitchen window, she paused briefly to watch Nikolas and Gawain force the second oaken door open in the deepening twilight. Then Nikolas loped back across the lawn to start the Mini and drive it toward the open doorway.

Sure enough, within fifteen yards or so, the car’s engine died. It rolled a little farther, but the thick turf and the broken flagstones must have provided too much of a barrier, because it stopped well back from the doorway.

Nikolas leaped out, and Gawain joined him at the rear of the car. Together they pushed the Mini, seemingly without effort, into the house.

Mmm-hmm, that show of masculine strength wasn’t sexy in the slightest.

Sometimes she cracked herself up. She turned her attention back to cleaning the cottage. Basically, she threw bleach on everything that could take it and lemon floor polish on everything else. By the time she was finished, even she couldn’t handle the smells inside. Stacking the cleaning supplies outside the door, she backed out of the cottage and locked it.

When she turned around, she found Gawain striding toward her. By the hard, tight expression on his face, she could tell that Nikolas had finally talked to him.

He put an arm around her and squeezed her against his side tightly enough to make her grunt. “You’re going to be safe with us, lass,” he told her. “I swear it.”

Sighing, she let her head fall onto his shoulder as she slipped an arm around his waist. “I didn’t believe anything otherwise,” she told him.

“Good.” Unexpectedly, he turned his head to press a kiss against her forehead. “We’re all at sixes and sevens right now, but you should know—you matter to him. You matter a great deal. He has to work through some things, so he might not be able to tell you that himself. If it matters to you enough to do it, lass, try to give him some time, and hopefully he’ll work his way through the heaviest of it.”

At his words, the starch went out of her spine. She turned into him to give him a full-bodied hug. “Thank you for saying that, Gawain.”

He returned the hug and patted her back. “You matter to me too, you know. Have faith, stay the course. We’ll do right by you.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t know the others, but I believe in you, and I believe in him. Whatever that means.”

As he let her go, he smiled and touched the tip of her chin with his knuckles. As she looked up at his rugged, handsome features, she thought, oh Gawain, you’re such a good man. You’re not an asshole in the slightest. Of course I couldn’t fall for you.

While Gawain helped her to load the last of the cleaning supplies into the wheelbarrow, the first fat splash of raindrops began to fall. She warned, “Your null spell is going to wash off in this rain.”

He paused, considering. “Maybe it doesn’t matter, as long as Nikolas works inside the house,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at the manor house. “I can’t sense anything with the null spell on my hand. Can you sense his presence?”

She tried and couldn’t. “I can’t sense anything but the land magic.”

“That’s good news, lass. Maybe it means the house will cover our presence like we’d hoped.”

They jogged over to the manor house as the first few raindrops turned into a steady rain; then quickly it became a downpour.

They tossed everything through the front doors. As she peered inside, she saw that Nikolas had lit a small fire to one side of the massive fireplace, and he stood beside it, head angled as he peered up at the chimney.

“Is it running clear?” Gawain called out.

“There’s some kind of obstruction,” Nikolas shouted back. “I’m going to have to climb up to clear it.”

As they watched, he reached up to grab hold of something high inside, and he levered himself up until he had completely disappeared.