Zurael pulled Aisling into his arms and rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair. Hope rose where fear had been. If the House of the Raven stood with him about sparing Aisling’s life…

He shivered when she pressed kisses to his chest. His cock hardened, and he felt her smile against his skin, answered it with one of his own.

A knock on the door kept him from urging her to her knees or taking her against the counter. He stepped back, but followed her into the living room.

Raisa stood on the stoop. Bird-sharp eyes shone as they took in Zurael’s bare chest and Aisling’s heightened color. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I saw Javier this morning. He mentioned you’d stopped by the occult shop looking for him. I took the liberty of telling him about our visit the other day. I told him I’d suggested you go there with your questions. He’s willing to meet you for lunch at my tearoom. As I mentioned during our earlier visit, my shop has always been a safe place, a neutral zone for those touched by the supernatural. There’s no way to reach Javier now, but he said he’ll stop by in an hour, just in case you can make it.”

Aisling said, “I don’t know if I can.”

“I’m sure Javier will understand if you can’t on such short notice.” She glanced at Zurael, then back at Aisling. “Nicholette didn’t answer her door this morning. Did something happen-”

“There’s still hope,” Aisling interrupted. “Or at least there was…” Her voice trailed off, giving the impression of worry. “If you’ll excuse me, there are some things I need to do before I’ll know whether I can meet Javier for lunch.”

“Of course.”

“You handled that well,” Zurael said moments later, when they were in the kitchen again. “Curious she should arrive this morning with an invitation and a question. What happened last night?”

Aisling told him, though not what transpired with Sinead before or Aziel afterward, and not how she’d come by Irial’s name. When she was finished, she said, “I think I should meet Javier for lunch.”

Zurael pulled her into his arms. “We’ll meet Javier for lunch.”

She placed her hand over his heart and felt its steady, reassuring beat. “Do you think it’s safe for you to go with me? The books in his shop-”

“Probably have very few incantations in them that would be dangerous to me even if done correctly and by a powerful sorcerer.”

The beat of Zurael’s heart remained steady, sure, until she stroked the tiny male nipple. Then it jumped and raced, sent a surge of pleasure through her.

“We don’t have time,” he whispered, his breath warm against her ear, his lips capturing the lobe, sucking, sending a hot stab of lust to her clit.

“I know.” But she didn’t pull away from him.

He slid his hands under her shirt, caressed her back with heated palms and gathered her closer so her mound was pressed against the rigid line of his erection. “This is dangerous, more dangerous than you can imagine,” he said, rocking into her, panting softly as she did the same, riding the thin edge of control until the lust burning between them calmed enough for them to separate.

Aziel emerged from the workroom and scurried through the door. Aisling picked him up, started to tell him he had to remain here, then thought better of it when she remembered the lesson he’d intended for her when they found Nicholas.

This isn’t the trap I expected, the one I wanted you to see and understand. There’s no spell here to capture anyone you might summon.

He’d always been more sensitive to spell magic than she, though they’d rarely encountered it when they lived with Geneva. She settled him on her shoulder. “If it’s a trap, I think Aziel will warn us.”

FROM behind curtained windows and screened doorways, Aisling felt her neighbors watching them as they walked past. Chauffeured cars dropped off wealthy clients, the drivers leaving or remaining at the curb.

She tensed when a jeep came into view. It was several blocks away, but the camouflage green and brown marked it as belonging to guardsmen. Instinct, a lifetime of habit, made her turn into the nearest alleyway.

Zurael’s fingers curled around her wrist, halted her when she would have hurried forward. “No,” he said, pulling her behind a wall of shrubbery and using his arm to trap her back to his front.

The jeep’s engine was distinctive. It drew near, slowed as it passed the alleyway, but didn’t stop. “Wait for me here,” Zurael said before the warmth of flesh became a swirling, heated breeze.

Leaves kicked up, allowing Aisling to follow his progress until he was beyond the row of shrubs. She gasped when he returned without warning, greeted her with the touch of his lips against her neck. “They showed no particular interest in your house.”

“When Father Ursu brought me here, he told me the police and guardsmen don’t patrol this area.”

“Perhaps they’re looking for Nicholette or her brother. Or they might be here on personal business.”

Rather than retrace their steps to the main road, they continued down the alley and exited onto others just like it, until they emerged onto the street that would take them to Raisa’s Tearoom. As they passed the Wainwright house, the front door opened.

“Hold on,” Tamara called. “We were just about to send someone with a message for you.”

One hand supported Tamara’s extended belly while the other grasped the railing as she descended the porch steps. Happiness rose inside Aisling. “You’ve got Anya?”

Tamara was shaking her head as she reached them. “No. There’s an approval process, which mainly requires paying fees to the government and the Church. By the time it was done and the couple we sent got to the The Mission, the child was gone.”

Aisling could barely breathe. “Gone?”

“Yes. The matron wouldn’t provide any information about who took Anya or where she was taken, until the couple we sent reminded her it was a matter of public record and told her they intended to pursue it. Then she admitted to sending the child into The Barrens along with some of her playmates-to some religious community she claims exists there.”

“The Fellowship of the Sign,” Aisling said.

Tamara’s face tightened. “That’s the name our friends heard. The matron had no right to send any child into The Barrens without government approval-which I doubt she has. It’s beyond the reclaimed area of Oakland. It’s still considered lawless.”

Aisling felt heartsick. She worried for Anya more than the other children.

She’d been so sure Davida hadn’t noticed Aziel going to the sandbox, calling attention to the symbols Anya had drawn. Perhaps it was a coincidence… or more likely, given Davida’s dislike of the gifted, she hadn’t known Aisling was interested in a particular child. Instead she’d sent Anya and her playmates away thinking she was saving them all.

“Levanna wanted me to tell you we won’t give up. We’re trying to find out more about the Fellowship of the Sign and how we can find them in The Barrens.”

“You’ll tell me as soon as you know?”

“Yes.” Tamara grimaced as her unborn child kicked. “I need to get back inside.”

Aisling waited until they were a distance away from the house before stopping and turning to Zurael. “They’ll be on foot. Walking with children and having to remain on guard will slow them down. Even if they left early this morning, you could catch up to them. And if their compound is in the forest past The Barrens, you’d be able to follow them home.”

“I can’t be in two places at once.”

She smiled at the fierceness she heard in his voice. “I trust Raisa enough to believe I’ll be safe at her tearoom.”

Zurael cupped her face in his hands. His eyes glittered with harsh regret. “And when you return home, Aisling? I’ve already failed to protect you once.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She saw he was going to argue, and prevented it by putting her hands on his chest, stroking over the firm muscles and hard nipples. “This is our best chance of finding where Ghost comes from. The longer it takes and the more people we ask questions of-the closer we get-the more dangerous it’s going to become.”