Annja shook her head. "These pieces are giving off heat. I can feel it." She studied the pieces, finding the charm she had discovered in La Bête's lair.

It lay with the wolf and mountain side up. Bending down, the switched on the desk light and peered at the image.

"What do you know about the charm, Roux?" she asked.

The old man shrugged. "Nothing. I only knew when I saw it that it was part of this sword."

"Joan of Arc's sword?"

Roux turned on Garin. "You told her?"

The younger man looked impassive. "Does it matter?"

"You're a fool," Roux snapped. "You've always been a fool."

"And it's taken you over five hundred years to find the pieces of this sword," Garin returned. " Ifyou've found them. I'd say that's pretty ineffectual. Perhaps recruiting people to help would have moved things along more quickly."

Annja moved her hand slowly over the sword fragments.

Roux, Garin and Henshaw all drew closer.

"Is this really her sword?" Annja asked. She moved her hand faster. "Joan of Arc's?" The heat was back, more intense than before.

"Yes," Roux said hoarsely.

"How do you know?"

"Because I saw her carry it."

Annja looked at him. "That was more than five hundred years ago."

"Yes," Roux agreed seriously. "It was. I saw the soldiers break Joan's sword. I watched her burn at the stake." Sadness filled his face. "There was nothing I could do."

Numb with disbelief, but hearing the echo of truth in the old man's words, Annja tried to speak and couldn't. She tried again. "That's impossible," she whispered.

The old man shook his head. "No. There are things you don't know yet. Impossible things happen." He paused, studying the pieces. "I'm gazing at my latest reminder of that."

Annja held her hand still. The pieces seemed to quiver below her palm. Before she knew she was doing it, she shoved both hands closer.

Her fingers curled around the leather-wrapped hilt.

An explosion of rainbow-colored light filled the case and overflowed into Roux's den. The shadow of something flew overhead on wings of driven snow. A single musical note thrummed.

For one brief second, Annja lifted the sword from the case. In that second, she was amazed to see that the sword's blade was whole. The rainbow-colored light reflected on the highly polished metal.

Images of other lights were caught in the blade's surface. A hundred pinpoints of flaming arrows sailed into the sky. Small houses burned to the ground. Running men in armor and covered with flaming oil died in their tracks, their faces twisted by screams of agony that thankfully went unheard.

At that moment, more than anything, Annja wanted to protect the sword. She didn't want Roux or Garin to take it from her. She had the strangest thought that it had been away too long already.

The sword vanished. The weight dissipated from her hands. She was left holding air.

"Where did it go?" Roux roared in her ear. "What did you do with the sword?" He grabbed Annja roughly by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. "What the hell did you do?"

At first, Annja didn't even recognize he was speaking in Latin. She reacted instinctively, clasping her hands together and driving her single fist up between them to break his hold on her. Still moving, she swung her doubled fists into the side of his head.

Roux spilled onto the Persian rug under the ornate desk where the empty case now sat.

The sword was gone.

Chapter 17

GARIN AND HENSHAW froze. Annja knew if either of them had so much as flinched, someone – perhaps both – would have died.

Getting to his feet with as much aplomb and dignity as he could muster under the circumstances, Roux cursed and worked his jaw experimentally, a bad combination as it turned out.

Annja dropped into fighting stance, both hands held clenched in fists before her. "I didn't do anything to the sword," she told the old man. "It disappeared. I lifted it from the case – "

"The pieces disappeared as soon as you touched the hilt," Roux snarled. "I saw that happen."

"Pieces?" Annja echoed. "It wasn't pieces that disappeared. I drew the sword out of that case. It was whole."

Roux searched her face with his harsh, angry gaze. "Poppycock. The sword was still in pieces."

He's insane,Annja thought. That's the only explanation.And Garin, too. Both of them as mad as hatters. And they've given you something – a chemical – something that soaks in through the skin. Or maybe the room has something in the air. You didn't see what you thought you saw. Something like that can't have happened.

She told herself that, but didn't completely believe it. She'd been under the influence of hallucinogens strong enough to give her waking dreams and walking nightmares before.

Once, in Italy, she'd come in contact with a leftover psychotropic drug used by one of Venice's Medici family members that had still been strong enough to send her to the hospital for two days.

In England, she'd been around Rastafarians who had helped with packing the supplies on a dig site who had smoked joints so strong she had a contact high that lasted for hours. She'd never used recreational drugs. But she knew what kinds of effects to look for.

There were none of those now.

"Think about it, Roux," Garin insisted. "If she took the sword pieces, where are they? She has no pockets large enough to store them. We were all watching her."

Roux cursed more as he searched the case and came up empty again.

"The sword wasn't in pieces when it disappeared," Annja told them. "Aren't you listening?"

"It was in pieces," Roux growled. "I saw them."

"I took the sword from the case – "

"Those pieces disappeared while they were still inside the case," Roux snapped. "I watched them."

"Then you didn't see what happened." Annja blew out her breath angrily. "The sword was whole."

Roux turned to Henshaw. "What did you see?"

"The sword was fragmented when it disappeared, Mr. Roux," Henshaw said. "Just as it was when you first showed it to me. Never in one piece."

"There you have it," Roux declared angrily. "All of us saw the sword in pieces."

"No," Annja said. "You didn't see it properly."

"You're imagining things." Roux sank into the huge chair behind the big desk. He regarded her intently. "Tell us what happened."

"I reached into the case for the sword – "

"Why?" Garin asked.

"Because I wanted to feel the weight of the haft," Annja answered. She didn't feel comfortable talking about the compulsion that had moved her to action. "As I touched the sword hilt, the pieces fit themselves together."

"By themselves?" Roux asked dubiously.

"I didn't move them."

"She didn't have time to fit the pieces together," Garin said. "You, on the other hand, have had time. And I'll bet nothing like this happened while you were trying to put those pieces together."

After a moment, Roux growled irritably, "No."

" Somethinghappened to the sword fragments," Garin said.

"It was whole," Annja said again. She could still see the sword in her mind's eye. It felt as if she could almost touch it.

But neither of the men was listening to her.