Jake shook her hand for the right amount of time and let go. His eye contact was steady throughout, his gaze never drifting below her face the way everyone else's had. Part of him seemed elsewhere—some quiet, thinking part of him that the party hadn't managed to reach. 'Professional,' Claire registered. "I'll take your leave then," Rory announced. "The guys need a babysitter." Jake nodded. Claire gave Rory two thumbs up as he retreated, already looking perfectly at ease on his way back to the noise. "Please—join me," Jake said, gesturing toward the far end of the gallery. A pair of high-backed lounge chairs faced each other over a low, single-block dining table, large enough to stretch out in if the conversation called for it. Claire sat across from him, legs crossed, the ocean breeze moving through from the open side of the gallery. "Thanks." "I noticed you ordered cranberry juice at the bar," Jake said. "Photoshoot tomorrow? An event?" "Nothing like that," Claire said. "I dri

Whup-whup-whup-whup-whup. The rotor wash hit the Blue Grove terrace before the helicopter itself came into view—Jake's AgustaWestland AW119Ke Koala, charcoal black against the night sky, its downwash flattening everything on the terrace in concentric rings as it descended. He'd had two of them custom-fitted. They flew on a daily city-wide permit that money had ensured cost him very little to renew. The Koala hadn't finished settling when Jake dropped out of the hatch, stooping low as he jogged under the blades toward Ashley, who stood waiting on the east corner of the terrace. "Hey, babes." He ran a hand through his hair to smooth the downwash out of it. "People have been looking for you. Where'd you disappear to?" Jake looked good. He always looked good—that was part of the problem. The white Gucci tracksuit, the hair still slightly damp from a recent shower, the particular easy confidence of a man who moved through the world like it was built to accommodate him. Ashley let him

"Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden—[the woman replied. It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat." "God said—you must not eat it or even touch it—if you do, you will die." "You won't die—the serpent replied to the woman. God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil." Cardinal David Lazarus lowered the book and looked out over the north chapel. Thirty people occupied the pew—a small, still congregation, their faces turned toward the pulpit with the particular patience of those who came not for performance but for truth. The chapel's stained glass caught the morning light and scattered it in long colored panels across the stone floor. The rose windows on either side depicted biblical figures with the dark, unapologetic intensity of medieval craft—faces that watched rather than blessed. The murals were stranger still. The most commanding o

"LEAH UHTCEARE EVEGACA." Those were the words Ashley's mother had whispered in her ear—in the dream that wasn't a dream, in the moment between dying and not dying, in the place where whatever kept bringing her back seemed to live. "It's all for a purpose," Evelyn had added, and then said nothing more, as if that were sufficient. Ashley had been turning the words over in her mind for a week. She had a working knowledge of seven languages and a passing familiarity with several others. None of them claimed these syllables. A G****e search returned nothing. LEAH appeared to function as a name. The remaining words were opaque as glass. She'd filed them under 'mysteries to survive long enough to solve' and moved on. 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,' she thought dryly. 'Wait. That's genuinely not applicable here.' It had been seven days since the breakup with Jake. She was still calibrating to a version of life that didn't have him at the center of it—or rather, still getting

Wood & Price Associates occupied the thirteenth through fifteenth floors of 7 Roxburgh Street—a few blocks from Malory Towers, in the kind of address that quietly communicated the difference between firms that won cases and firms that set precedents. Over five hundred attorneys practiced here, each a specialist in their field. The most powerful corporations in Norwich retained them. The truly powerful asked specifically for Elijah Wood. The elevator opened onto the fifteenth floor's reception, and Ashley stepped out first, Guiscard half a pace behind her. The firm's name was embossed in gold across the feature wall—WOOD & PRICE— beneath a logo that intertwined scales of justice with a laurel wreath. To the right, through glass partitions, a staff recreation area ran the comfortable length of the space: a long table laid with fruit and coffee, a billiards table with two associates stealing five minutes, a bar stocked for after-hours. The overall impression was of a place that took