He ushered me through the front gate, then jumped ahead to open the front door. The cleaning fairy hadn’t paid us a visit since we’d last been here, and paperwork and files were still scattered everywhere.

“It was a simple matter of installing a trapdoor in our roof,” he said, “and then adjusting one of the skylights in theirs.”

“And of course the bad guys watching aren’t likely to spot us leaping from one roof to another.”

“Well, no, not if we keep low. Our old Victorian has a pediment, remember, and that should stop anyone spotting us.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

He placed his phone on the nearest desk—a desk that no longer held the backpack containing the laptops. Rinaldo’s people had indeed come to retrieve them.

“Yes, I have,” Jackson said. “I even have a rope long enough to reach their floor.”

“Handy.” I followed him up the stairs and tossed my bag toward the bed.

“Very. It’s certainly better than jumping down.” He walked toward what he laughingly called the bathroom—a tiled area tucked into one corner of the vast room that had a shower, bath, and basin sitting in it. With no screen or curtain, it was in full view of the rest of the room, so too damn bad if you wanted privacy while bathing. But at least he did have a separate toilet—there were some things in life and relationships that were better left unshared.

A trapdoor had been built to the right of this area, midway between it and the bathroom area. He pressed a button on the wall; the trapdoor slowly opened, and a metal ladder began to unfold.

He climbed up, opened another door in the roof, and then motioned me up. In very little time, we were jumping across to the blacksmith’s and sliding down a rope into the building.

Though the flames in the old-fashioned brick furnace had been banked for the night, the heat of the embers still called to me.

“Ladies first,” Jackson said, propping himself up on one of the old wooden workbenches.

I stopped beside the furnace and brought the coals back to life, until the roar of the flames was all I could hear and the heat of it washed over my skin. I threw my hands and head back and called it to me, though I didn’t immediately feed, instead allowing the flames to play around my body for several minutes. I was enjoying the fierceness of them, the rush of heat, energy, and pleasure that came with them. Then I sighed and somewhat regretfully drew them in, refueling the inner fires.

My skin still glowing with heat, I broke the connection and stepped away. Jackson’s eyes gleamed, but it had nothing to do with fire and everything to do with desire. But he said only, “Why don’t you go back and eat? I could be a while.”