She shifted her head on his chest; he tilted his chin. She felt his breath suck in.

“The very concept gives me indigestion,” Declan said. Then he twitched his shoulder to tell her to move. “I need to steer us in. We’re there. Tie us off, can you?”

To her surprise, they were not at a scenic point or romantic destination. They were at a private pier attached to a development of very choice row houses jutting directly out onto the harbor.

“Matthew, the painting,” Declan said. “Please don’t drop it in the water.”

“What’s all this?” Jordan asked as Matthew trundled gingerly up toward them with a parcel in very familiar wrapping: The Dark Lady. The dreamt portrait of Declan’s birth mother, Mór Ó Corra, invested with the magical property of making whoever slept under the same roof as it dream of the sea. The dreamt portrait Jordan had once forged and once stolen and once returned.

Declan held out a hand to help her step from the rocking boat onto the pier. “I told you I was going to show you a good time, didn’t I?”

Three exceptionally blond people had emerged from one of the houses—a man, a woman, and a teenager, all of them dressed for the weather, each carrying or dragging a piece of luggage. They started down the pier toward a boat rather larger than the one Declan, Jordan, and Matthew had arrived in, but when the man caught sight of Declan, he stopped.

“Oh, right, Cody—” the man told the teen, voice raised as he rummaged out a set of keys and dangled them. “Take that painting from him and put it just inside, would you? By the other things to go out. Lock the door after you. Lock it. Check it this time, please.”

The teen sulked up to Declan, took the painting of Declan’s mother, and jogged it back to the house as the couple joined Declan, Jordan, and Matthew.

“I’m going to go get this stuff situated,” said the woman, smiling politely but continuing down the pier.

“Be there in a minute,” the man said. He and Declan shook hands, casually, lightly, and then, politely, he shook with Jordan as well. He offered a hand to Matthew, too, but Matthew had turned at just that moment to crouch and look over the edge at the water.

“Sorry for the short notice,” the man continued.

“It was no problem,” Declan said. “Good way to escape the traffic.”

“It seems silly to me this can’t be done over email or phone, but this is tradition and I’m not going to be the first to break it, you know what I mean?” the man said. “What do you want to know?”

Instead of answering, Declan said, “Jordan, Mikkel was on the MFA board for—”

“Fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years,” Declan agreed. “He has dealt with several sweetmetals.”