“Oh, yeah, like that’s the easy part,” he muttered at the phone before slipping it back into his pocket.

Unwilling to leave—not sure why but trusting his instincts—Tony swept his gaze over the beach, north then south. If asked, he’d probably say he was waiting. Actually, since he didn’t know anyone in the immediate area, if asked, he’d probably tell the nosy bastard to fuck off.

What was he waiting for?

“Who the hell knows.”

The otters were gone and the water offered no immediate answers. He shimmied himself into a more comfortable position. Seemed like he was going to be here for a while. The sand was dry and warm and Tony scooped up a handful, pouring it slowly into his other palm; then back again, and again, the action mesmerizing. He’d never really watched the way sand moved before; all the tiny pieces falling . . .

. . . into . . .

. . . place.

Amy’d asked the right question. What’s his motivation?

“Not conquest—not until I gave him that new and exciting tailor-made for a Shadowlord way to use television to reach the masses. No, if all he wanted was to conquer and destroy and enslave, he could have done that any time to any world the moment he worked out the gates and he hasn’t.” The shadow had been fairly clear on the whole searching thing. “He’s been searching seven years for this particular world. For the wizard who got away.”

A young gull, its feathers still mottled brown stared at him curiously, decided the noise didn’t involve eating, and moved on.

“And while he’s definitely—as Arra pointed out—a vindictive bastard, he’s not just tying up loose ends. He’s put way too much effort into this for that. It took him seven years to piece together the bits of information she left behind. Getting what information he could from those last two . . .” Tony swallowed, seeing them again, seeing them like he saw them every time he closed his eyes. “A guy like that—a guy who can do something like that—doesn’t put this kind of work into a project without a bigger payoff than dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. He has a gradational scale of minions, for God’s sake, he’s very much the center of his own universe! For all this, he has to believe she’s a danger to him.”

Tony tossed aside the old handful of sand—it had lost that silky, sun-warmed feel—watched the pattern the wind made as it caught the grains, and scooped up a new one.