“If she was, you’d be dust.” Doyle took another beer. “Mortal against god? Who do you lay your money on?”

“I’d bet on myself,” Riley tossed back, “and my four friends here. I don’t know about you yet, big guy.”

“We’re more than mortals,” Bran pointed out. “So I’d say, however fickle, the gods gave us some edge. We’ll use it.”

“The star isn’t in the cave. I spent considerable time looking,” Doyle continued, “before things got interesting.”

“There are other caves.” Riley frowned into her beer. “I’ll make some calls, get us a boat, some gear. We talked about trying some of the underwater caves. Maybe that’s the next step.”

“I have some things I can put together, in case she goes at us again. We weren’t prepared enough.” Bran pushed to his feet. “That’s the bottom of it. We weren’t prepared, and we need to be.”

“Then we will be. I’ll take care of the dishes.” Sasha got up to clear.

She had some ideas of her own.

CHAPTER NINE

Once she’d set the kitchen to rights, Sasha went upstairs for her easel and paints. She’d take an hour for herself, smooth out any remaining jagged edges.

She set up on the terrace, commandeering one of the tables and covering it with a drop cloth from her kit.

After filling several jars with water, she set out brushes, palette knives, a palette.

And began to prep a canvas. She chose a golden, fluid acrylic—it would give the painting she saw in her head an underglow. She covered the edges first, then began to scrub the paint into the canvas so it would soak in. She kept the mix thin and lean, brushing it out, wiping it down until it satisfied her.

Then she set the canvas on her easel, began a line drawing. Clouds and sea, the curve of sand, the rise of cliff, the shape of the channel that cut through.

A sweeping view, she thought, not the more dramatic and focused study she’d been compelled to paint, not the storm-tossed night, but sparkling day. No figures caught in that storm and one another on the cliff, but the hint of people on shore and sea, bright drops of color and life.

She mixed colors—greens first—the deep, dark green of cypress, the duskier hue of olive, the richer of citrus trees. All this against the sun-bleached brown of the cliffs.

It gave her peace, the process of it, and the ability to translate not only what she saw but what she felt with paint and brush and canvas.

The blues, dreamy, bold, soft, sharp—the hints of green and aquamarine around the rocks. The pale gold of sand flowing into deeper tones where the sea rolled over it, retreated, rolled again.

The clouds she painted cotton white against the pulse of blue sky, then changed brushes to add their shadows, like an echo on the sea.

She lost track of time in the work, in the pleasure. With the sparkle in front of her, and on her canvas, the cold, dark shadows of the cave in the hills didn’t exist.