He laughed, working his trench coat off the back of his chair. “They should be, sweetheart, no question,” he said. “But they’re not. And even if they were, I wouldn’t be, not with her. I’m like a tinderbox around her. It’s not just her looks, either. I don’t know what it is. Every time I see her. I want to kill a rhinoceros for her, or build a castle or something—and then make love to her till the universe turns to clay.” Shaking his head, he slid the coat on. Made an ironical expression. Standing there, hands in his pockets. Tall, fit, youthful, lively. It was hard for Harper to tolerate the sight. “Great timing, huh?” he said.

He walked towards the double doors, towards her. Stopped to stand beside her, with his hand resting lightly on one door’s brass push-plate.

“Hey—don’t look at me like that,” he told her. “What can I do?”

“That’s not for me to say,” Harper answered slowly. “I can only tell you that the young woman seems to me to be in trouble. Judging by the fervor with which she denied it, I would guess it does have something to do with The Magi. Perhaps the auction represents some sort of crisis point—”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” he said. He closed his eyes a moment, held a hand up at her. “Don’t. I mean, if you’re right, and she took to me for some reason, and she wants my help—and if, like you say, she’s—fragile, you know, in the emotions department, then it’s even worse, Harper. Best-case scenario: I break her heart. So please. All right? I haven’t been a saint. I want to go out clean.”

And then he did go out—fled from her, practically, out into the winter’s night. And she watched him from the window, sad and afraid.

A terrible moment followed. As Harper looked on. As Storm stepped into the middle of the narrow street, glancing this way and that for a cab. The thug on the corner tossed his latest cigarette into the gutter. Straightened. Two other hulking figures detached themselves from the surrounding darkness and began to close in on Storm. Harper’s entire body went rigid. Storm, finding the street empty, had begun to move away to the corner. The scarred thug gave a look to his two massive henchmen, a signal with his eyes.

And they withdrew. As Storm strolled casually past them, they dropped back into the shadows.

Harper relaxed. Nodded to herself. That was as she thought it would be, as she thought it should be too. No matter what mystic role Storm’s arrival had played—no matter what role he himself would play—in the events to come, this was not his hunt, not his battle. It was hers.

And she was the one they were after.

3

The siege wore on.