I stood now a foot or so from the source of the gold light. It was so strong that I couldn’t make out its source, but I was sure now that it was Aelvesgold. The circle needed Aelvesgold to cure Brock … I needed it to gain enough power to keep the door open. And, after all, it was my fault the circle had wasted their last reserve of the stuff.

I took another step forward … and noticed that the water was warmer. Looking down I saw that I was standing in a small pool of amber water. I wriggled my toes, which had gone a little numb in the cold water, and felt the warm current moving up my legs, spreading a delicious sensation of well-being throughout my body. It was like getting a foot massage while drinking a champagne cocktail. I squatted down, not caring that the water soaked the hem of my dress, and reached my hand into the core of the gold light. For all I knew I might have been sticking my hand into a bear trap, but I no longer cared. The light was tingling in my veins, fizzing my nerve endings, and massaging the pleasure centers in my brain. I hadn’t felt this good since I’d made love to Liam under the willow tree in Faerie. Maybe if I could grab whatever was making this light, I wouldn’t miss that quite so much.

My fingers wrapped around something round and hard. It was half sunken in the mud, but I pulled it out with a satisfying plock. I dimly recalled Liz saying that Aelvesgold could be dangerous to handle, but I couldn’t stop myself. Lifting the stone out of the water, I cradled it in the palm of my hand. It fit perfectly. Like an egg in a nest. It was, in fact, egg-shaped and golden – like the proverbial golden goose egg – and glowed as if it was on fire. It didn’t hurt me.

Because you were meant to have it.

The voice in my head didn’t sound entirely like my own. But I agreed with it completely. I was meant to possess this stone. I started to slip it into my pocket … and heard the click of metal behind me.

“That’s not yours to take,” a low, gravelly voice growled. “Stand up slowly and hand her over.”

I stood up as slowly as I could, gripping the stone hard in my fist. I had images of throwing it at my assailant and then grabbing the stone back and running. The person behind me was wrong. The stone was mine to take.

But the person behind me had a gun, as I surmised from the cold metal rod pressing between my shoulder blades.

I turned around, expecting some hillbilly he-man in hunting camo, but found instead a woman the size of a fourth-grader with a face like a shriveled apple and a rifle more than half her size held in crabbed and trembling hands.