I got out the key from my night table and opened the locked drawer. Beside the iron key lay the Aelvestone, the flannel cloth folded neatly beneath it.

How the hell had it gotten there? I wondered, lifting the stone and cradling it in my hand. The only explanation I could imagine was that I’d gotten up some time in the night and moved it. Only I had no memory of doing that. As far as I knew, I’d spent the night making love to Liam in Faerie … but then at the end of the dream he had handed me the Aelvestone and told me to lock it up. Maybe I had gotten up then and moved it. It was disturbing not to remember doing it, but I’d heard of people on certain sleeping pills getting up and doing strange things they couldn’t recall later – and last night the Aelvestone had certainly acted like a powerful narcotic.

I looked at the stone in my hand and wrapped my fingers around it experimentally, waiting to see if it made me sleepier. Instead I felt a surge of energy. The fogginess I’d felt since waking vanished. Strange, I thought; maybe something in the books Liz had given me would explain the effects of Aelvesgold.

I slipped the stone in my pocket and went downstairs to the kitchen where I’d left the books and took them into the library to read.

The library had been my favorite room in the house when I’d first moved in. What book lover doesn’t dream of having an entire room dedicated to their books? Mine had floor to ceiling built-in bookcases crowned with classical molding and little brass lamps above each section and brass nameplates on each shelf, which held little cards to identify that shelf’s subject (not that I’d gotten around to filling out the little cards). It also had a fireplace, a comfortable couch, and a small television. Liam and I had practically lived in here last winter, building fires, watching old movies, making love on the couch …

Which was why I hadn’t spent much time in here since. The room had acquired a sad, derelict air – dust floating in the air, ashes in the fireplace, the sofa cushions askew and deflated. I sank down on the couch and stroked the nap of the velour, inhaling the scent of Scotch and ash and … no, I couldn’t smell Liam anymore. I reached my hand into my pocket and cradled the Aelvestone. He had said in the dream that Aelvesgold could connect true lovers … but I didn’t feel connected right now. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t been able to love him. We weren’t true lovers. But then why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? And why did I want to love him so much?

Sighing, I settled down on the couch with the books, opened up LaFleur’s History of Magic and read a hundred pages.

In about ten minutes.

The words seemed to fly into my brain. I’d never believed in speed reading, but this didn’t feel like speed reading. I hadn’t skimmed. I had a complete and thorough understanding of the history of magic from the Iron Age to the twenty-first century. I could list all the major witches during that time period (Queen Elizabeth I and Eleanor Roosevelt, who knew?) and name the dates of all the major wars, treaties, council rulings, and grimoire editions. And I had a firm grasp of the differences between practical and sympathetic magic.