"Ingrid? What did she want?" Freya propped herself on an elbow.
"I lent her some blueprints of the house a while back for her art show. It sounds like they're missing," Killian explained. "She didn't say so, but I could sort of tell."
"What is it about those blueprints? Bran asked about them the other day," Freya said, picking at the lint on the sheets. "Ingrid told him she found something cool in the design keys in those blueprints. There's some kind of code that she's almost figured out, which has some historical significance." She was babbling and trying to change the subject, as she was talking about Bran in Killian's bed.
Killian raised his eyebrows. "You spoke to Bran?"
"Yesterday." She leaned back and pulled the covers over her face.
"Hey," he said, gently drawing down the covers.
"I don't know what I'm doing here." She shook her head and couldn't look at him.
"Yes, you do."
"Listen, I gotta go," Freya said, pulling away so that she could put her clothes back on.
"Don't go." He began to kiss her neck, soft butterfly kisses that electrified every sense in her body. "You just got here."
Freya had a deja vu feeling - hadn't she been in this same situation with Bran not too long ago? And now she was in a different bed, with a different brother. "Killian, come on. I got here four days ago." She pushed his arms away gently.
"I love you," he whispered. He was leaning forward so that his head rested on her shoulder and his hands cupped her br**sts gently, making her feel warm all over.
"You're not allowed to say that," she said. "I told you. Nothing's going to change. I'm still going to marry Bran in September." She bit her lip.
"Don't do this to us," Killian warned, gripping her shoulder tightly.
"There is no us, Killian. There never was."
"Don't say that," he said desperately.
"Stop it, you're hurting me," she said. Her heart was breaking, as well as his. She loved him so much. It was love she felt for him, deep and abiding and entrenched, a fierce white fire, and yet it was wrong. She knew it was wrong, that being with him was wrong. If only she had met him first. If only . . . But it was too late now. She and Bran had found each other and she had promised Bran she would marry him, and marry him she would. It was the right thing to do, it was what she was meant to do. She couldn't change her destiny.
Killian stood and began to pace the room, running his hands on his face, looking lost and confused and anxious. "Freya, please" was all he said.
"This is . . . this is just a mistake," she told him, zipping up her jeans and putting on her shirt. She jammed her feet back into her sneakers. "I'm so sorry, Killian. I really am. But I told you from the beginning that this wasn't a good idea."
After leaving the boat, Freya had to walk for a while to clear her head. She didn't want to keep thinking about Killian and wandered aimlessly for a few hours. With a start she realized she was practically in the middle of town, near the police station, a small building near city hall. Since she was there, she thought she would ask about the progress they had made in their investigation of Molly Lancaster's disappearance, maybe ask if she could talk to some of those boys, see if she could sense anything from them. While she was still mostly confident that there was no way her potion could have been part of what happened to Molly, she was beginning to entertain the possibility that perhaps something in her magic could have gone awry, and she wanted to see if she could do anything to help. While she still did not believe the boys had anything to do with Molly's disappearance, she knew she was in the minority. Many people in town were already grumbling that the boys had received preferential treatment from the district attorney.
The police station was its usual shabby chaos. "Hey, Freya." Jim Lewis, one of the patrolmen, greeted her with a smile. "What's up?"
"Just thought I'd drop by, see what was going on with the Lancaster case?"
"Yeah, I can't really talk about that right now," he said, shaking his head.
"You can't or you won't, Jim? Come on, it's me. Remember how I helped you catch that bicycle thief?" Freya wheedled.
"I know, girl. But this is different."
"What's going on?" she asked, as she noticed all the detectives crowded around Matt Noble's cubicle. "Is that Corky Hutchinson? Did something happen with Todd?"
"Can't say. Can't say." Jim drummed his fingers on the reception desk. "But I will tell you about the Lancaster thing. One of those college boys looks like he's going to crack. There'll be an arrest soon, you can count on it."
When she got back to the house, Gracella practically pounced on her the minute she walked through the door. "So sorry to bother, Miss Freya, but it is Tyler."
"Of course, not a bother at all. What's going on?"
The housekeeper twisted the chamois she was holding. "His fever is very high. Since last night. I think maybe I take him to hospital but I am scared. Hector is away and . . ."
Freya followed the anxious mother to the cottage. Tyler's room was on the second landing, a cheerful place filled with cartoon imagery on the wallpapers and whose bookshelves were stocked with toys of every shape and size. The toy soldiers were heaped in a pile, the puppets lay still on the footlocker. The train set was silent and waiting. In a bed shaped like a racecar, Tyler was wrapped up in a comforter, like a small turtle. She was shocked to find him so changed from just a few days ago. He had lost a lot of weight, and he had no color in his cheeks.
"Hey, kid," she said gently, putting a hand on his forehead. It was burning. "Yes, let's take him to the hospital now. There's no point in waiting," she said to Gracella. "I can drive."
They bundled the boy in the backseat. "He'll be okay; I'll call Joanna as soon as I drop him off," Freya said, as she drove mother and son through the empty streets of North Hampton to the small county hospital. "I promise," she said, even though she knew she had no right to promise anything. Freya knew as well as her sister the limit to their mother's powers, especially when it came to those she loved.
Chapter thirty-two
Thief in the Night
Later that same evening, Ingrid had a dream. It began when she realized she was not alone in bed. There was a heavy weight on her body, and now there was a tug at her pajama bottoms. She stirred and attempted to pull them back up but she found she could not, and now her top was being unbuttoned, the air cold on her skin, and she was not sure what was happening - where was her blanket? Then there was a hand on her mouth and she was jolted awake but she could not scream. She could not even open her eyes.