Eve was definitely a believer. Given her family history, she’d be a fool not to believe, and she was no fool. She’d always known there was another world interwoven with this one, a world of magic. She wanted no part of that world, not even that which was her birthright—especially not her birthright. But unlike most people, normal people, she wasn’t blind to it. So if fate had seen fit to send some kind of sign to warn her that her life—the orderly, successful, blessedly normal life she’d worked so hard to build for herself—was about to be split into a before-and-after scenario, she would have noticed.

She was inclined to think that fate simply hadn’t bothered. She was, after all, an experienced journalist, a good one, trained to observe small details and pick up on the random snags that occur in the fabric of everyday life. There had been no noteworthy snags in her life recently: no shooting stars, no flickering lights or birds flitting through the house, not even a decent chill up her spine.

Only a night that started out like any other.

The streets of downtown Providence were busy, the way they usually were on weekends. The traffic was heavy and impatient and snarled here and there the way it always was when so many people were trying to get places at the same time. The blustery weather was typical for late March, and in spite of a fine mist in the air a few hearty souls, mostly couples, mostly young, strolled along the River Walk.

The river hadn’t always run through the heart of the city. For decades it ran below, hidden beneath a web of concrete and asphalt. Then came a mayor with a vision of what the city could be, and soon streets were being ripped up, buildings torn down and the jewel of Providence was restored to its rightful setting. The mayor even got to see the transformation completed before all that pesky business with the racketeering charges and the trial and the being shipped off to federal prison. It was a scandal worthy of the capital of a state once known as “Rogue’s Island.”

Journalists from all over descended on Providence. At the time, Eve was still a rookie at WWRI-TV, earning her stripes by standing out in the cold to report on snow storms and spending her evenings in stuffy, overheated rooms to cover school board meetings. She was desperate for a chance to show what she could really do and knew the trial was a golden opportunity to be seen. Determined not to let it pass her by without a fight, she hounded the news director until he agreed to let her hang out at the courthouse when she wasn’t working on her real assignments. As she watched seasoned reporters elbowing and tripping over each other on the courthouse steps everyday, she realized that if she was going to get any airtime at all, she had to come up with her own angle on the story, a good one.

It occurred to her that when the mighty fall, the aftershocks ripple through their circle of friends and family the same as they do anyone else’s. No one knew better than she did how rumors and half-truths and outright lies take their toll, and how maddening it is not to be able to fight back and defend someone you love. Fame and money could work a lot of wonders, but they couldn’t stop a heart from breaking. That was her angle, she decided; she would tell the story from the inside looking out.

At first the mayor’s teenage daughter and his elderly mother refused her overtures, wary of anyone with a press pass. But as the long trial ground on and the competition for headlines grew heated, the coverage got nastier and more personal and eventually her simple, honest reporting of the facts won them over. When they were ready to tell their side of the story, Eve was the one they called. The finished piece painted a picture of the mayor as a complex man, not merely a disgraced public figure. It ran over five nights and won a New England Excellence in Journalism Award. More important to her than any award, the piece had helped her find her voice and establish her own style of reporting the news. And she never had to stand shivering in the snow with a microphone in her hand again.

One of the benefits of being a first string reporter was enjoying weekends off, so instead of having to rush home or change clothes in her office, she’d had plenty of time to get ready for this evening. Though not a primper by nature, today she had primped. She wanted to look her best tonight. . . no, she wanted to look better than her best.

Not that her best was bad. She’d seen herself on camera enough to be objective and determine that the bits and pieces of her were all perfectly fine and they came together in a pleasing, perfectly ordinary way, and she was at peace with that. Tonight, however, she wouldn’t be on camera; tonight she would be on stage, as one of the celebrity presenters at the Historical Society’s annual auction, a lavish and elegant affair. There would be spotlights and a live audience, and—shallow though it might be—she wanted to dazzle. Nothing crazy, since she wasn’t really the dazzling type. “Sparkle” might be a better word; she wanted to sparkle. She rarely got the chance to dress up, and she was going to make the most of it.

No basic black tonight. Her work wardrobe was a rainbow of black that she jazzed up with jewelry and simple silk T-shirts in the jewel tones that flattered her fair complexion on camera and off. She’d put together a sensible collection of classic, well-made pieces that coordinated so well she could dress without thinking about it, which is just the way she liked it. Usually. Today she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what she was going to wear, specifically about the dress that hung at the very back of her closet. A deep shade of teal, the soft fabric had a slight sheen that subtly reflected the light. The straps were narrow, the back low, and the calf-length skirt floated and fluttered when she walked. It was an amazing dress because it made her feel sexy and like Cinderella at the same time, and she’d worn it exactly never.

She’d come across it in the suit department after it had been returned to the wrong rack. It was the right size and marked down enticingly low, and she’d walked out of the store telling herself that buying the dress hadn’t been a whim but a smart investment. Someday she would need a knockout dress and she wouldn’t have to waste time looking for one. And now someday had arrived.

She also had a practical reason for wanting to look good. The auction wasn’t only a charity event; it was what the station’s on-air personalities referred to as a “command performance,” also known as a public appearance. Her contract required her to make four of them a year; the other dozen or so she ended up doing because she didn’t have the heart to say no to any worthy cause. She would be there representing WWRI, with the station’s owners and upper management watching from one of the pricey reserved tables up front.

The auction was held in the Biltmore’s Grand Ballroom, on the hotel’s uppermost floor. The ballroom looked out over the city through towering arched windows clad in crimson velvet. Small recessed lights twinkled like stars overhead, and vintage crystal chandeliers hung above a gleaming parquet dance floor. Whenever she was there, Eve felt as if she’d stepped back in time to a more glamorous era. She could easily imagine Bette Davis holding court at the brass-railed bar or Bogie nursing a gin and tonic in an out-of-the-way corner.

The items to be auctioned were donated and ran the gamut from original works of art to lavish weekend getaways. Local politicians and “personalities” did the presenting, which basically consisted of smiling and pointing to an item or holding it aloft from the time the auctioneer introduced it until he banged the gavel and barked, “Sold.” Eve lucked out by being assigned to work collectibles, one of the first groups on the schedule. The sooner her duty was done, the sooner she could relax and enjoy the rest of the evening.

Her first item was an autographed New England Patriots lunchbox, followed by several framed movie posters, including an original from one of her favorite films, the forties classic His Girl Friday. The final item in the lot was a limited edition replica of the original Knight Rider vehicle. The car struck a chord with the men in the audience and bidding on it was raucous, with it finally selling for what Eve considered an appalling amount, even for a crowd with notoriously deep pockets. As soon as the gavel went down on the car, she very gently handed it over to a backstage assistant and headed back to her table.

“Nice job, Eve,” Barbara Vines called to her as she made her way from the stage area. Barbara was the media spokesperson for the Historical Society and the driving force behind the auction. “Can you believe the price on that Knight Rider thing?”

Eve grinned and shrugged. “Boys and toys.”

“So damn true. Great dress, by the way. And don’t forget to pick up a paddle at the registration desk,” she called over her shoulder. “Every bid counts.”

Eve considered passing on the paddle since she’d never bid in the past and had no intention of breaking with tradition tonight. Not because nearly everything was out of her price range, though that was definitely a consideration; she just wasn’t an impulse buyer. Or an impulse anything for that matter.

She could be the poster child for the Better Safe than Sorry Society. She might be willing to follow her hunches and take leaps of faith when she was putting a story together at work, but when it came to her personal life she thought things through carefully, considering the potential consequences from every angle before making a move. She balanced her checkbook and changed the oil in her car right on schedule and saved for a rainy day.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to pick up a paddle, she decided, turning in the direction of the registration area. It might even add to the excitement to have it right there at the ready on the miniscule chance she decided to throw caution to the wind and bid on something wildly extravagant. The Cruise to Nowhere always sounded so tempting at this time of year. Of course, it was most likely a cruise for two, which meant she would have to come up with someone to bring along; “nowhere” wasn’t a place you cruised to with your grandmother or sister or fifteen-year-old niece.

“Cruise to Nowhere” conjured visions of long, hot afternoons and moonlit nights, all running together in a romantic, soft-focus-y way. And at the moment she didn’t have much going on in the romance department. Actually, she had nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Fortunately, she was too busy most of the time to notice.

She quickly filled out a registration form and exchanged it for a wooden-handled paddle.

“Here you go, Ms. Lockhart,” said the smiling young woman behind the desk. “Number 811 . . . I hope it’s lucky for you.”

“Thanks,” Eve replied, thinking luck would come into play only if she actually bid on something, and the only way 811 was likely to see any action was if the ballroom got hot and she used it to fan herself.

She gave that a try as she turned away, expecting to feel a small breeze on her face; instead, something closer to a gale force wind rushed over her. And only her apparently, because when she opened her eyes and looked to see how those around her had fared, everyone was still chatting and moving about as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Everyone except the man standing face-to-face with her.

A man she’d never seen before. Even windswept and slightly dizzy, Eve was certain of that. There are some men a woman just remembers, and he was one of them.

He’d been approaching the registration desk from the opposite direction when he stopped in his tracks about two feet away her. Maybe less.

Eve wondered whether he’d stopped to avoid plowing into her or because he too had felt the sudden rush of energy. The intense way he was looking at her made her suspect he’d felt it, or that he at least suspected something out of the ordinary.

She was still gripping the edge of the table with one hand, only vaguely aware of commands bubbling up from some distant, autopilot corner of her consciousness. Smile politely, murmur an apology, move, damn it, move. She did none of those things. It was as if all the neuron pathways connecting her brain to the rest of her had disengaged.

He didn’t apologize or move away either. And Eve sensed that he had no interest in polite smiles. Something about him . . . no, she thought, everything about him sent the silent message that he did not want to be bothered.

She stood there, staring into his eyes far longer and more directly than manners dictated. And he stared back, his expression caught between wonder and irritation. An odd combination, she thought, but the thought drifted away as the sounds of conversation and laughter and clinking glasses softened into a distant hum and the air around her warmed and melted into the sound. For a fraction of time she couldn’t define, the entire universe was pared down to the few square feet of space separating them and Eve felt a sudden, powerful sense of being drawn to him, body and soul.

Anyone who didn’t know better might easily mistake the feeling for love at first sight. Either that or lust: the instantaneous, anchors-away, all-hands-on-deck variety that hits like a tsunami, leaves you witless and is frequently sparked by a bottle of something eighty proof. But Eve did know better. She wished she didn’t, but she did. She didn’t know exactly what was happening to her, but she knew enough to understand it had nothing to do with lust and even less to do with love.

It had to do with magic. And magic had everything to do with danger. So if A equals B and B equals C, she needed to get away from there as quickly as possible.

Easier said than done. In spite of the deductive reasoning of her brain, she didn’t want to walk away from him; she didn’t even want to look away, and it took all her will to do it. She lowered her eyes briefly, letting her gaze slide over him all the way to the floor, and then slowly looked up again, this time refusing to be drawn in by those dark eyes that never wavered, that seemed to see everything and give nothing.

That quick glance was enough for her trained journalist’s eye to catalogue the basics. Whoever he was, he was the perfect height, with straight, darkest brown hair, worn unfashionably long and swept back from the face of a first-class heartbreaker. The gods must have been feeling exceptionally generous on the day he was born, because they’d bestowed upon him the deluxe package: cheekbones high and chiseled, eyes dark, stormy gray, and a full, brooding mouth worthy of Byron himself. She’d bet anything the body beneath the long black overcoat—designer cashmere, almost certainly Ralph Lauren—was a lovely blend of lean and muscled. If she were twenty and silly and whole of heart, she would blow off the auction and follow him anywhere.

Fortunately, there were years of hard-won, battle-scarred wisdom between her and twenty. She couldn’t say the same for him. She pegged him as late twenties, thirty tops. Not that his age mattered to her any more than his GQ looks, she told herself sternly. She didn’t even care how he was connected to the sudden hijacking of her nervous system; she just knew she had to put a stop to it.

She started by squaring her shoulders and turning away. Next she took a deep breath and ordered her feet into action. So far so good. She was moving. Slowly and in the right direction, toward the ladies’ room. She needed a few minutes alone to regroup. The pull on her senses was still so strong it felt as if she was wading through molasses. Worse, she wanted to go back, or at least to turn and look at him one more time. And the wanting was like a weight in her chest. She forced herself to keep moving, and the feeling lessened as she put more distance between them. By the time she reached the ladies’ room it was no more than a tingle and a memory.

She hurried through the sitting area with its rose-damask-covered chaises and gilt-edged mirrors and into the first unoccupied stall. Locking the door behind her, she leaned back against it and waited for her head to clear and her heart to stop pounding and the world to right itself. What had just happened didn’t make any sense. Magic had no place in her life now; it was part of her past.

And part of your blood, a voice deep inside reminded her.

Eve closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. The voice was right, of course. Like it or not, magic had always been a matter of blood. Like it or not, she’d been born an enchantress, with all the wonder and all the complications that entailed.

Once, before she knew better, she’d accepted that as easily as she accepted having green eyes and long legs. She’d opened her life and her heart to that birthright as if it was a blessing instead of a curse, and she paid for that mistake with a piece of her heart. When she turned away from magic, there was another hard price to be paid, and she paid that as well. That’s when she vowed she was never going to pay again. And, far more important, neither was anyone she cared about. She made sure of that by never, ever messing with magic, and in turn, it never messed with her.

Until tonight.

There was no doubt in her mind that magic was responsible for what had just happened. What she didn’t understand was why. Could it have been simply a fluke? A mystical glitch of some sort? Or was it something more personal, something meant for her? And what about the guy in the black coat . . . was he responsible for what had happened or on the receiving end of it the same as she had been?

If it was a fluke, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught in a stray energy field, she’d be more than happy to shrug it off. But if it was more, if someone, or something, had targeted her, then . . . then she probably wouldn’t have gotten off so easily, she acknowledged grimly.

Unless, Eve thought, she wasn’t being targeted so much as tested.

Frowning, she turned that possibility over in her mind. It didn’t make any sense. But then, she thought with a flash of resentment, magic didn’t have to make sense any more than it had to play by the rules laid out by man or physics. Magic had rules of its own; it was a world of ancient, arcane laws and mysterious, obscure prophecies, a world where knowledge was power and power was everything. Eve had neither, and she was certain—at least as certain as you could be about magic—of only two things. If she was a target, she was in trouble. And if she was being tested, it was in her best interest not to fail.

For that reason alone she refused to give in to the so-strong-it-hurt urge to plead a headache, call it an early night and get the hell out of there. That had been her first instinct, and it was still clamoring to be heeded. But running smacked of weakness, and that wasn’t the signal she wanted to send.

Her initial surprise had turned to resentment, and as she thought more about it, resentment gave way to anger, a controlled simmering anger that edged aside her fear. She could handle this. She would pull herself together and go back out there and enjoy the rest of the evening. Or at least pretend to. If anyone was watching, they weren’t going to see any cracks in her armor.

She waited until she was breathing normally and her hands had stopped trembling before she left the stall, and then she purposely took her time freshening up, combing her hair as if it were a matter of national security that each and every copper strand was perfectly aligned, applying a slow dusting of shimmery translucent powder and two careful layers of Wicked Roses lip gloss. Only then did she stroll back to her table, smiling and pausing along the way to greet friends, her manner so relaxed and unruffled no one would ever suspect how very ruffled she was on the inside.

She was sharing a table with other presenters, most of whom were also in the news business in one way or another. That meant there would be no shortage of opinions and friendly arguing to distract her and she was grateful for that.

She slipped into her seat beside Jenna Jordan, who hosted a popular radio talk show. They’d started in broadcasting around the same time, with Jenna working for a competing television station before finding her true calling in talk radio. She listened as Jenna finished delivering a typically colorful soliloquy on people who drive and talk on their cell phones at the same time. She had everyone at the table laughing, even though most of them—Eve included—had been guilty as charged at one time or another. That was Jenna’s gift; she made people laugh . . . at her, at themselves, at life.

“I mean it. I’m going to have bumper stickers made that say ‘Hang Up and Drive’ . . . and you’re all getting one,” she warned, giving her straight, shoulder-length black hair a toss.

As the laughter faded and the conversation moved on, she turned to Eve and grinned, her dark eyes dancing with excitement. Their friendship went back a long way, long enough for Eve to be wary when Jenna looked that excited.

Jenna was dramatic and energetic, a softly rounded woman with no shortage of strong opinions and no reluctance to share them, which is why her show was the top-rated in its time slot. Her husband seated on her other side taught classical literature at Brown. Richard Jordan had thinning brown hair and thoughtful eyes. He was the yin to Jenna’s yang, the calm to her storm. After ten years of marriage they still held hands and exchanged secret smiles, and once, at a party, Eve had turned her head at just the right moment and seen Richard do the impossible: he’d whispered in Jenna’s ear and made her blush.

Seeing them together stirred a yearning deep inside that most of the time Eve managed to forget was there. She had a good life, a full life, a safe life that she had chosen and worked hard to create. But every once in a while she was caught off guard by a glimpse of the kind of love and intimacy she could only imagine, and for one endless beat of time her heart stopped and her breath stuck in her throat and she wished she could do it all over again.

“Guess what,” Jenna said to her. “I think you have a secret admirer.”

Instantly the image of the man at the registration desk popped into Eve’s head and she tensed. “Really? Who?”

“Howard.”

She eased back in her chair. “Howard who?”

“Howard what’s-his-name, you know, from the governor’s budget office. Sandy hair, square jaw, not too short; he couldn’t take his eyes off you when you were on stage. And I heard him tell someone that you have shoulders like Angelina Jolie.”

Jenna arched her brows and nodded conspiratorially. She fancied herself a matchmaker and Eve a challenge to be conquered.

On stage, Ben, the auctioneer, was opening the bidding on a watercolor by a local artist.

Jenna leaned closer, her voice low. “I mean it. I think he has a thing for you.”

“What kind of thing?” Eve countered, only half listening as she looked around and tried to follow the bidding.

“You know, a thing thing. He’s smitten, besotted; he has the hots for you. Good God, Eve, how long has it been that I have to go all the way back to Getting Laid 101 to explain this to you?”

Good question, thought Eve, and again the mystery guy’s image flashed before her. She blinked him away and did the math. And winced inwardly. Had it really been that long? There was no way she was admitting that to Jenna. It would only encourage her. Shrugging offhandedly, she replied, “Not long.”

The watercolor went for five grand. Curious to see who bought it, Eve leaned sideways and peered between heads. It was a very nice watercolor, but still, five grand was . . . well, five grand. Half a semester’s tuition at the private academy her niece, Rory, attended.

She turned back to find Jenna still eyeing her with one silently arched brow, obviously waiting for a better answer to her question.

“Okay. So it’s been a while,” Eve conceded.

Jenna’s other brow went up as well.

Eve sighed. “A long while. Satisfied?”

“My satisfaction isn’t really the issue.”

“What can I say? I’ve been busy.”

“Not to mention the fact that when you do find time to let a man into your life, and he makes the ungodly mistake of showing some potential, you always find a way to sabotage the whole thing.”

“Potential,” Eve retorted, “is in the eye of the beholder. I give you my word of honor that the minute I behold a relationship with true potential, I’ll jump its bones.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Provided you remember how.”

Eve laughed. “I hear it’s like riding a bike . . . oh look, jewelry.”

Jenna had a passion for jewelry, the bigger and bolder the better. She immediately sat up straight and shifted her full attention to the stage. Eve’s love life temporarily back-burnered.

What she’d told Jenna was the truth, but slanted so it didn’t reveal more than she wanted to. Ironically, she couldn’t tell Jenna the whole unvarnished truth for the same reason she never allowed a relationship with a man to get to the serious, you-bear-your-soul-and-I’ll-bear-mine stage. She’d tried that once; it didn’t work. Being a fast learner, she knew once was enough.

She took a sip of her wine and joined Jenna in checking out the necklace being modeled by a young actress from the local repertory theatre. Ben was just slipping into high gear with his description.

“. . . a real beauty, ladies and gentlemen, a piece with true old world charm and most assuredly not the kind of thing you see everyday. Both the twenty-four-inch braided chain and the hourglass pendant are crafted from the finest gold, and our esteemed appraiser tells me that while he can’t verify it without breaking the glass, he believes the sparkly stuff inside to be diamond dust. Diamond dust,” he repeated slowly, an old hand at capturing the imagination of his audience. “Why, next to stardust, there’s nothing more magical in the entire world.”

Eve was riveted.

“And the magic doesn’t end there,” he said. “This magnificent piece has what we in the business refer to as ‘significant provenance .’ It comes to us through the generosity of the late Dorothy Dowling, who acquired it at a private auction of items recovered from the wreck of the good ship Unity. As those of you who are local history buffs know, the Unity was a grand old British vessel that went down right here off the coast of Rhode Island in . . . let me see now, I believe it was . . .”

Eve knew the date as well as she knew her name. October 23, 1898.

The tale of the Unity and her sole survivor, the “miracle baby,” as the press at the time dubbed her, was the first family story her grandmother told her, and she’d begged to hear it over and over again. The infant found floating in a wooden tub was Eve’s great-great-aunt Lydia. Lydia’s mother had been a kitchen maid, her father first footman, and they were traveling aboard the Unity with their wealthy employer to begin a new life in Providence.

Today, news of the disaster would be flashed around the world practically before the ship hit bottom and Child Protective Services would commandeer the miracle baby as soon as she came ashore. They would check the Unity’s online manifest to locate her next of kin and have her on the first flight back to Dublin.

A hundred years ago, things worked a little differently. With her parents dead and no next of kin on this side of the Atlantic, six-month-old Lydia was adopted by a local family—one of dozens that were touched by her plight and reached out to offer her a home. Decades passed before she had any contact with her relatives in Ireland.

Lydia’s son was a pilot stationed in England during World War II. On a lark one weekend he traveled to Ireland, hoping to surprise his mother with a picture of the small village where she’d been born, and when he found Glengara, he found a family. Afterwards, Grand and her aunt Lydia exchanged letters, and by the time the war ended, Lydia, a widow, had lost her only son, and Grand, who was pregnant, had lost the love of her life before they’d had a chance to marry. Lydia needed someone to help fill her empty house and empty days, and Grand needed a place to make a fresh start. In her grandmother’s words, it worked out splendidly all the way ’round.

“1898,” Ben continued after consulting his notes. “Over a century ago. And that means that what we have here is a piece of history, a genuine bit of long-lost sunken treasure. This is history and elegance and diamond dust all rolled up in one beautiful pendant. So, which of you proprietors of fine taste will start the bidding at a paltry five hundred dollars?”

Instantly a dozen paddles around the ballroom shot into the air; Ben pointed and acknowledged each in turn.

“Five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred,” he called out. “Eight hundred, nine hundred, and there’s lucky one thousand, over there by the coffee cart, the little lady in blue.”

“It’s pretty, in an old-fashioned way,” Jenna said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “But really, how often can you wear an hourglass?” She held the auction catalogue, open to the pendant, so Eve could see it. “And what on earth would you wear it with?”

Eve didn’t reply. She barely heard the question, her attention riveted on the gold hourglass the actress was holding up to catch the light. As the young woman twirled the pendant, delicate white beams flashed from it, slicing through the air like shooting stars. Eve was captivated, struck by a sudden sense of longing that made her fingers itch to pick up her paddle.

The bid amount was climbing steadily higher, and the number of bidders was dwindling, dropping to six, then five, then four.

Any minute, she thought, any minute there will be a winner. The auction would move on to the next item and the pendant would belong to someone else. Something deep inside her rebelled at the prospect.

Her heart was pounding and Ben’s words were spinning in her head.

Don’t be a fool, cautioned her common sense.

“Two thousand six hundred,” said the auctioneer.

And just like that, the night that had started out so unremarkably, suddenly became something else.