Page 117 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

Before they could do anything, Carson spotted them. “Desmond! Thisbe!” He laughed, and the madness in his voice sent shivers down Thisbe’s spine. He gave them a salute with his dagger. The gesture made him sway a little, and Thisbe’s heart jumped into her throat. “I wondered when you’d find out. Sorry.” Carson shook his head. “I hated to deceive you, you know. I always liked you, Dez.”

“And I liked you. I’m still your friend, Carson. Why don’t you come down here, and we’ll talk?”

“No.” Carson’s voice was buoyant, and he grinned. “Can’t do that. I’ve no friends now.” He pointed the Eye at them. “Only power.”

“Carson, what you see through that lens isn’t real. It’s deceptive. An illusion.”

“That’s because you aren’t her child. You’re a good chap, but they were stupid to think you were her descendant. I am her son. I have her diary.” He pointed the knife at a slender leather-bound book on the rock beside him, then raised the dagger before him like an emblem. “I carry her athame.”

“I know you are her descendant,” Thisbe told him. “Anne Ballew came to me in my dreams. She warned me that the Eye would destroy you. She begged me to save you.”

“Now, now.” Carson wagged the athame in playful scolding. “No lying.”

“It’s not a lie. I dreamed about her time after time. She told me the Eye was evil. She said I must save her child. I just didn’t understand—I didn’t realize it was you. But now I see.”

“Don’t lie!” Carson shouted, his light manner dissolving into fury. Thunder rolled, and lightning streaked across the sky. It began to rain. He raised the Eye, sending flashes of color all over the area. “The Eye will never hurt me. It belongs to me.”

“No one disputes that it’s yours, Carson,” Desmond said in a placating tone. He had moved cautiously forward while Thisbe held Carson’s attention, and he took another slow step as he spoke. “I’ll gladly relinquish all pretension to being Anne Ballew’s heir. The Eye rightfully is yours. But what use is it to you?”

“It holds her power,” Carson raged. “Don’t you understand?”

The air crackled with energy. Thisbe felt the hair on her arms rise. Somehow the juxtaposition of the rainbows of light and the almost electric surge of power made the scene even more fearsome. Ignoring her own fright, Thisbe moved quietly to the side, taking advantage of Carson’s focus on Desmond to remove herself from Carson’s line of vision.

“Not really,” Desmond admitted. “Seeing the spirits of the dead doesn’t seem—”

“Don’t play the fool, Desmond.” Carson laughed. “You’re no good at it. It’s not seeing the dead. It’s raising them.”

“Necromancy? That’s what Wallace wanted, too—he was determined to bring his wife back, but why do you—”

“Don’t be a fool. I’m going to use it to raise her!” Tiny blue-white sparks danced in the air around him, and the air around them grew even more electric.

“Anne Ballew?” Desmond stared.

Thisbe was on Carson’s left and much nearer to him now. Desmond, too, had moved closer. Carson was too wrapped up in his words to notice how much ground Desmond had covered.

“I’ll have Anne Ballew’s knowledge. I’ll have her power! I’ll have everything our family’s been denied all these years. The riches, the land, the adulation. I won’t be on the fringes—I won’t be the laughingstock my father was.”

Desmond, looking alarmed, took a long step forward and reached out.

“Stop!” Carson pointed the knife at Desmond. “Don’t come up here.”

The energy in the air dissipated a little. But, no, Thisbe realized, it hadn’t lessened; it had simply moved, coalescing around Carson and Desmond. Desmond’s hair whipped in the wind as wildly as Carson’s, and the prismatic dance of color created by the Eye now encompassed only them. Thisbe’s eyes widened. Carson could control its power? Or, worse, it could control Carson?

“Why not?” Desmond said as casually as if they were standing on a street corner, even though Thisbe was sure he must have felt the change in the air.

Carson laughed. “I know you, and you’ll try to stop me.”

“Why would I do that? I’m just trying to understand. You know me—I always want to learn the ‘why’ of everything.”

“You do. You do. That’s why you’re the best of us. But I—” Carson flourished the athame. “I have the power.”

“How is that?” Desmond continued his incremental movement forward. “Surely it takes more than being of her bloodline.”

“Of course it does. But you see, I know how.”

Desmond was getting too near Carson. Thisbe remembered the struggle in her dream too well. The last thing she wanted was for Desmond to get within Carson’s reach. She wanted to cry out to him to step back, but she could not give away her position. Carson seemed to have forgotten about her entirely.

Don’t get close, she urged Desmond in her mind. Just stay where you are, and I’ll have him. I have a plan.