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What the hell had he been thinking?

Phury put his blunt between his lips and jacked up the window. As the summer night’s thick perfume rolled into his room, he refocused on the roses. He’d caught Cormia with one the other day, one she’d evidently taken from the bouquet Fritz kept in the second-floor sitting room. She’d been poised next to the vase, the pale lavender rose between two of her long fingers, her head bent down to the bud, her nose hovering over the fat bloom. Her blond hair, which was as always up in a twist on her head, had let loose delicate wisps that fell forward and curved in a natural curl. Just like the rose’s petals.

She’d jumped when she caught him staring at her, put the rose back, and quickly gone to her room, the door shutting without a sound.

He knew he couldn’t keep her here forever, away from all she was familar with and all that she was. And they had to complete the sexual ceremony. That was the deal he’d made, and that was the role that she’d told him, no matter how scared she’d been at first, she was prepared to fulfill.

He looked over to his bureau, to a heavy gold medallion that was the size of a large fountain pen. Marked with an ancient version of the Old Language, it was the symbol of the Primale: not just the key to all the buildings on the Other Side, but the calling card of the male who was in charge of the Chosen.

The strength of the race, as the Primale was known.

The medallion had rung again today as it had rung before. Whenever the Directrix wanted him, the thing vibrated, and theoretically he was supposed to poof his ass to what should have been his home, the Sanctuary. He’d ignored the summons. As he had the other two.

He didn’t want to hear what he already knew: Five months without sealing the deal on the Primale ceremony was pushing it.

He thought of Cormia holed up in that guest room next door, keeping to herself. No one to talk to. Away from her sisters. He’d tried to reach out to her, but he made her jumpy as hell. Understandably.

God, he had no idea how she passed the hours without going mad. She needed a friend. Everyone needed friends.

Not everyone deserves them, however, the wizard pointed out.

Phury turned and headed for the shower. As he passed by the wastepaper basket, he stopped. His drawing had begun to unravel from the ball he’d wadded it into, and within the crinkled mess, he saw the ivy overlay he’d added. For a split second, he remembered what was underneath, recalled the upswept hair and the wisps that fell on a smooth cheek. Wisps that had the same curl as a rose’s petals.

Shaking his head, he kept going. Cormia was lovely, but—

Wanting her would be appropriate, the wizard finished. So why in a million years would you go down that road. Might ruin your perfect record of accomplishments.

Oh, wait, that would be fuckups, mate. Wouldn’t it.

Phury cranked up Puccini and hit the shower.

Chapter Two

As the shutters lifted for the night, Cormia was very busy.

Sitting cross-legged on the Oriental rug in her bedroom, she was fishing around in a crystal bowl of water, chasing peas. The legumes were hard as pebbles when Fritz brought them to her, but after they soaked for a while, they became soft enough to use.

When she’d captured one, she reached to the left and took a toothpick from a little white box that read, in red English letters, SIMMONS’S TOOTHPICKS, 500 COUNT.

She took the pea and pushed it onto the end of the pick, then took another pea and another pick, and did the same until a right angle was formed. She kept going, creating first a square, and then a three-dimensional box. Satisfied, she bent forward and attached it to one of its brethren, capping off the final corner in a four-sided base structure about five feet in diameter. Now she would go upward, building floors of the latticework.

The picks were all the same, identical slices of wood, and the peas were all alike, round and green. Both reminded her of where she was from. Sameness mattered in the Chosen ’s nontemporal Sanctuary. Sameness was