Chapter Seven. "What do you want?" Mason asked

"What do you want?" Mason asked. Her dark eyes raked Vienna suspiciously. She didn't open the front door any further. In fact, it looked like she was about to slam it.

Vienna stuck her foot in the gap. "May I come in?"

Her neighbor hesitated, then grudgingly swung the door back and feigned a courtly bow. "As my lady wishes."

"Well, this is a promising beginning." Vienna was already regretting her decision to deliver the Winchester in person. She should have used FedEx. She should have known that the minute she entered her enemy's lair she would feel the way she always felt around Mason. Dry-mouthed. Lust-struck. A disgrace to her family name.

Mason wasn't doing anything to cause the change in Vienna's heartbeat. She was simply standing a few feet away, her hands on her hips, those hot eyes flashing resentment. A loose white shirt was shoved into her black jeans. Beneath it she wore no bra and her nipples were distinct shadows beneath the fabric. Vienna couldn't drag her mind off the memory of her breasts and that muscular torso. She wanted to rip the shirt away and touch the flesh Mason had exposed that day in her office. Shocked by the urge, she felt her face fame.

"Ah...my rife?" Mason prompted.

Vienna presented the weapon to her lying fat across both hands. She couldn't meet Mason's eyes but could feel them burning into her. Yes, this was a bad idea. And she hadn't told Tazio Pantano she was coming here. Wondering when she would ever stop behaving irrationally around her longtime adversary, she said stiffly, "I know you've had a rough couple of weeks. I hope you're feeling better."

"Liar."

Stung, Vienna jerked her head up. "Has it ever occurred to you that this whole situation is no picnic for me either?"

Mason gave a terse little laugh as she took the rife. "Which part? The part about destroying everything that matters to me? Or the so-called accident? Or trying to snatch my company when we both know there's no financial gain for you? Tell me, is all of this because I turned you down that time?"

"Don't fatter yourself."

"Oh, that's right. How stupid of me to forget. I was supposed to be grateful, wasn't I? A pity fuck from Vienna Blake, the irresistible princess. The woman who could have anyone."

Vienna cringed inwardly. She should have guessed that Mason would throw that embarrassing evening in her face one day. "That was a long time ago and we both know I was drunk."

"Which is precisely the time when people say what they really think. As I recall, you said you were doing me a favor."

"I didn't use those words, and anyway...it wasn't what I meant."

"Like you remember anything about that night."

Mason's contempt blistered across Vienna's conscience, reminding her of events she'd rather forget. She stared out the gap in the door, knowing she should be walking back the way she came, not standing here letting Mason get under her skin again. She wished she didn't remember that night, but it was as if the party had only happened weeks ago, not years. The humiliation and rejection were still gut-wrenching.

Mason was the last person she'd expected to see that night. Then there was the date on her arm, a worldly, accomplished woman who made Vienna painfully aware of her own smug sophomore banality. Determined to be noticed, Vienna had tossed back drinks too fast and flirted too obviously, all the while observing Mason with that woman. Leaning over her. Bringing her cocktails. And claiming her with the casual possessiveness of a lover. A touch to the cheek. A lowered head. Constant eye contact. Mason and her girlfriend shared a coded language that excluded her completely. Every hint of intimacy had gouged at Vienna until she was seething with resentment. All she could think about was getting between them, stealing Mason's attention away from the woman who held it.

Looking back, she couldn't believe her immaturity. Or her jealousy. She could still see the incredulous look on Mason's face when Vienna cornered her alone and smoking a cigar in a secluded corner of the back garden. Vienna couldn't remember exactly what she'd said in her clumsy seduction attempt, but the words had come out all wrong. She'd tried to be sophisticated, to sound more experienced than she was. Mason's insolent taunt about her virginity six years earlier had hammered in her mind. Go play with your dolls.

She'd alluded to a retinue of lovers she didn't have and flaunted a sexual vocabulary borrowed from girls in her sorority. All the while, as she made a fool of herself, Mason never stopped devouring her with a stare that made every muscle tremble.

When she finally ran out of steam, Mason asked, "What's your point?"

"I'm suggesting we could get out of here and have some fun."

Mason slowly extinguished her cigar. "Why would I want to sleep with a woman who gives herself away so cheaply?"

Vienna cloaked her embarrassment with a phony laugh and a flirtatious pout. "Hey, any lesbian here would kill to be in your shoes, Cavender. They all want me, but I picked you."

"I'm bowled over." Mason's bored response burned its way through the haze of alcohol into Vienna's brain. "But here's the thing. I'm with someone else tonight. She doesn't come from money, but she has real class...I won't even try to explain what that means. You wouldn't understand."

"You bitch."

Mason wasn't done. "Maybe if I was a jerk...and also a moron, I'd dump her so I could fuck you. But shallow narcissists don't do it for me, sorry."

Stunned by the insult, Vienna swung her hand at Mason's face and missed. "I'll make you sorry, all right...sorry you ever said that."

Mason caught hold of her arm before she could take better aim. "You're drunk," she said, frog-marching her toward the front gates. "And you're a menace to yourself and others. I'm taking you back to your room so you can sleep it off."

"Are you kidding me?" Vienna tried to shake herself free. "Who do you think you are?"

Mason had given her an answer, but the words were inaudible and the girlfriend had shown up then. She helped Vienna into the backseat of Mason's car and then assisted her up to her room once they reached the building. She and Mason had stayed for the next hour while Vienna disgraced herself by vomiting and sobbing incoherently about not measuring up to her father's expectations. The girlfriend made coffee and helped Vienna undress, then put her to bed. She seemed genuinely nice, which only made matters worse.

Vienna couldn't remember her name, so days later when she wanted to apologize to her, the only option was to call Mason. But she hadn't picked up the phone. The next time she saw the woman was five years later on a television program about aid workers in Rwanda. She was making a difference, helping genocide survivors start small businesses. Vienna sent a donation.

Running a hand over her stinging eyes, she forced herself present. Mason had just said something else, but she hadn't been listening. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Could you repeat that?"

"I said I've never done you harm."

"Perhaps not directly," Vienna conceded. "But your father spent his whole life attacking my family, and your brother was blackmailing one of my cousins, the man who happens to be one of my vice presidents."

"So that's why you arranged the accident. That snake you call a relative likes underage girls, but hey, who cares? You're outraged because my brother called him out! That's mind-bending."

Vienna lifted a hand to her cheek, wiping at something that wasn't there, giving herself time to process what she'd just heard. She felt nauseous. Her cousin's story was completely different. Andy had stood in front of her desk a month ago, begging her to help save his marriage. He'd made a terrible mistake. Somehow Lynden had photos of him with a girl he'd met at a party. It was obviously a set-up. Lynden wanted him to back off a Chinese supplier they'd been pressuring to stop selling products to the Cavender Corporation. He was going to send the photos to Andy's wife.

"My cousin was an idiot, but the Chinese situation is just business. Your brother made it personal. There are children involved."

"Yes, girls kept as sex slaves for men like your cousin to assault."

"That's an outright lie."

"Sure. Go ahead and tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night." Mason paused, her focus seeming to shift inward. In a curiously absent tone, she murmured, "How ironic."

"What do you mean?" Vienna wished she could dismiss Mason's accusation with absolute certainty, but she kept seeing Andy's face when she picked up the phone to call the police.

He'd begged her to appease Lynden, claiming that if the police got involved his wife would soon know everything. Vienna had seen his point. It ate at her to have to go cap in hand to a Cavender, but Lynden was the perfect gentleman when she phoned him. No crowing. No nastiness. They'd spoken civilly and agreed that if she stayed away from his suppliers, he would destroy the photographs. She'd trusted him to keep his word. That was another Cavender weak spot, their adherence to outdated principles. Lynden, despite his playboy habits, would have gone down with the Titanic before he pushed past a woman to get to a lifeboat. His sister was the same, an anachronism.

"Do you ever wonder how things might have been?" Mason asked, as if she'd been brooding on the question while Vienna's mind was elsewhere. "Who we could be to each other, if it wasn't for all...this?"

"This is the reality," Vienna replied. "There's no point in what-ifs."

Mason studied her for several long, excruciating seconds, then said in a low, husky tone, "What if I told you I want to kiss you. Would that change your reality?"

The air escaped Vienna's lungs in a rush. Disoriented, she repeated Mason's words silently to herself and decided she must have misheard, or worse, unconsciously fantasized. "What?"

"Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about," Mason said bitterly. "We've been dancing around this our whole lives."

"Speak for yourself," Vienna retorted.

"Are you saying you don't think about it?"

"Now who's flattering herself?"

"I take it that's a no."

"No. I mean, yes."

"Why, because you get so many better offers?" When Vienna didn't answer, Mason said softly, "What if I told you I've wanted you since the first time I saw you. I think about taking you...so you can never wash me off."

Knees close to buckling, Vienna said, "Then I'd know you were lying." As soon as she'd snapped the response out, she realized she sounded disappointed.

Mason looked down. The corners of her mouth pulled just enough to hint at satisfaction. "That's what I thought."

Knowing she'd stupidly exposed herself, Vienna reached for the edge of the door but she couldn't escape fast enough. Mason's hand clamped down on hers. Her touch struck Vienna's senses like a sledgehammer, driving a quivering echo through every inch of flesh. She couldn't find words to explain the strange joy of having those fingers sealed to hers and Mason's body aligned against hers. They stood like dancers awaiting a band to strike up.

Unable to help herself, Vienna half turned and stared into Mason's eyes. Something in their depths stirred her unbearably. She knew that look. She'd seen the same wounded craving the day she and Mason stood on either side of the big iron gates of Laudes Absalom when they were children. She felt the same stricken shame now that she'd experienced then, at the sight of Mason's bruises. There were no visible injuries anymore, yet she could sense a pain so deep it tore at her.

Hiding her welling emotion, she looked away. There was nothing she could do. Mason had lost her brother. Vienna was only making a bad situation worse by intruding on her grief. She backed up, but Mason moved with her.

"Vienna. I'm not lying. Don't go."

She was so close each word brushed Vienna's skin like the calling card of a kiss. The thought made her ache. Her eyes fell to Mason's mouth, then to the tug of sinew under the smoothness of her neck. The pulse she saw there matched the relentless throb between Vienna's legs. It was as if she and Mason shared the same ebb and flow, as if their life forces had somehow converged. A rush of warmth rose from Vienna's womb to her chest heralding something deep inside her, a primal creature brought to life and summoned to the surface.

She let go of the door. As her arm fell, Mason's fell with it and she caught Vienna gently around the waist. Bringing her face-to-face, she leaned in until her brow rested against Vienna's. They stood in silent accord, abandoning one language for another, forsaking the thorny tangle of words for the silken subtlety of touch. Mason drew her fingertips over Vienna's eyelids and down her cheeks to her lips. Her mouth followed the same delicate path, sampling the skin, brushing and kissing until Vienna's lips offered the faintest trembling pressure in return.

Mason's body stiffened at the response and her fingers dug into Vienna's hips as though a pawing thing had just unsheathed itself within her. A hand moved to cradle Vienna's head, tilting it back, exposing her to a restless hunger finally given free rein. Mere kisses could never satisfy the devouring need. Vienna could feel the heat emanating from Mason's body and pressed blindly into her, wanting to enfold and be enfolded. Wanting to give herself and hold nothing back.

Mason's taste infused her mouth. Vienna invited her cleaving tongue deeper and dragged the shirt free of Mason's jeans. The flesh she encountered flinched beneath her touch. She slid her hand upward, overlapping the push of breast and nipple, owning every inch her palm and fingers could encompass. A groan filled her mouth. She couldn't tell if the swell of sound was hers or Mason's. The nipple beneath her palm relayed its own tight, hard message.

Wanting more, Vienna stepped back and finished removing Mason's shirt. And there she was, breasts rising and falling with each breath, her desire tangible in the stillness of her face and the fierce intent gleaming from her eyes. One hand dropped to her belt and she flipped the buckle open and dragged the heavy zipper down.

"Touch me," she whispered, drawing Vienna's hand past the open fly.

Damp skin met her fingers and Mason's eyes darkened even more, the pupils voiding all color but for a thin slate-colored rim. Vienna brought her other hand up, trailing it gently over the plane of Mason's cheek. Her thumb brushed across the bottom lip, then they were kissing again and stumbling into the cavernous hall. Their breathing was amplified, bouncing off the paneled walls. Fractured rainbows danced around them as sunlight spilled through the leaded windows. They collided with something solid, the banister of the grand central staircase.

Vienna pushed past the crotch of Mason's jeans, gasping when she encountered moist flesh. For a split second she froze and drew back, blood pounding in her ears. On the walls above, blades gleamed and glassy eyes observed. Painted faces stared down from the upstairs gallery, Cavenders witnessing the unimaginable. Then Mason parted Vienna's lips in a rough, hot kiss that left no room for anything but the slippery urgency of their explorations. With a single sharp tug, she tore open Vienna's silk shirt and slid it down, letting it fall on the floor. The flimsy lace bra followed.

Working her hand back along the seam of Mason's jeans, Vienna didn't hesitate this time. "You're so hard," she said when she found the rigid apex of Mason's clit. Curling her fingers around either side of the shaft, she slowly milked.

Mason breathed, "Oh, God," then her hand stilled Vienna's. "No. It's too soon. I don't want to come yet."

Vienna let her grip relax. "Are you so easy?"

"Where you're concerned, yes." Mason sighed. "You have no idea how much I want you."

"Prove it." Vienna knotted her fingers through Mason's hair and pushed her head down.

Every sensation was exquisite. Mason kissed and bit a hot path to the base of her throat before descending to rest her cheek directly over Vienna's heart. Vienna watched as she took possession of a nipple, circling the pink tip slowly with a wet fingertip before taking the tight, tender flesh into her mouth. At the same time, she cupped Vienna's flushed breasts, squeezing and caressing them until they felt heavy with arousal.

Vienna sagged back against the smooth wood and pushed clumsily at her slacks and panties. Mason paused to drag them down and helped her balance as she kicked them aside. Gasping, Vienna felt the pressure of a hand between her thighs. Mason cupped her almost too gently. A low animal growl rose from her throat, and Vienna's guttural answer came from somewhere deep down, a place she didn't even know existed.

Spellbound, she drew Mason to her once more. Their faces were only inches apart. The air seemed dense, slowing the passage of time, and Vienna recognized something eternal and irresistible between them, a force she'd always known was there. It had been that way from their first look, from the moment Mason had hoisted her onto that horse and carried her off like the spoils of battle.

In the grip of some doomed enchantment, Vienna had belonged to her ever since. She could not imagine belonging to any other. The realization stunned her, and she fought it just as instinctively as she rejoiced in it. Fear pierced her erotic trance, turning up the volume on the frantic voice in the back of her mind that kept urging her to stop. She glanced distractedly around. She couldn't let this happen. She struggled, but Mason pushed her hard against the railing, bearing her weight.

Her lips smothered the beginnings of a protest. The room seemed to recede. "Don't fight it," Mason murmured in pauses between deep kisses. "Wrap your legs around me."

And then she was inside, and Vienna closed her eyes, blocking out everything but the frantic pounding of her heart and the gorgeous thrill of her surrender. Severed from all coherent thought, she dug her nails into Mason's shoulders and bore down, abandoning herself to the rhythmic thrusts. A shudder locked every muscle and compressed her at the core, squeezing Mason's fingers so tightly that they both cried out.

Mason slowed her strokes and Vienna met each upward thrust with a moan of pleasure. When the first faint tremors quivered through her groin, she bit down hard and a metallic rush broke across her tongue. Dazed, she lifted her head and tried to move her swollen lips. More. Had the word actually emerged?

Passion cramped Mason's face. Blood stained her mouth. She licked it off, asking hoarsely, "What? Tell me what you need. Anything."

Only seconds from letting go, Vienna couldn't speak. Her eyes were anchored to Mason's. You. The answer lay trapped on her swollen lips.

"Come for me," Mason gasped out. "I want to watch you come."

Pressure gathered until Vienna couldn't hold back. Shaking, gasping, she spilled over the fingers buried inside. For a long time they clung together, propped against the side of the staircase, slippery with sweat. Then Mason carefully withdrew and held Vienna while she found her footing. Stroking her hair, she kissed her cheek and murmured Vienna's name.

The naked yearning in her voice rubbed Vienna's soul raw. Her eyes welled. Hardly knowing where to look, she focused on the items of clothing scattered across the floor.

"Are you okay?" Mason asked in a whisper.

"No, not really," Vienna croaked out. She didn't know what she felt. Shock. Desire. Despair. All were eclipsed by a sudden terrible panic that made her wrench away. Choking back sobs, she collected her clothing from the floor.

"Vienna...stop." Mason touched her shoulder gingerly. "Come upstairs with me. I think we should talk."

"There's nothing to discuss." Vienna moved out of reach. Her whole body felt so tender she almost cried out as she dragged on her panties and slacks. Her blouse was unwearable, the buttons torn. Mason picked up her own white shirt and handed it to her.

"Vienna, I-"

"Don't say a word." A clock struck the hour, rattling her nerves. Vienna felt clammy as she buttoned the shirt and rolled up the sleeves.

Mason refastened her jeans with hands that shook. "I'll walk you home."

It took all Vienna's self-control not to scream at her. She couldn't believe she'd allowed this to happen. "No, I'm fen."

"I don't think so."

Somehow Vienna found her boardroom dispassion. "Mason, this was a mistake."

"No," Mason said starkly. "This was meant to be."

"I won't deny we have some kind of weird chemistry," Vienna said, refusing to get into verbal sparring. "But whatever just happened... it doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything," Mason said, making no attempt to cover her naked breasts. "We just made love."

"We fucked in your hall like a pair of hormonal high schoolers," Vienna corrected her coldly. "Let's not break out the promise rings, okay?"

Mason froze like she'd been slapped. Her face lost its color. In a voice rough with emotion, she said, "I've made a lot of assumptions about you over the years, but I never took you for a coward."

"Well, now you know." Vienna could smell their mixed scents on the borrowed shirt. The tangy residue stabbed at her heart and tore through her senses, undoing her from the inside out. Afraid that Mason would see her turmoil, she headed for the door. "I have to go."

She wrenched the door back and darted down the front steps, cursing under her breath. She heard Mason call after her but didn't slow down. A huge weight seemed to crush her and she felt like a child again, facing her father's wrath after the horse incident. His words rang in her ears. You let your family down. You let me down. But worst of all, you let yourself down. The rebellious part of her wanted to yell Fuck you and fuck the family. She almost turned around right then and ran back to Mason, but she knew she would be running toward disaster. Everything the Cavenders touched turned to ruin. Mason would destroy her.

Tears flooded over her cheeks and she braced her shoulders against the sobs she couldn't control. The day was overcast. A cool breeze gathered shoals of red and gold leaves and spread them in its wake. The oak trees creaked and the pines rustled. Vienna walked so blindly, she didn't realize she'd veered across the lawn toward the temple until she found herself in its shadow. As though stepping into a dream, her feet carried her up the pale marble steps to the broad portico. She glanced back once from within the colonnade to be certain she hadn't been followed, then slipped into the chamber.

A gleaming tomb stood beneath the high dome at the center, two separate marble coffins side by side. Vienna read the upright Roman letters chiseled into each: Nathaniel Cavender and Fanny Blake Cavender. They'd married back in the days when the families were allies, so their son Hugo was half Blake. That hadn't stopped him from murdering his own uncle, Benedict Blake. He'd then tried to take over the company their families jointly owned, waging a pitched battle for control with Benedict's son, Truman.

Hugo and Truman had grown up together as inseparable friends, the men on whom the future of their families rested. Hugo's brutal act had made them bitter enemies, and the Blakes and the Cavenders had been fighting ever since. No one really seemed sure why Hugo had murdered Truman's father, but greed was the general consensus. Being two years older than Truman and half-Blake himself, Hugo evidently saw himself as the rightful president of the company. His mother Fanny was the firstborn Blake of her generation, but because of sexism her younger brother Benedict was destined to head the family. All the same, her status and her marriage to the Cavender heir meant that her son had been raised like a prince, the ultimate symbol of their united houses.

But the man who should have personified the best of both worlds, instead betrayed all they stood for. He was never charged with the killing. At the time, the Cavenders' wealth and power made them virtually untouchable. According to Blake legend, the Cavender Curse began that year. Only days earlier Hugo's wife Estelle had drowned in the lake at Laudes Absalom, soon after their son was born. At the time there was speculation that foul play was involved; after all, Hugo had a violent streak and some thought he regretted marrying the daughter of servants. Estelle had always been a problem.

Her mother, Sally Gibson, had been governess to the youngest two of the "Famous Four," the appellation bestowed on Benedict Blake's sisters, legendary society beauties in their time. A woman from a respectable family, Sally had married beneath her, wedding the Blake's head gardener in haste after the couple found they were expecting a child. The Blakes had generously allowed them to remain in their employment despite this impropriety, and had even built a cottage on the property for the pair. After Estelle was born, she was treated like family and allowed to play with Truman, who was only a year older. The two children had their lessons with Hugo Cavender in the schoolroom the families shared.

They were taught by Estelle's mother until the boys were deemed too old to take their lessons from a woman, then a tutor was hired, a scholarly man who educated them before they were sent to prep school. As the years went by, it came as a shock to everyone that by the time they entered college, both Hugo and Truman wanted Estelle's hand in marriage. The girl who'd been like a younger sister to them all their lives suddenly became a cause of tension, with both men competing for her.

The Blakes tried to arrange a more appropriate match for Estelle, but she'd been brought up a lady. She wrote poetry and played the pianoforte. How could she be expected to settle down with a working man? Fortunately, being a Blake, Truman came to his senses in the end and married a suitable debutante. But Hugh Cavender always got what he wanted. Only weeks after his father died, he walked Estelle down the aisle, free of parental disapproval. A year later their son Thomas Blake Cavender was born. He never knew his mother, of course, and was raised by his grandmother Fanny, the woman whose gleaming marble coffin stood before Vienna.

Very few people knew their family histories going back almost two hundred years, she supposed, but the Blakes kept faith with the lessons of the past, handing them down as accumulated wisdom. Vienna had only been twelve years old when she was first permitted to read the diaries kept by Patience Blake, a forebear who had recorded the scandal with fourteen-year-old awe. Patience found the whole episode deeply romantic and had seen herself as a go-between, having at some point carried notes between her cousin Truman and the beautiful Estelle.

Vienna couldn't remember all the colorfully embellished details, but it was clear that Truman's advances were not unwelcome. Naturally Patience had read every letter entrusted to her and faithfully recorded the contents in her diary. Estelle's short missives were models of propriety, offering only circumspect encouragement to the man bent on wooing her. Truman's replies could best be described as the ramblings of a young man besotted. The communications had ceased abruptly in 1869 and Patience's diary recorded the engagement of Estelle to Hugo Cavender, scandalously soon after his father's funeral.

Eventually Patience had traipsed off to Paris where she had a long list of lovers, and gave birth to a daughter, Colette, whose fatherhood was a mystery. Patience's European diaries had found their way back to the Blake library after World War One, carried by a friend of hers who reported that Patience had died of grief after her daughter was killed. Colette had been a battlefield nurse at a casualty clearing station near Saint Omer when German planes bombed the hospital tents.

Several of her letters were tucked inside one of Patience's diaries along with a faded sepia photograph of a soldier who'd been courting Colette. Their contents had always intrigued Vienna because Colette carefully avoided the use of a pronoun when describing her beau and wrote strangely feminine descriptions of him. Vienna had recognized something in those letters that made her question her own sexuality for the first time. She'd always wondered what had happened to the officer in the photograph. Killed, no doubt, in a muddy, rat-infested trench on the Western Front and buried in a common grave.

She sighed and stared out the arched doorway to the lake. Two white swans glided together across the tranquil surface and Vienna recalled that the birds mated for life. Some even formed same-sex couples, like Romeo and Juliet, the famous pair whose return to Boston Public Garden was celebrated with a parade every year. When they were outed not so long ago as two Juliets, the city was in shock for months.

She stepped back outside and sat down on a carved bench overlooking the water. Her legs had stopped shaking and her mind had cleared, allowing her to reclaim the detachment she'd abandoned earlier. The sky was grim, casting the lofty pines along the lake's eastern shore into deep shadow. Their pungent sweetness hung on the still air, and beneath the gathering rain clouds, the moribund fortress of Laudes Absalom languished in its decay. The deep silence of the surroundings was broken only by the cry of a bird somewhere above.

As Vienna looked up, a raven swooped low over the temple, inspecting her in several passes, then landed on the portico step a few yards away. Carrying something in its beak, the bird pranced fearlessly toward her, its bold eyes fixed on her face. Vienna sat very still and it hopped up onto the bench. Before she could touch its glossy black feathers, it dropped a small, tightly rolled piece of paper in her lap and instantly took fight in the direction of the house.

Disconcerted, Vienna unfurled the note and stared down at two lines of beautiful calligraphy.

When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.