Mab clamped her jaws shut. She ducked and backed a step, whining noises still straining at her throat, but she wouldn’t leave Frank’s side.
The visitor was an older man, around her father’s age, with short steel-gray hair and a trimmed beard. He carried a walking stick, which he propped on the porch between him and the dog. He wore a tired brown tweed suit and an air of importance.
“I’ve come for the sword,” he said.
Frank looked the man up and down. “What sword?”
“What sword?” the man said “What sword? The one sword, the sword of power that may be carried only by the true king. The sword that Viviane gave over to your family’s keeping fifteen hundred years ago. Didn’t she tell you I’d come for it one day?”
Evie stared at the tableau like she was watching a play, with Alex breathing at her shoulder.
“I don’t know. My family may have kept the sword for that long, but we don’t remember who gave it to us. How do I know you’re the one?”
“How maddening, to be hindered by fools. Let me explain this to you: He is coming. The sword belongs to him. Not me, not you. Him. I must see that he gets it.”
“Him. The true king?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Wait just a minute.”
He turned a
nd started a moment, glancing with surprise at Evie and looking harder at Alex, but he nodded and moved to the basement door. The stranger started to enter the house, but her father looked back and pointed. “Evie, make sure he stays here.”
The old man glared at her. She shrugged and took her place beside Mab when he tried to step inside.
“Do you know who I am, young lady?” he said.
She had a nagging suspicion she knew who he thought he was.
“I could turn you into a frog. A hideous, ugly frog.” He raised his hands, fingers pointed in an arcane gesture.
She crossed her arms.
“I have a feeling she’s safe in this house, even from you,” Alex said.
The old man stood for a moment, pointing expectantly as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Evie didn’t feel so much as a hair tingle at the back of her neck.
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I almost forgot. This house, this family. I must hand it to Viviane—she always knew what she was doing.” He looked at Alex. “And who are you?”
“A traveler. Like yourself.”
“Hm, not like me at all. Sapling.”
Alex stifled a chuckle with a hand over his mouth.
Her father called from the basement stairs. “Evie? Take our visitor around back. I’ll meet you there.”
She couldn’t do anything but play along. She gestured for the man to leave first, and they filed off the porch and went to the back of the house, Mab trotting close at Evie’s side.
A few moments later, her father followed, carrying a sword, held upright. It was plain, nothing like the fantastic, gem-encrusted weapons with baroque hilts and engraved pommels that teenager Evie had drawn in the margins of class notes. Functional, well balanced, one that might sing if its bearer sliced the air with it.
Both Alex and the stranger turned and stared.
“By the gods,” Alex breathed.
“Ah, old friend!” the stranger said, a warm smile deepening the creases on his face.