Children of Poseidon: Rann by Annalisa Carr Page A

delay the moment, as well as an exercise in nostalgia. She and Maya had haunted the place while they were teenagers, dropping in every day after school. It was amazing to Jewel how little had changed. It was here she’d met Micael for coffee and ice cream.
    They used to sit in this same seat, next to the plate glass window overlooking the high street. Micael liked to talk, and she would hang on his every word. He’d always pause and check his reflection in the window of the shop across the street before he joined her. She could instantly visualise the way he would smooth his hand over the spikes in his cropped, blond hair. He never guessed how closely she watched him.
    Where is he now? What happened to him in the last nine years?
    Micael’s magic had been stripped from him by her mother’s coven. They’d exiled him from all the covens. None of them, anywhere in the world, would have anything to do with him after that. It was a fitting punishment for a people-trafficking rogue mage. She hadn’t thought about him properly for years. She’d thought he was so clever and grown up, but looking back, she realised he wasn’t much older than she was. Attractive in a golden androgynous sort of way, or at least that’s what she’d thought then. He’d been a terrible criminal, with drugs and kidnapping to his credit, but he made her feel good for a while, and she found it difficult to hate him, even knowing what he was. He had been kind to her. Before her old life fell apart.
    A prickling of awareness on the skin of her face jerked her out of her reverie.
    She opened her eyes and stared out the window at the passing shoppers, wondering why the scene looked wrong. Her gaze lingered on a tramp-like figure, shuffling through the crowds of affluent young people, completely out of place. He was older for a start, his long hair graying, but apart from that he wore a long shabby overcoat that might have been made from some sort of tweed. It covered him from his neck to his ankles. Shiny new trainers stuck out from the tattered hem. He gazed at the coffee shop, body almost quivering with concentration. Jewel’s skin itched as though he stared directly at her. She looked away and glanced back, but he’d disappeared as though he’d never been there.
    Pushing herself to her feet, she left the money for her coffee on the table along with a small tip. She knew it was time she bit the bullet and faced her mother. Once, she told herself, just once, then it would be over. She had to prove to herself she could do it. Then she could move on. She closed her eyes again, and Rann’s face danced behind her eyelids. Dark, relaxed, and sensual. A twinge of loss rippled through her before she picked up her bag, gathered her courage, and walked up the hill to the mansion she’d been brought up in.
    The guard who opened the main gates to the house was a stranger to Jewel. He asked for identification, and she handed him her passport with a sense of incredulity. Since when has the coven’s headquarters become a controlled zone?
    Shaking her head in bemusement, she walked down the gravel drive to the imposing front door and rang the bell. An unfamiliar maid answered. It all served to remind her how long she’d been away. The maid held the door open, allowing Jewel to step into the hallway. Her youthful face showed a studied disinterest, but she stole sidelong glances as she accompanied Jewel to one of the sitting rooms .
    “Take a seat, Miss Vargas.” She waved at the arrangement of squashy sofas round a low glass coffee table.
    Jewel hovered. She hadn’t been in this room much as a child. Her mother entertained her coven in here. Most of Jewel’s youth had been spent in the kitchen, or in her room, and just being back in the house made her feel slightly sick. She sank down onto one of the sofas and pulled herself forward so she perched on the edge. Shifting nervously, she brushed a stray hair off her short red skirt before smoothing her new