Read Online Once upon a Dream by Nora Roberts - Free Book Online

or pearls.”
    â€œThen I give them freely.” He crossed to her, laid the necklace over her head. “For the pleasure of seeing you wear them.”
    â€œI’ve never worn pearls.” Surprised by the delight they brought her, she lifted them, let them run like moonbeams through her fingers. “They make me feel regal.”
    Holding them out, she turned a circle while the diamond clasp exploded with light. “Where do they come from? Do you just picture them in your mind and…poof?”
    â€œPoof?” He decided she hadn’t meant that as an insult. “More or less, I suppose. They exist, and I move them from one place to another. From there, to here. Whatever is, that has no will, I can bring here, and keep. Nothingwith heart or soul can be taken. But the rest…It’s sapphires, I’m thinking, that suit you best.”
    As Kayleen blinked, a string of rich black pearls clasped with brilliant sapphires appeared around her neck. “Oh! I’ll never get used to…Move them?” She looked back at him. “You mean take them?”
    â€œMmm.” He turned to pour glasses of wine.
    â€œBut…” Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she looked around the room. The gorgeous antiques, the modern electronics—which she’d noticed ran without electricity, the glamour of Ming vases, the foolishness of pop art.
    Almost nothing in the room would have existed when he’d been banished here.
    â€œFlynn, where do all these things come from? Your television set, your piano, the furniture and rugs and art. The food and wine?”
    â€œAll manner of places.”
    â€œHow does it work?” She took the wine from him. “I mean, is it like replicating? Do you copy a thing?”
    â€œPerhaps, if I’ve a mind to. It takes a bit more time and trouble for that process. You have to know the innards, so to speak, and the composition and all matter of scientific business to make it come right. Easier by far just to transport it.”
    â€œBut if you just transport it, if you just take it from one place and bring it here, that’s stealing.”
    â€œI’m not a thief.” The idea! “I’m a magician. The laws aren’t the same for us.”
    Patience was one of her most fundamental virtues. “Weren’t you punished initially because you took something from someone?”
    â€œThat was entirely different. I changed a life for another’s gain. And I was perhaps a bit…rash. Not that it deserved such a harsh sentence.”
    â€œHow do you know what lives you’ve changed by bringing these here?” She held up the pearls. “Or any of the other things? If you take someone’s property, it causeschange, doesn’t it? And at the core of it, it’s just stealing.” Not without regret, she lifted the jewels over her head. “Now, you have to put these back where you got them.”
    â€œI won’t.” Fully insulted now, he slammed his glass down. “You would reject a gift from me?”
    â€œYes. If it belongs to someone else. Flynn, I’m a merchant myself. How would I feel to open my shop one morning and find my property gone? It would be devastating. A violation. And beyond that, which is difficult enough, the inconvenience. I’d have to file a police report, an insurance claim. There’d be an investigation, and—”
    â€œThose are problems that don’t exist here,” he interrupted. “You can’t apply your ordinary logic to magic. Magic is.”
    â€œRight is, Flynn, and even magic can’t negate what’s right. These may be heirlooms. They may mean a great deal to someone even beyond their monetary value. I can’t accept them.”
    She laid the pearls, the glow and the sparkle, on the table.
    â€œYou have no knowledge of what governs me.” The air began to tremble with his anger. “No right to question