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of dream-logic, she probably couldn’t have anyway. The horsemen got within ten yards of where Clare stood before one of them leapt from his mount and tackled Morholt to the ground. The others circled him and then the biggest one dismounted and walked over.
    Although the man was cloaked and hooded, Clare couldn’t help feeling there was something familiar about him.
    He pointed to the torc in Morholt’s fist. “That isn’t yours.”
    “Now wait just a second,” Morholt protested, shrugging off his tackler and clambering to his feet. “There are certain technicalities to be considered here. I stole this, fair and square. From a museum that—in a manner of speaking—had already stolen it from its rightful owner. A charmingly demented lady by the name of Boudicca. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
    “Boudicca is dead,” the big man said simply. Then he threw back his cowl.
    Clare heard her dream-self gasp: it was Llassar, the Druid metalsmith. The one responsible for creating the very same cursed torc that had sent Stuart Morholt back in time and that Stu was now waving around like a Frisbee. Llassar took a step closer to Morholt. “She was my queen and that torc once belonged to her. I know because I made it. But now she is dead.”
    “Yes, well,” Morholt muttered. “She’d been dead for almost two thousand years when I met her. Didn’t stop her from trying to kill me.”
    Llassar’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I should finish the task.”
    “Right. Uh, look … I think perhaps we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement where not killing me is concerned, don’t you? I have power. Wagonloads of it. I could be of great use to you in your … endeavours.”
    Clare noticed Morholt’s hand creeping toward the hip pocket of his Mission Impossible –esque jumpsuit. Oh, this should be good , she thought, mentally leaning in to get a closer look at the dreamscene unfolding in front of her. She wondered what Stu was up to and kind of wished she had some dream-popcorn to go along with the drama.
    “Behold!” Morholt yelped suddenly, drawing forth a disposable Bic lighter and flicking the little wheel. “I command the power of fire!”
    Seriously?
    Clare felt herself rolling her dream-eyes.
    Llassar stepped back a pace—although whether in fear, or awe, or a simple desire not to have his beard ignite was open to interpretation.
    “Ha!” Morholt waved the tiny flame in a circle like a warding talisman, keeping the lighter concealed in a tight fist so that it looked as though the fire sprang from the tip of his thumb. “Ha? See that?”
    But the others didn’t back off in quite the way Morholt had probably anticipated. Rather, they shifted slightly, ranging themselves around Morholt and Llassar as if they were spectators at a competition and wished to get a better view.
    Morholt glanced around nervously.
    “Ouch, dammit!” he swore, flinching as the lighter grew too hot. The flame went out and Morholt stuck his burned thumb in his mouth, glaring fiercely at his captors. Clearly, the effect was perhaps not as majestic as he’d hoped.
    Then Llassar took a single step forward, held out his hand, focused a laser-like gaze on his open palm, muttered a word … and conjured fire. Out of thin air and without having to flick a Bic.
    Clare was hardly surprised. She’d seen firsthand what her Druid friends—and Llassar was one—were capable of. Granted, so had Morholt. But apparently he still thought they were a bunch of dimwits he could impress with party tricks.
    That’s gonna cost him …
    Llassar extinguished the flame by closing his hand into a fist. Then he took another step forward, and with the same fist thumped the master thief/self-proclaimed Lord High Druid/academically disgraced archaeologist-turned-crackpot right on the top of his head. Morholt’s eyes rolled up and he slumped unconscious to the ground, the torc rolling from his hand. Llassar knelt and picked it up. Clare saw him glare