Free Dark Warrior by Rebecca York Page A

they didn’t comment. When she got questions about how the new vet was doing, she always answered, “Fine,” knowing that sooner or later she was going to have to make a decision about the man.
    Like, was she endangering her sisters by not admitting her suspicions? She hated to think that was true.
    She had never felt more unsure of herself. Never felt more like she was simply going through the motions of her duties. But even when her heart wasn’t in her work, there was no escape from the details of daily life. She had a quick breakfast in the lounge, then went to check on the stock in the gift shop.
    Some of the sisters rotated working there, especially the younger ones who had recently been assigned jobs at the spa. Some of them liked selling beautiful jewelry and crafts and reading material to spa guests. Others felt it was a waste of their talents.
    This morning, Tessa was behind the counter, and she looked up, catching Sophia’s eye, sending her a silent message that she wanted to discuss something.
    Was she finally going to talk about the night they’d tried to see the future together? With equal parts anticipation and dread, Sophia walked into the shop.
    Two women were there, one in her fifties, the other closer to seventy and leaning on an ebony cane with a silver dragon head.
    The older one purchased a couple of books on meditation and gentle yoga and left. The second one, a well-off matron, lingered longer. Some guests were curious about the Ionians and asked a lot of questions. Maybe she hoped to see Tessa and Sophia exchanging a secret handshake, because she kept glancing at them as she fingered the expensive silver and turquoise jewelry that the spa took on consignment from local artists.
    Sophia also examined the stock, seeing that they were getting low on books about the Sedona area and on natural healing. Moving to another section of shelves, she rearranged some of the herbal products that the sisters made at the spa, lining up jars that patrons had moved around.
    The customer had walked over to a display of crystal pendants.
    “Which do you think looks best on me?” she asked Tessa, holding two up.
    “I think the white quartz. But you might think about what effect you want from the crystal.”
    “Such as?”
    They went into a discussion of the properties of the various specimens, after which the woman bought the white one that had first caught her eye.
    When the guest had left, Tessa shook her head. “Do you think working in a gift shop fulfils my destiny as an Ionian?”
    “It’s not the only thing you do here. You give a lot of the treatments, and some of our guests specifically ask for you.”
    “But clerking in the shop always feels so superficial. I should have gone to college the way you did. Then I could help with the accounting or something.”
    “You could start taking classes at the university, if that’s what you want to do. Or tell Eugenia you’d like to be more involved in . . . management,” she said.
    “I don’t like to ask for changes in assignments.”
    Sophia understood that, too. She wasn’t going to try to get out of overseeing the work of the vet. But maybe her reasons were different. Maybe she wanted an excuse to go down there.
    But not yet.
    Tessa glanced toward the door, then spoke again. “It makes me question . . .”
    “Question what?”
    “What we’re doing here. I mean, have the Ionians outlived their purpose? And they’re just going through the motions.”
    “I hope not,” Sophia murmured, remembering she’d had similar thoughts herself.
    “You really believe we have some vital function in the world?” Tessa whispered. “Like keeping the balance between powers or something? Maybe we did when rulers came to consult us. Running a spa doesn’t feel quite so important.”
    Sophia shrugged. Again, she’d had the same thoughts.
    Tessa looked toward the door, then back again.
    “When we were trying to see the future, you asked me about