A cool, floral mist kissed Rosalia’s cheeks each time she turned her head toward the gentle spray. “That was enlightening.”
“What did you learn?”
“That Master Benicio owns a pair of dune kites and that his apprentice sleeps above the shop. He was too busy wanking to notice me in the store. You?”
Rosalia snickered. “I learned there are many novice gearcrafters claiming to be masters. I also discovered Master Grigio has a mistress who lives in Opal Park. He closes shop early whenever she visits, and they shag in the stock room.”
“And when does she visit?”
“Endsday normally, according to the street urchins I questioned. His wife plays cards on those evenings with her friends at a lady’s club.”
The next day, they repeated their information-gathering efforts. On the third, Hadrian wanted to know their progress, cornering Rosalia when she visited the Pearl to work with Jabari on his lock picking.
“Good work can’t be rushed,” Rosalia teased Hadrian over a glass of wine in his office. “You know that better than anyone, our most ancient and wizened leader. I thought elves were the patient ones, your lives ever so long and days mere breaths of time compared to our painfully brief existences.”
Hadrian laughed quietly and dropped his shoulders. He let his head roll forward and closed his eyes. “You have me there, little one. This elf may be patient, but our client happens to be a very, very restless man, I’ll have you know, and as an eager man of such importance, my failure to report frequent status updates has made him irritable.”
“Then tell them we plan to eliminate many of the shops tonight from the list, and when we know more, we’ll be happy to report in.”
* * *
While Rosalia excelled at open-hours burglary, what she did best was second-story work after dark. She and Mira had ruled out at least two of the shops in Lowtown and three more in Uptown before taking a break to recover their wits.
Mira joined her on a bench at the square, both of them having donned jewel-toned dresses over their thief’s leathers. Modest garments proved to be the ideal disguises when they weren’t actively moving in and out of windows.
To the passerby, they were nothing more than two young women enjoying a quiet chat by the flower garden.
“You be careful in Master Nicodemus’s shop,” Mira warned. “They claim he has a jlaan.”
“I have a flask of fire whiskey in my bag.” The enormous, fire-breathing sand snakes reacted poorly to alcohol, a splash of it repelling the beasts and blinding them to both sight and scent for hours. If they were in the process of expelling fire, it mixed with lethal results for the animal.
“Ah, you planned ahead.”
“You know it. Tomorrow, I’ll visit the Clockwork Emporium. There are only a few other places it could be if Nicodemus doesn’t have what we need. I’ve already scouted out the exterior of the shop. Bane keeps a lot of magical wards and tricks that shouldn’t be impossible to bypass.”
“I’ll be visiting the Mecha Bandit tomorrow. Unless you need any help, I’m retiring from duty for the night.”
Rosalia shook her head. “No. Feel free to leave. I can handle this on my own.”
Mira nodded and rose from her seat on the bench. “By tomorrow night, I hope one of us knows the location to a thirty-thousand-ducat gold mirror.”
They parted ways, Mira to home and Rosalia to visit her final shopkeeper of the evening. Master Nicodemus was an elderly artisan who lived alone, a popular manufacturer of clockwork animals who crafted everything from horses to dogs and birds.
If the item wasn’t with him, that left only one other viable option in Uptown.
Xavier Bane would have to be the keeper of the mirror.
5
Soulfire
A hundred tiny pieces of metal and gemstone lay strewn over a black piece of velvet. Xavier spent his lunch break bent above them with a jeweler’s loupe in his left eye and a tool in each hand. As one of the only clockwork mechanics in the city trained to alter enchantments with magic, his shop often remained busy from open to close.
But he loved it, and he thrived when panicked customers rushed in with their malfunctioning jewel boxes and timepieces. For buyers requiring work on immobile lockboxes and vault doors, he made home visits by appointment only.
The clocktower at the center of the Twilight Gardens tolled noon, signaling the end of his break. Blast. Once again, he’d let the time get away from him. The bowl of soup beside him had long gone cold, as had the cup of tea purchased with it.
When he gestured with a hand toward the storefront, a spark of magic flipped the sign from “Out to Lunch” to “Open” and the door unlocked.
Despite the incomparable satisfaction of running a successful business, moments came when he longed for freedom. Long hours whittled away at time he could have spent reading, studying, or creating personal art, and those peaceful but infrequent days of silence became days he coveted.
Xavier was long overdue for a vacation to decompress—perhaps a visit to some faraway place. Maybe he’d travel for a while, and make his way by boat to a distant land. He would even purchase a quality ticket and soak up the sun while lounging on the deck. No steerage this time, as he’d finally come to appreciate his riches and the finer ways of how to spend them.
Humans had the right idea about enjoying the wealth they’d earned, even if some of them took it to extremes.
The bell above the door jingled, shattering his daydream and alerting him to a new arrival. His attention snapped to the young woman hesitating to approach the counter. She stood in the middle of the aisle between shelves of clockwork devices, bearing the regal stature of a princess. She wore her dark hair loose beneath a plum-and-gold scarf, matched by a tunic and breezy, semi-translucent skirts.
The dancer. The dancer who bore an uncanny likeness to someone he once knew. An ethereal breeze drifted around her like a magical caress. Although he’d never met a half-djinn before, he’d recognized her on sight during the performance. The golden aura swirling in the center of her soul danced and flickered like smokeless flames.
Just like Dahlia. There’d been no human blood in his old acquaintance, but she’d shone like gold. Gods above, he’d wanted her, but her heart had belonged to another man already, and Xavier had only been a cub himself. Could this girl be her child?
Xavier straightened and leaned forward. “Hello. Welcome to the Clockwork Emporium. What can I do to be of service to you?” Besides lifting her onto the edge of his shop counter and putting his head beneath her skirts?
The woman’s brown gaze drifted over the store. “I...” When her attention reached Xavier, she stared. Her mouth fell open, lips half parted.
From the first moment of eye contact, he knew something magical had happened, and worried she could see through to his soul as clearly as he saw hers. Did she see the dragon inside him eager to break free of his weaker body?
She shook off whatever spell she’d fallen under. “I only wanted to look around. Is that okay?”
Xavier cleared his throat. “Of course. Feel free to look for as long as you like.”
He returned to the pieces of machinery strewn over the soft cloth but continued to observe her with the occasional glance. Numerous carpets spread over the stone floors muted her footsteps—or were her steps naturally silent, a boon granted by her magical nature? He wondered and found he was staring at her again as he had a few nights prior.
Frederico had laughed at him then and asked if Xavier was smitten by one of his star dancers. According to the troop leader, she was one of his best up-and-coming performers.
“I’m told she’s quite single and unattached,” Frederico had even suggested, nudging him with an elbow.
“I’m not in the market for a wife.”
“So you claim, but your eyes tell another story, my friend.”
“And what story is that?”
“That you tire of dedicating every waking moment to your craft an
d desire a companion, of course. I can think of no one finer than Rosalia.”
Rosalia. That was her name. The memory came back to him as a cool breeze through the open shop window carried her scent to him. Flowers, smoke, sea salt, and desert sand—three of the aforementioned smells belonged to her, part of her soul, imprinted on her skin, and part of her very being.
The dragon inside him growled and nudged his thoughts, stirring desire and urging him to act.
No. Can’t.
After all, women of Enimura had a bias against strange men grabbing them.
Actually, all women had a bias against strange men grabbing them.
Dissatisfied with his failure to act, the inner beast simmered beneath the surface of his human body. The creature standing before Rosalia now was both Xavier and not Xavier, a suit. A costume. Moments like this made him feel like a dragon masquerading as a man, though they were two halves of a whole, always fighting for dominance over the other aspect. Looking at Rosalia, however, definitely made him feel more man than beast.
Rosalia paused by the hanging wall clocks with the exposed gears and tiny, mechanical birds designed to sing a different melody at the start of each hour.
At precisely noon—the city clock tower tolled two minutes early, a fact which bothered him to no end which led him to write city hall twice over the matter—the small doors popped open and the gilded clockwork canary bounced out upon her perch. She trilled twelve lovely notes and returned to her home, leaving the girl mystified. She stared and clutched her coin purse.
“This is beautiful.” A price card hung from a thin cord dangling from the edge of the clock. She raised it, saw the price, and her face fell.
And he’d never wanted more to give away one of his inventions for free.
Cool it, his inner voice of reason warned. The human side of him begged caution. It wasn’t like him to lose it over a pretty face, but then again, he’d also never met another magical creature inside of Enimura. The standard fare of humans, elven dignitaries, and occasional half-elven servant made up the city’s population.
Her soul burned like fire, all the explanation he needed for why he’d become enraptured by her. Meanwhile, Xavier’s draconic half urged him to do a number of wicked things to her body, and indecision warred within him, his cock awakening after close to a decade of voluntary celibacy.
Choosing to behave like a gentleman instead of scaring her off, he tamped down his desire and focused on her gorgeous face instead. He didn’t like the expression there.
Following gut instinct, Xavier blurted out, “That card isn’t correct. It’s been reduced to clear and make room for future stock.”
The light returned to her eyes again. “Really?”
He grinned. “Really. I have a bad habit of building more creations than I have space to display, and that marvel has been on the shelf far too long.”
After setting down his tools, Xavier folded the velvet over his work to protect it. He crossed from behind the store counter and moved beside her. Her smell reminded him of wild and exotic scents found only in the most fragrant desert oasis. Floral and spicy at once, a hint of cinnamon lingered on her hair with the smoky essence of her djinn ancestors.
“How much?” she asked.
“Twenty ducats will do.”
Her dark brows raised. “Only twenty ducats? That’s a deep discount.”
He shook his head. “If it didn’t sell, I’d planned to disassemble it to create something new. Most people are discouraged once they find out the bird isn’t actual gold.”
“It isn’t?” Her smile didn’t fade, and the twinkle in her eyes remained undimmed. She didn’t care.
“It’s solarite.” He lifted the clock from the wall and took it to the window. Winding the clock back to noon allowed the canary to pop out again, but with the sunbeams shining over it, the bird lit with an inner glow as if it contained its own light source.
Her eyes widened. “It’s like magic.”
“It is,” he agreed. “It’s actually a magical component used to augment the potency of spells.”
“I thought for sure it was gold because of how it shined...” She sighed.
“All that glitters isn’t gold. It’s a common misconception among many of my customers when they come into the store.” He shrugged it off and took the clock to an empty space on the counter. “If you don’t mind waiting a day, there’s some adjustments I’d like to make to the mechanics. You can return tomorrow, or I can deliver it.”
He could have made the adjustment in five minutes and had the thief-deterrent system out in less. But he wanted an excuse to see her again, a reason to cross paths one more time.
“Sure. I, um...” She nibbled her lower lip. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Great. What’s your name?” Xavier asked, despite discovering it at the theater. He took out a card, dipped a pen into the inkwell, and glanced up at her.
She smiled back. “Rosalia. My name is Rosalia.”
“Come back for your clock tomorrow, Rosalia.”
“Thank you.”
He should have charged her a hundred ducats for the intricate piece, its mechanics and enchantments too complex for anything less.
But damn if her smile wasn’t worth every copper of the profit he’d sacrificed.
And in less than ten seconds, she’d be out the door and he’d have to wait another day to bask in her presence. “Wait a moment.”
“Yes?” She glanced over a shoulder at him, curious eyes framed by dark lashes.
“Do you have plans this evening?”
The corners of her delectable mouth raised into a slight smile. “No, I do not.”
“Would you like to make some?”
* * *
Rosalia’s heart pounded the entire walk home, and for the first time, it wasn’t because she’d had a brush with the law.
Xavier Bane had to be the most attractive and charming man in the city. Every time he’d smiled, she’d felt it right in the center of her chest, like a hammer and chisel driving it home until she couldn’t see anything beyond his handsome grin.
The skip in her step and the elation dimmed when she remembered the purpose of her stroll into the Clockwork Emporium. After all, she hadn’t entered with the intention of paying for anything. She’d gone there to get a feel for his security. Of all the clockwork shops she’d visited, his appeared to be the only one capable of harboring a supposed relic.
She’d broken into several and checked them from top to bottom. Of the many she’d burglarized, his was the final shop. All roads led to his store, and failure meant reporting an incomplete job to Hadrian. After he’d called her his best thief, she couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him.
At least she’d have a pretty clock out of the deal, if she could never bear to gaze at Xavier’s smiling face again after robbing him.
6
Luck and Serendipity
Mira’s incredulous face stared at Rosalia from across the sitting room. She worked at a table near the corner, bent over a charmed whetstone while sharpening her favorite enchanted stiletto. Bonare had gifted it to her a year ago for her birthday. Since such tools required frequent care to renew the magic imbued in the blade, Mira had made him teach her how to perform the upkeep soon after. “You’ve been asked to dinner by Xavier Bane?”
“Today when I went to case his shop, I made a purchase and... he asked if I would see him later. For dinner, that is.”
“You’re not joking?”
“No. I’m not joking. And I don’t have a bloody damned thing to wear.”
Rosalia hadn’t enjoyed a fancy dinner with a man in three years, not since Adriano was promoted in the King’s Navy and wanted to celebrate a return from his first successful voyage as an officer. There had been no more dinners or romantic nights after that. Not really. The man lived, breathed, and would die the naval life.
Mira set the dagger aside and rose, expression grave, as if she’d been asked to rob the c
ity’s bank vault instead of assisting her friend with makeup and wardrobe for a night on the town. “Then you need my help.”
“Please!”
“All right, all right. I already said I’d help you. Are you still going to complete your investigation of the Gardens tonight?”
Rosalia rolled her eyes. “Yes. For the love of the gods, we have lives outside of our work.”
Mira raised a brow. “Says the overachiever who is always stealing, always nicking things if they’re not nailed down. You have a life outside of work?”
Bristling with mild irritation, and a little embarrassment, Rosalia stormed by her. “Maybe it’s damned time for me to get one. Maybe I spend far too much time making a name for myself and taking contracts from Hadrian instead of living as I should. I’ve had a dozen or more suitors approach me at the theater, but this is the first time I’ve been intrigued in return.”
“Because no man is ever good enough for you,” Mira spat out. “Even Adriano wasn’t enough, and he’s a decorated officer.”
Rosalia whirled. For a moment, she could only stare. How long had her friend been holding that in? “You’re one to talk. You have a senior mage! You didn’t settle for a sailor, fisherman, or even a merchant with nothing in common with you. You reached for the stars and found a man who is absolutely perfect for you in every way, a man who supports what you love and does whatever he can to help you. For the love of the gods, Adriano wants me to become a simple little wife waiting for him to return ashore—Bonare makes you gadgets to steal with!” In hindsight, looking back at Mira’s assortment of gear, Rosalia decided he wasn’t such a cheap ass after all.
And maybe she did envy Mira just a little.
Determined to style her own hair and prepare for her evening out, Rosalia strode to her room and sat at the vanity table. After dragging the brush through her hair a few times, Mira appeared and pried it from her white-knuckled grip to take over.
All That Glitters: A Daughter of Fortune, Book 1 Page 4