Nearing the landing with the enchanted lantern had an unexpected, opposite effect on her cloak. The shadows gathered around her, and the light dimmed. She lingered for a second, fascinated by the way it muffed the alchemical device.
“I told you.”
Smug bastard. She ignored his little voice, even if she wanted to grab him from within her hood and kiss his scaled face over and over. When she resumed her path to the ground floor, the building’s acoustics carried voices to her from below. The low murmur grew in volume, then three men appeared, bringing with them the scent of smoke and sweat. Panic beat behind her breast with the force of a dozen galloping horses. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
“Down, quickly,” Xavier hissed in her ear. “Become as small as you can.”
Rosalia dropped into a low crouch and tucked her body into the fetal position with the cloak thrown over her. It was cool beneath it. Somehow, the double layers of fabric didn’t dim her sight beyond its black silk.
“Can’t believe a dragon is in Saudonia. How long do you think it will take before the hunters locate and slay it?”
“Days perhaps. Once the hunters arrive and get on the trail, its days will be numbered. I heard the king hired the best.”
“Yeah?”
The conversation came upon her, growing louder as both men passed her on the stairwell, blind to her presence. Their voices trailed and grew softer when they reached the top of the stairs. Seconds later, they were gone, leaving only her and Xavier behind.
“They’re looking for you.”
“Yeah, best of luck to them. I’m not a common dragon, and I’m not foolish enough to be found where they’ll search for me.”
“Later, you’ll have to explain the damned difference between your different breeds.”
The staircase let out into a short corridor beside the office of the city watch—a big room with three desks often manned by bored men who sometimes alternated between taking bribes and occasionally promising some poor citizen they’d send an officer to investigate the alleged crime.
Of course, all watchmen weren’t bad or corrupt. There were just as many who weren’t on the take, good men and women who actually did their jobs and forced the leaders of the complicated guild system to work. In those cases, when an unfortunate thief went before the magistrate, they received a swat on the wrist for their misbehavior.
“There.” The warmth of his whisper skimmed her cheek. “Enter the door behind the watch sergeant’s desk.”
She snuck past the lone watchman and infiltrated the dungeon with ease, thanking her lucky stars the sergeant had been upstairs running his mouth. The smell of mildew and wet stone filled the air from a recent rain. They’d had plenty of it, and a steady drip echoed from some distant location.
Keeping to the shadows, Rosalia avoided a patrolling jailer and took Xavier’s directions to the warden’s office. Two levels of cells and twisting passages created Enimura’s jail, though most were empty because the people, as well as their kingdom’s new monarch, preferred a good hanging over letting anyone serve out their time.
So much had changed under the rule of the new king. His father would have never allowed such a perversion of justice to occur. They may have been thieves, but they served a purpose in the greater scheme of life, and their activity had always been monitored.
The warden’s office was near the entrance of the jail, only one passage over from the stairway. She breathed a sigh of relief and ducked inside the unlocked room, so thankful she could have cried.
A single window was behind the messy desk, a rectangular, two-foot-long opening near the ceiling revealing the lantern-lit city streets outside and the fat, silver moon in the bleak sky. Beneath the window and tucked beside a bookshelf, she saw a sturdy wooden chest.
Rosalia removed the pickset she’d foraged from Xavier’s equipment room and frowned at the pieces. They were superior to her old tools in every way, feeling light and comfortable in her hand. She wiggled them into the lock and finagled the pins with ease. Lifting the lid away revealed a bundle of leathers and several purses she hadn’t taken. Rosalia ran her fingers over a few of the pouches until she found familiar gold stitches and embroidered coins against red velvet. It had belonged to Lupos Voss, a pickpocket gang leader known for operating in Gold Valley.
Voss’s purse wasn’t the only familiar item. Seeing red, she considered pocketing them all, but her bottomless bag was missing. Someone else must have taken it, or the warden had sold it.
Or they’d divided up some of the goods taken from the captive thieves and there were guards all over the city equipped with their possessions. She took the purse and a few other recognizable items then unfolded the soft leathers. They still smelled like the dumpster, although the stale and musty odor of the trunk clung to them too. She grimaced. Despite that one temporary flaw, it was like reuniting with an old friend.
Xavier jumped down from her neck to the edge of the chest lid. “Fondle your belongings later.”
She shot him a dirty look. “Fine.” He was right, and she’d have plenty of time later to marvel over those beloved pieces of her gear. After a brief accounting for each item, she stuffed the bundle into her pack.
Beneath some of the other confiscated goods, she found her weapon belt and favorite dagger along with Mira’s gloves. After fastening the belt around her waist, she moved toward the door.
“Unfortunately,” a man’s deep voice spilled into the room from the hall, “the spymaster general doesn’t see it that way and blames us for the few thieving cockroaches who got themselves killed. Shouldn’t have put up the fight they did, and they wouldn’t have got done in during the raids.”
Rosalia slid beneath the captain’s desk and squeezed her body into the tiny space.
“There’s nothing to be done about it now. He wasn’t in the streets with us conducting the operation, Captain. We did our best with short notice,” a second man muttered. The footsteps came closer and halted nearby. She held her breath. “Strange man, that wizard.”
“All wizards are a strange, devious lot. Anyway, the king and his people have gotten what they wanted out of it. The gangs are scattered to the winds, and anyone who isn’t dead or bound for Heridia has already fled the city.”
Heridia? The breath caught in her throat. Rosalia squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her fists. No one returned from Heridia. While on occasion, a criminal was released from the Royal Prison after repaying their debt, the inmates shipped to the colony never saw freedom again. They were shackled and confined to a destitute life of working the sugar plantations of Heridia Island instead.
“Not so many are able to flee the city now that we’ve finally caught those bloody smugglers. That’ll be the end of their business and the start to a clean Enimura. When’s that boat leave with the survivors, sir?”
They’d caught the Saladin clan too? Rosalia bit her knuckles and suppressed a shudder, aware of Xavier’s warm body against her throat. He touched the pads of his claws against her cheek in an unspoken warning—or a gesture of comfort.
“Two nights from now. There. I think those are the papers the warden required for the exchange.”
The conversation drifted to another topic while one rummaged through a stack of papers on the desk. She listened to them discuss drinks at the Switch and Tap, and then the men drifted from the room.
“At least you’ve learned more about your friends,” Xavier said. He was right against her ear, filling her hood again with the scent of wood and forest.
“Barely enough information.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. A few minutes ago, you had no information at all. And now, you’re armed with the most valuable weapon of all—knowledge.”
17
Gifts and Magic
After cleaning and oiling her preferred leathers, Rosalia perched on the edge of a chair in the sitting room and polished Xavier’s exotic anellan with shade dust until the metallic gleam faded to a gentle matte black. W
hile pretty, it shone too bright, and the best weapons were the ones a mark never saw coming.
Not that she would know, since she’d never killed anyone in all her life. Wounding a man in self-defense was one thing, but taking another life... Rosalia wasn’t sure if she could do it.
And yet Xavier claimed her mother had been Queen Morwen’s personal assassin.
Why hadn’t Hadrian and Lacherra told her? Had they even known at all? With each discovery she made, more questions arose.
As she completed her work, Xavier stepped into the sitting parlor and set a sturdy pair of leather bracers in front of her wrapped with a loose layer of linen. A few gears shone bronze in the lantern light.
“What are these?”
A grin spread over his face, revealing several of his white teeth. She’d never noticed before how a few of them appeared a little more pronounced than others. “An invention. These are a couple things I made some time ago when I didn’t specialize in clocks and engines. They were a commission for an eccentric elven lord who believed there were spies sent from Nairubia to steal into his residence and learn his secrets.”
“And why doesn’t he have it?”
Xavier’s strong, articulate fingers took her by the wrist, and then he fastened the invention in place with a few buckles. He did the same for the other arm. The right one had the weight of a wrist bow and a few notches near her palm. “He had a lethal bout of paranoia with a relative shortly before I finished it.”
“Oh. Well, shit.”
He laughed. “I know. It didn’t surprise me at all.”
“What are they for?
“A number of things. A few of the functions still require some work and fiddling, but the main features are operative.” After directing her left wrist away from them, he pressed a button she hadn’t noticed on the gauntlet’s palm. A hidden blade as long as her forearm sprang out. He released the button, and the knife withdrew back inside.
Rosalia gasped. “I’ve heard of similar inventions among the elven rangers.”
“It’s a practical component of their equipment, but I’ve added a few... alterations. Come with me and you can test them in the sewers.”
Intrigued, she followed him while testing the spring-loaded blade. Shnnnk. It popped out with the speed of a bullet.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s amazing.”
He hadn’t been joking about the extensive pipelines beneath Enimura. A few of the thieves had traveled them as shortcuts, but Rosalia had never been that desperate to escape the city watch that she’d wallow through filth, even if one of the gangs called it their home.
Though she had been desperate enough to swim through filth to escape a dragon.
Where Xavier took her, the water smelled like wet stone and plant life instead of detritus and trash. A narrow catwalk spanned above them as they crossed ankle-deep water, both ends leading into dark alcoves and different areas of the underground passage.
“There. Do you see that ledge above us?” Xavier asked.
“What about it?”
“Aim at it with your right hand and push the button beneath your thumb.”
Rosalia followed his directions. Something snapped, and then she was hurtling through the air and flying toward the ledge. Her shriek echoed within the small space, but instinct took over and she grasped the ledge with both hands instead of colliding into it face-first and losing all of her teeth. As she vaulted over, the grappling hook that had dragged her to the ledge loosened from the stone.
The ride had been exhilarating and terrifying, sending her heart into a wild rhythm. She lay there for a while on her stomach until the trembling subsided, and when she glanced up, Xavier was crouched beside her with an enormous grin on his face.
“The grappling hook can penetrate most stones and grasp on to solid material. I used only the best elfsteel and added charms to increase its durability. Do you still like it?”
Rosalia considered punching him in the nose. “I’d be a fool not to,” she gritted between her teeth instead. She rolled over and sat up.
He carried on, oblivious to her irritation. “The left bracer with the blade does multiple things. Here. If you curl these two fingers, you’ll find a notch at the edge of the band. Press.”
A dart decorated with a bright purple feather hit the wall opposite them with a subtle snap.
“It’ll hold up to five darts at once and each has been laced with a powerful sedative. Reloading it on the go can be tricky—I hadn’t gotten around to perfecting the design—so I wouldn’t suggest unloading them all at once.”
Her sore mood evaporated. The desire to break his nose was replaced by a pressing need to kiss every inch of his face instead. Propriety and her own obstinacy held the desire at bay.
She would not kiss Xavier Bane, no matter how much sex appeal he oozed in the narrow space. Or how good he smelled. Or the gifts he gave her that rivaled anything Bonare had ever given Mira. Her heart hurt again for a second, a brief pang. Mira.
Mira would have envied her so much. He’d given her a blowgun, grappling hook, and an elfsteel sword in two flexible bracers, as if he’d taken measurements from her arm and molded it to the perfect dimensions.
Only a few days earlier, she’d envied Mira’s wall-climbing gloves. Now she had a gift of her own to treasure. Her vision blurred, but the tears didn’t fall. Wouldn’t fall.
“Thank you for this. It means a lot to me.”
“That isn’t all.”
“What?”
The corner of his mouth rose in another wry smile. “For my final gift to you, I present you with these.” He reached into the satchel and removed a set of goggles with multiple colored lenses. “Try them on.”
“What do they do?” Rosalia slipped them on then stumbled back from the bright orange and red glare. She saw Xavier and his footsteps as bold silhouettes. Even the rungs of the ladder had hints of fading color where he’d touched it to climb to her level.
“As a dragon, my night vision is enhanced, and few things can trick my sense of smell. This... well, it’s something I made some time ago and believe will be of use to you in the coming days. I recently made some adjustments once I realized it could come in handy during your burglarizing endeavors.”
“It’s amazing.”
“That one will allow you to see heat, which is ideal for detecting hidden dangers.”
“Or following footsteps,” she murmured.
“The lenses are also interchangeable. If you twist that knob, it’ll rotate to the next view. There’s a scope, and also a setting designed to enhance your vision in total darkness.”
She tried those next then clapped her hands with glee.
“I brought this out of my storage to help you with the rescue tonight, since it’s the only aid I’m able to give.”
“Nonsense. You can come along again in your tiny dragon form.”
When Xavier shook his head, a queasy feeling settled in her stomach. Did he really intend to send her out there alone to sneak her way aboard a ship manned by dozens of sailors? He may as well toss her into the brig with them.
“Why not?”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to accompany you, but that I’d be a liability to you. Stealth and legerdemain are not my forte. I’ll slow you down.”
“You didn’t slow me down at all last night, and you seemed pretty damned stealthy to me.”
“You don’t understand, Rosalia. I can’t help you because... I can’t transform. Not tonight.”
“What? What do you mean you can’t transform?” She struggled to control her voice, but it cracked and rose with her growing panic.
“I can’t transform,” Xavier repeated. He raised his face to a grate above them and the thin slashes of starlit sky visible through it. She barely saw the silhouette of the new moon. “Three nights each moon cycle, I’m helpless. I can’t transform. I can’t become a dragon. I’m only a man.”
Studying his grim expression confirmed his w
ords as truth. Her hopes sank, a tight fist closing an iron grip around her heart.
During the day, her cohort had wandered down to the docks to follow up on a maintenance call to some rich baron’s yacht. While there, he’d picked up tasty bits of gossip for her and determined which naval ship was soon to set sail.
The surviving thieves in captivity had to be aboard the Noble Sword, as it was the only military ship due to leave. Unfortunately, it was also a highly guarded military vessel with roving guards and alert sailors on every deck.
“Then they’re doomed. Gregarus will have them on a ship to Heridia by dawn, and I’ll never see any of them again. I failed them all.”
“That isn’t true. With some planning, we can still rescue your friends.”
“How? I’ve never been aboard a naval ship, and I can’t fight my way through a few dozen sailors. If I can’t safely get on the ship, how can I get anyone off with me without getting all of us killed?”
Xavier stroked his chin. “I’ve worked on a number of the new naval cruisers. The Noble Sword is definitely a new ship.”
A flicker of hope welled in her chest. “And many of the new ships are identical in design. Are you able to draw a map?”
“Of course.”
They returned to the hoard and entered his study where Xavier sketched out what he remembered of the ship’s interior. “The main deck is where you’ll come in. There’s no other way to access the rest of the ship, you see. And the brig is down below in the deepest part of the ship. It’ll be here, aft of the armory.”
“What the hell is aft?”
He sketched another room. “Behind. About here. I only recall as much because I’d been curious about the differences between a Saudonian naval ship and an Ilyrian naval ship. One of the sailors enjoyed watching me repair the engine and gave me a tour. There were two of them armed here in the cargo deck on the lowest level of the ship’s belly.” He drew an X over the armory. “Above that, there’s the gun deck and berth where the sailors rest when they’re off duty.”
All That Glitters: A Daughter of Fortune, Book 1 Page 14