The Witch Thief (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Lori Devoti

  Back beside Amma, he pulled a cloth-wrapped cup from inside. He held out both hands, one containing the cup, the other empty…asking for the flask.

  She slipped the bottle of blood into his hand and grabbed the cloth-wrapped chalice. He held the flask to his chest, watching her as she unwrapped the cup and ran her fingers over its embossed and jeweled sides. It was exactly as she remembered it.

  She blew out a breath; a tiny puff of smoke came with it. She pressed her lips together and glanced at the dwarf. He was frowning, but looked only confused…as if he knew something odd had happened, but wasn’t sure what. She opened the cloth that had been wrapped around the cup, flicking it in the air to move any lingering smoke out of their space. Then happy Fafnir had kept the lights dim, she made a production of rewrapping the chalice.

  “So, we are both satisfied?” she asked once the chalice was rewrapped.

  He smiled. “Very.”

  She nodded and glanced at the door.

  “Here.” He held out the bag. “You don’t want to drop it, or draw attention to it.”

  She hesitated, but he was right. She hadn’t thought to bring a bag of her own and the chalice was too big to hide under her shirt. With Fafnir holding the bag open, she carefully placed the cup inside. He closed the bag, but as he did, he dropped the flask. With a curse, he dropped to his knees and fumbled around the floor. He seemed to find it under his desk. The bag looped over one wrist, he stood and held the flask to the light, flipped it over and over, analyzing it from all sides.

  Amma waited, her fingers pressing into her thighs. “Damaged or not, I delivered it to you. I’m not responsible for what happens to the negotiated item after it’s delivered into the other party’s hands. The Collector knows that.”

  Fafnir raised his top lip. “He isn’t here.”

  Amma took a step, but the dwarf stopped her by holding out the bag. “However, it seems fine. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Perhaps I’ll add your name to my list of acquirers. Do you spend much time with dragons?”

  The bag’s handles securely slipped over her shoulder, Amma cocked a brow. “I’m not looking for employment.”

  Fafnir shrugged and gestured to the door. “Been a pleasure. Get yourself down.”

  As she walked to the door, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She glanced back over her shoulder. The dwarf hadn’t moved. In fact his attention, directed at her, could only be called rapt. She pulled the canvas bag more closely against her body and allowed her magic some freedom, until she was like a gun with a hair trigger. The slightest provocation and she wouldn’t have to think, power would simply spill out of her.

  Slowly, she turned the knob—expecting with each second that some trap would be sprung, but it wasn’t. She walked through the doorway and onto the ledge that overlooked the bar without incidence.

  Once there, though, things got dicey.

  Chapter 22

  Joarr brushed past the dwarf manning the club’s door. He was done pretending. Let the dwarf challenge him, let the humans see how a dragon handled anyone getting between them and their treasure.

  The dwarf didn’t complain, but many of the humans did, yelling after him as he strode into the club and down the narrow basement hall. By the time he reached the stairs, he’d left their complaints behind, and a new noise, louder and more violent, caught his attention. It was coming from the main bar. He flew up the steps, barely bothering to dodge the humans flowing in the opposite direction—toward the exit.

  The club was filled with dwarves, at least fifty of them. Some were dressed in the same dark clothing as the dwarves who had attacked Joarr outside the portal; others were dressed more traditionally in what appeared to be rough handwoven shirts and pants. And then there was the pirate. Dressed in red and purple, he stood on a board that hung in the center of the room…halfway between the bottom and top floors. In his hand was a saber, as long as he was tall, and on his head was a tricorn hat decorated with a peacock’s feather. He slashed his blade to the side and yelled something Joarr couldn’t make out. He seemed to be demanding something from a figure that stood on one of the overhangs above.

  Joarr followed his gaze and stiffened.

  Amma stood on the top overhang, her gaze dancing around her like a trapped rabbit. She clung to a canvas bag that was slipped over one of her shoulders.

  The pirate yelled out an order. Boards dropped from the ceiling and dwarves clambered onto them. The small males clung to the ropes, like monkeys, or like pirates themselves. A few even held knives gripped in their teeth, the rest staying more conventional with the dwarves’ preferred weapon, an ax, in their free hand. All of them, though, were rising on their boards at breakneck speeds.

  Despite the obviously slanted battle, Amma looked cool. She stood, her hand outstretched, but no magic leaving her palms…waiting.

  She was waiting for them to be within range, Joarr realized, before she attacked.

  He stood frozen, not sure what to do—whose side to fight on. Amma, who had drugged him and—he placed his palm over the crook of his elbow—stolen from him, again? Or the dwarves?

  Not the dwarves. No matter what issues he had with Amma, the dwarves’ cause was not his.

  He should, he knew, help neither. Leave the two sets of villains to battle each other, wait for the weakest to fail and then, when the victor was still tired, attack.

  But…he looked at Amma. Her hair lifted as if there was a wind up above, but he knew it wasn’t wind—it was magic, her magic so strong her body vibrated with it and her hair came alive.

  He had shared that magic—she had shared it with him.

  And despite what she had done, despite the fact that even if she could explain her latest betrayal they could never be together, he loved her.

  With that thought blazing inside him, he shifted.

  * * *

  The Collector was waiting for Amma when she stepped out of Fafnir’s office. The Collector and forty or so armed dwarves.

  He hadn’t changed much since Amma had last seen him one hundred years earlier.

  He stood with his feet braced on a board only wide enough for one dwarf. It hung from two thick chains—metal rather than rope and thicker than what held any of the other boards. It made his board more stable, less erratic in its movements. In his right hand he held a saber as long as his body. He waved it in the air in a way that could be taken as threat or greeting.

  She raised her hands, made it clear she was ready to fight her way out if necessary. But she didn’t fire. Despite the dwarves winging their way on boards toward her and the Collector with his blade, none had actually made an attempt to harm her yet. Besides, they would be easier to hit once they were closer. Aim well and shoot once.

  She pretended not to notice any of them for a moment; instead she focused on the Collector. If she was going for accuracy, he was out of range, too, but barely. In fact she suspected the old dwarf knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly where her magic would lose its precision. What he didn’t know, however, was that her magic had changed since being with Joarr, since carrying his baby. Power was inside her now, bubbling like lava.

  It was stronger; she was stronger. And the Collector had no way of knowing. She put the thought to the side, concentrated instead on studying her adversary.

  Physically he was average-looking for a dwarf. Short by human standards, medium height by dwarf. His chin was clean-shaven and his gray, shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a queue. The only thing that made him stand out was his clothing.

  Tonight, like the last time Amma had met with him, he was wearing an odd assortment from what appeared to be a variety of times and places. His purple silk pants came only to his knees and his fringed shirt was made of buckskin. On his feet were modern human sneakers—the kind Amma had seen athletes hawking on TV. His frock coat was bright red and his tricorn hat sported a curling peacock feather. All in all he was painful to look at.

  As his board rose, his
gaze locked onto Amma. He waved his hand for his board to be stilled. As it did, he thrust his saber into the wood and plopped down like a child sitting on a swing.

  “Amma. You’ve returned. Back for new information? Have you something to trade?” His eyes glittered and even from this distance she could feel his gaze roaming her body. From someone else this might have felt like an invasion, but from the Collector it felt exactly like what it was…an inventory.

  His eyes were riveted on her bag. “You aren’t taking something from my club, are you? Sneaking something out?”

  She kept her grip on the bag loose. “Nothing I don’t have rights to,” she replied.

  “And what, sweet little orphan, could that be?” He moved his hand so it was next to the saber. Then swung his legs back and forth, causing his board to sway.

  “Your son and I made a bargain,” she replied.

  “My son? Not Regin—he has too much sense to be making trades without me. So, you must mean Fafnir.” Under his hat, his eyebrows lifted. “Fafnir is a fool, and anyone who does business with him is one, too.”

  Amma shook her wrist, causing the bracelet Joarr had taken from the frozen Svartalfar to jingle.

  The sound seemed to transfix the dwarf. He held out his hand. “You lied—you do have something.”

  Not understanding what he was referring to, she hesitated, but the dwarf was already swinging his board toward her. Then his saber in one hand, he launched himself. Amma stepped back. As she did, the other dwarves still on their boards began to shout.

  From her new position she couldn’t see what was going on below her, but she could hear what the dwarves were yelling. “Dragon.”

  The Collector landed solidly on both feet in front of her. He spun and stared down. Then his saber held out in front of him he stalked toward Amma. “A dragon. In my club. Did you bring him here? Is he the same who was here the other night, while I was away?” He took another step, jabbed his sword forward. “If you think to steal my treasure, think otherwise. It’s well protected—too protected for even a dragon to steal.”

  Suddenly, the cup seemed heavier. Suddenly, there was no doubt that the Collector hadn’t authorized Fafnir to give it to her. In fact she suspected the entire thing was a setup. He’d got his blood then turned her out, knowing his father and his army of dwarves would be waiting.

  But he hadn’t counted on her being as strong as she was.

  A roar sounded below them. The temperature in the bar soared. Within seconds the dwarf standing menacingly in front of her was dripping with sweat.

  Amma smiled. Most definitely they hadn’t counted on Joarr.

  Behind the dwarf, the dragon rose into view. There were gashes over his body. Dwarf-forged iron could do that, when no other metal could—slice through dragon scales. But he still was strong. He flapped his wings, holding his position in midair as if he were putting out no more effort than it would take to stroll across a meadow. He roared again; fire shot from his throat.

  The Collector pivoted, his blade held up like a shield. Joarr’s fire hit it and splattered, like water hitting a wall.

  That, Amma realized, was no regular saber, not even just a dwarf-forged saber.

  Which, of course, made sense. He was the Collector. She had brought him the chalice. How many other beings had brought him things? What kind of riches and weapons did the dwarf have access to?

  With a laugh, he reached for his hat and pulled some kind of disk from its brim. Still holding the saber to block Joarr, he tossed the disc at the dragon.

  Joarr, lost in his fire, couldn’t see it. He wouldn’t realize what resources the dwarf had at his fingertips.

  Amma screamed, yelling at Joarr, telling him to drop. At the same time she unleashed her magic. It flowed from her strong and hot—fire just like what had shot from Joarr’s throat. Not magic, fire…dragon fire.

  Amma could hide it no longer; somehow, she was becoming a dragon.

  She saw the flicker in Joarr’s eyes, knew he had not only heard her scream, but read her thoughts. He folded his wings into his body and dropped like a stone out of sight.

  Amma screamed again and raced to the edge. One story below, the dragon hovered, his head turned up to stare at her. And despite all her work, all her time worrying about keeping her secret, she thought about it, imagined her child grown and looking like Joarr. Saw the baby, then the boy, then the man. Cried at the thought of losing him.

  And Joarr heard it all.

  She staggered backward under the weight of what she had done.

  She had lost. She reached for the bag, ready to turn and admit defeat, but as the weight pulled at her shoulder she realized all wasn’t lost yet. Joarr had made the deal. Knowing her secret didn’t change that. She held the key to keeping her baby.

  She jerked the bag from her body and flung it over the edge, toward the dragon. “Our deal. My part is complete. In exchange, I want this.” She placed her hands on her stomach. “I want your son.” Her voice cracked.

  Chapter 23

  Joarr couldn’t believe what he’d heard, what he’d learned from listening to Amma’s thoughts. A son. His son. She was pregnant. And she thought that explained the fire and the smoke coming from inside her. That was why she’d allowed herself to think of her son now while Joarr was in his dragon form and able to read her thoughts—she thought by attacking the Collector with fire instead of magic, her secret, that she was carrying his child, had been revealed.

  But it hadn’t. There was still another secret, one she didn’t know herself, but Joarr suspected the Collector did.

  He flapped his wings, ready to soar back up and tell her. Then she threw the bag and yelled what she wanted.

  His heart plummeted. He was thinking of her, of them, and she…she was only thinking of their deal, of taking his son.

  A ploy…her sharing her magic, standing with him as he burned the dead dragon’s body…everything they had been through together had all been a ploy to trick him into giving up what she knew would be the most precious treasure he could ever hope to find.

  The canvas bag tumbled toward him. He stared at it for a second, not caring if it smashed onto the floor below, not caring about anything. Then his sense returned. He needed the chalice; the dragons needed the chalice, or thought they did, and it was his duty to retrieve it. He shot toward the bag and caught it on his back; the handles looped over one of the ridges that defined his backbone.

  Then he stared up at Amma. She was farther away now, but he could still read her thoughts if he chose…but he didn’t. The last, what she’d done, how she had tossed the bag…had hurt too much.

  Betrayal from the woman he loved. Nothing had ever hurt this badly.

  He lowered his wings and glided back to the floor. Once there he started to shift; he had the image of his human form in his mind. But suddenly, he snapped. Rage roared through him, crackled through his soul like fire devouring dry wood.

  The chalice wasn’t enough. Dragons had died, and he had been betrayed. He wouldn’t leave things like this, wouldn’t fold in his wings and walk away leaving behind those who had hurt him and the other dragons safe and untouched.

  He would destroy everything.

  He released his magic—all of it, his own and what he had gained from melding with Amma. He left the modified size he’d taken and let himself grow, let his body fill the club. It felt good to shift to his full form and size. He spread his wings, raised them up over his head, their tips going up past the bottom of the ledge Amma stood on.

  He could feel her, pulling in magic. There was no way for him to stop her, not while he was shifting. But he didn’t need to. She couldn’t pull enough magic to stop the rage racing through him.