“Great. Good night.”
Todd tapped on the door, it opened from the outside, and my affable jailer waltzed out. The men stationed in the hall didn’t bother to look in or give me an evil glare or anything else villainous before one of them shut the door and locked it again.
I snatched the mirror out from under the bed. “I assume you heard all that.”
“Yes. Please tell him you want sex, and please let me watch. He sounds
divine
.
”
I held the shard up in front of the other mirror. “Concentrate.”
“Oh, you’re no fun.”
I didn’t want to be fun; I wanted to get free. “Show me what’s going on in this damn house. And while you’re at it, yell at Mick. I need to find him.”
“Well, which do you want first, sugar? I’m not powerful enough to do both. Especially since Micky
hates
to pull me out of his pocket. I like it in there, as I said, but I can never see him.”
“Show me the house, first.” I’d have more information to impart to Mick if I did reconnaissance, and besides, Mick might have tossed away his mirror shard. The look in his eyes when he’d left us on the highway had been bleak and empty.
“Got something,” the mirror said. “Oh, nice.”
The big mirror clouded as though shower steam coated it. Then it cleared, showing me a picture of a bathroom. Todd had just opened his pants to take a leak and preen himself in the mirror at the same time.
“Something a little more important,” I said in irritation.
“Can’t help it, sweetie. I’m fixing on him because he was in here, and he’s easiest to follow. He’ll go somewhere else in a minute.”
Todd took his time at the toilet; then he moved to wash his hands and preen some more. He didn’t look self-absorbed, just anxious to present the best possible picture to the world when he left the bathroom again.
Finally, after he’d combed his hair, anxiously scrutinized it, and combed it again, Todd left the room. The image of the bathroom dissolved, and I caught a glimpse of Todd striding down a long, tiled hall. I guessed I was looking at the corridor from an ornamental mirror on the wall.
“He’s out of range,” the mirror said. “Want me to keep following him?”
“Stay here for a while. Let’s see if we can see someone else.”
We waited for the longest time while the hall remained boringly empty. I ducked into the bathroom after twenty minutes and washed my face, hands, and arms clean of blood, but I refused to discard my clothes.
To give myself something to do I took a few bites of the food Todd had left. It was lukewarm now but quite good as promised. I liked mole, which was a smooth sauce of chiles and unsweetened chocolate, with various vegetables and other ingredients, depending on what the cook had handy. This one had the bite of hazelnuts in it. I wondered if the chef was also like Todd, working here for high pay but knowing he or she was expendable.
I didn’t have the appetite or the time to appreciate the food. After my second bite, the mirror said, “Who’s that?”
I glanced at the mirror and let my fork clatter to the plate. The dragon flunky was striding down the hall away from us, his leather duster moving, his ponytail in place.
“Him,” I said. “Focus on him.” I moved to the mirror to watch the flunky disappear around the corner. “Follow him!”
“All right, keep your pants on. Or not, if you’re wearing that cute little black satin number.”
I didn’t bother to tell the mirror to shut up. It never listened anyway.
The big mirror clouded again, and when it cleared I saw the flunky entering a long, dark room. The end was lit by a fireplace—no, it was the cocoon of fire the flunky had wrapped around the councilman. So he’d made it here.
The room was dark, the windows high in the ceiling and covered with wooden shutters. The only light came from the fiery cocoon.
Another man, a dragon, stepped from the shadows beside it. He was as tall as the councilman, tattoos covering his neck and reaching up to his cheekbones. “Draconilingius,” he said.
The word appeared to be the flunky’s name, because he stopped and bowed. “Sir.”
“The Stormwalker did this, didn’t she?” the new dragon said. His voice was deep like the councilman’s, though a little more gravelly.
“No, sir. Another creature did. He looked human, but he stank of powerful magic.”
“In league with her, then.”
“I’m not certain,” Draconil—whatever his name was said. I’d have to call him Drake. “She joined in the attempt to fight him off.”
“If he had any Beneath magic, then she was the cause of it. She should be killed now. Where is she?”
Drake hesitated. He glanced at the fire as though asking for guidance from the flames. “I don’t know, sir. We lost her in the darkness.”
I sat back in surprise. Drake must know I was here, must have been the one to give the order for me to be brought here. Why was he lying?
The other dragon snarled. “Find her. I don’t give a damn if she is Micalerianicum’s mate; she’s not a dragon. I want her obliterated. End of problem.”
Drake bowed again, his entire body deferential. “Yes, sir. Will you be staying here, sir? I can have accommodation readied for you.”
“No, I have a mate to return to. I’ll see you at the trial.”
The flunky looked startled. “That’s still going through? Even though...” He glanced again at the cocoon of fire.
“You assured me he’d recover. We’ll elect another to the council if we have to, but I hope that it won’t be necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
The second dragon turned away and strode off into darkness without saying good-bye. I heard a door clang, and I wondered if it opened right out into the cliffs. Dragons wouldn’t need to worry about sheer drops.
The flunky, Drake, turned away from his master and stared directly into the mirror. His eyes met mine, although I knew there was no way he could see me. Drake’s face set, and he strode past the mirror on his way out the door.
“He sensed you,” I said.
“I can’t help that. He’s magical and very powerful.” The mirror hummed. “And cute.”
The lock rattled again, and the door swung open. The two men with guns pointed their weapons at me. One wore an earpiece, through which Drake downstairs could easily give him orders.
“You are to come with me,” he said.
I dropped the mirror shard onto the bed. “Keep trying to find Mick,” I whispered to it, covering by pretending to straighten my shirt.
I followed the earpiece guy down the staircase, fully aware of the other man with an equally large gun coming behind me. We went through another hall to a large dining room. A wide wooden table with heavily carved legs ran the length of it, surrounded by equally heavily carved chairs. The table was bare.
Drake the flunky stood at one end of the room, waiting. The men with rifles walked me to him, then closed in behind me while I faced him.
Drake looked unhappy. Lines tightened around his black eyes, strands of hair had come out of his ponytail, and his breathing was uneven. He folded his arms, closing himself off to me while he scrutinized me.
“Stormwalker,” he said. “Is His Honor right? Should I just obliterate you while I have the chance?”
“No,” I said, trying for a confidence I was far from feeling. “Because I’m the only one who can save your master. Will you let me try?”
Nineteen
Drake’s mouth tightened, but his eyes took on uncertainty. “Let you near my master with your hell-magic? What sort of fool do you think I am? What is to stop you from killing him, and me, and everyone else in this place?”
“He’s still alive, then?” I hadn’t been able to tell.
“Only just.”
“I can heal him.” I didn’t know how I knew that. But I could—if I could channel the Beneath magic, and if it would wake up and answer my bidding. “If you don’t let me, he will die. Not great choices, I know.”
“You are asking me to trust you.”
“Yeah, I am.”
Drake watched me a moment. “Why?”
“Why didn’t you tell the other dragon I was here?” I hoped the hired men behind me were loyal to Drake and wouldn’t rush off and blab to the other dragon about me the moment they left the room.
Drake didn’t seem concerned. “You are my responsibility. My councilman wanted to see you before the trial, apart from the others. He wants to assess the situation for himself. The others now know he was hurt, but not how it happened or why you were near. It is his wish.”
“Then honor his wish. Let me try, at least. You know he’ll die otherwise, don’t you?”
“We have healers...”
“I’ve learned things about dragons living with Mick,” I interrupted. “Shifting to dragon helps you heal from human-induced wounds—gunshots, for instance. Magically induced wounds are different. Dragon healers are powerful, Mick tells me, but they’re earth-magic creatures. The person who did this has magic given to him by a god. I think. I do too.”
Drake looked anguished, poor guy. He didn’t trust me an inch, but I could see that he desperately wanted to save his master. Finally he jerked a nod at me and gestured the gunmen to lead me out.
The room he took me to deep in the bowels of the complex was the size of a small hangar. The room was furnished for comfort, I could see, but was also a big enough to house a full-sized dragon if necessary. A tight fit, if I went by Mick’s size, but a dragon could shift here.
I looked into the big mirror that hung near the door. “Ready?” I asked it.
Dimly, as though from a radio playing in another room, came my magic mirror’s voice. “Ready anytime you are, girlfriend.”
A muscle moved on Drake’s jaw. “They should have searched you better.”
“That’s what happens when you employ humans,” I said. “They don’t know a magical implement from a piece of glass.”
His eyes glittered. “They should have confiscated everything.”
“Should have, but didn’t. Good thing. My knowledge and my connection to the mirror can help you.”
“They had better.”
I had no doubt that Drake would order his men to open fire on me the minute I did anything wrong. Sweat trickled down my back, and my hands ached from me clenching them so hard. I was all bluff, and I knew it.
The heat increased as I approached the living flame at the end of the big room. I’d never seen anything like this. Mick might be able to explain what was happening beneath the fiery casing, maybe even tell me what to do. Drake stood silently, watching me like the menace he was.
I asked the mirror, “Did you find him yet?”
“No, honey. Sorry. He likes to play hard to get.”
“If something happens to me here, I bequeath you to Cassandra.”
Magic mirrors could be owned by one mage at a time—two in our case, because Mick and I had wakened it together. When a mage left a mirror to another mage upon his or her death, the mirror automatically obeyed the inheritor, no matter what other magical creature was lying in wait to enslave it. Bequeathing it to Cassandra meant that Drake couldn’t grab the shard and start using it the minute I was dead.
“Cassandra hates me,” the mirror complained.
“She has strong earth magics, and she’ll take care of you. And you’ll still be loyal to Mick.”
“If I can ever find his sweet ass.”
I turned to Drake, who’d been watching me narrowly. “Do you have any sage, or incense? Sticks are better in this case.”
“That’s witch magic.”
“Can you stop being all superior-race for five minutes and see if you have any?”
Drake looked annoyed, but he picked up an earpiece, put it on, and gave orders. I imagined Todd scrambling around the kitchen searching for sage. I wondered if he even knew what it looked like.
While we waited, I closed my eyes and tried to still my mind, but that was a waste of time. My thoughts couldn’t settle. Coyote would know that I’d called on the Beneath magic—he always did. In fact, I was surprised he wasn’t already here, ready to stop me.
But if I didn’t try to save the dragon councilman’s life, the dragons would certainly kill me. Todd might have been told that the councilman had brought me here to talk, but Drake had murder in his eyes. He’d sent away the other dragon, yes, but probably because he wanted first dibs on ripping me apart.
The incense sticks came at last, brought not by Todd but by a young woman. She was blond and as beautiful in the feminine way as Todd was in the masculine. I assumed her job was to wait on the male guests. She handed Drake a box of incense sticks, gave him a quick bow, and left the room. She never once looked at me or showed any interest. Her gaze had been only for Drake.
I held up three sticks of incense and asked Drake to light them. He did so with a flick of dragon fire, though I could tell he was irritated at my request. I propped the sticks in a copper bowl on one of the tables, and he looked even more irritated. Likely the bowl was a priceless antique.