Diomedes didn’t say another word until they were well clear of the castle walls. “Do you need anything else to track where Raylee’s remains are?”
Blanndynne shook her head. “Nothing except for—”
“Let me guess.” Diomedes held up his arm. “More blood?”
She grinned. “You’re the one who wants this so badly.”
“Just do it.”
“Not here,” Armannii said, glancing around the area. They had left through the servants’ corridor and out the side gate. At Armannii’s suggestion, they paused right outside the town and remained hidden behind a cluster of trees. “I know somewhere we can go.” Armannii nodded in the direction leading deeper into the Black Forest. “Not too far from here.”
“Lead the way,” Diomedes said, lowering his arm. Though it still stung, it wasn’t throbbing as much as when Blanndynne had grabbed it in the vault. He found himself grateful the genie had advised against drawing blood from his hand. She had been right; slicing that hand would’ve made using it difficult, not to mention painful.
The farther they went into the forest, the more Diomedes recognized the area. When they passed a man vomiting behind a tree, Diomedes snorted.
“A pub? Really?” Blanndynne asked, her nose turning up, though whether it was at the idea or the acrid smell, Diomedes was unsure.
“Oh, give me a break,” Armannii replied, waving his hand to dismiss her comment. “There’s a back room here, and the owner owes me a favor. It’ll be fine.”
“Let’s just hope there aren’t any people here who think you owe them a favor,” Diomedes muttered as he followed Armannii into the bar they had been in only two days before. Two heists, some prison time, and a magic genie later, it felt like a lifetime had passed.
The bar was less crowded than it had been the times they’d visited before, but Diomedes still felt the urge to pull the hood of the cloak he’d borrowed from Forrest down to hide his face. The last thing he wanted was for word to get out about his whereabouts. Royal guards would descend on the pub in minutes.
Blanndynne waited with him by the wall in the shadows while Armannii went to speak with the barkeep. A few men were gathered around one of the tables in the corner, probably gambling on some sort of card game. Diomedes was sure that if Armannii had his way, he’d start up another round of arm wrestling. It was his favorite way to cheat people out of money, especially since he rarely won at a game of cards, what with his very obvious golden tell.
Armannii whispered something to the man behind the counter. The barkeep raised a bushy eyebrow and glanced across the room at Diomedes and Blanndynne. The man was in the middle of wiping down the counters, which gleamed with spilled liquid, but he stopped to look the genie up and down. Next to Diomedes, Blanndynne scowled.
“Pig,” she said in a quiet voice. The barkeep didn’t react, indicating he hadn’t heard her; however, Armannii’s lip quirked up in response.
After a few more whispered words to the barkeep, Armannii nodded, waving Diomedes and Blanndynne over to follow him into a back room hidden behind a splattered piece of cloth hanging from a few nails in the wooden doorframe. There was a narrow hallway with crates of various bottles stacked three high on one side. Diomedes had to squeeze through sideways, following Blanndynne, who just barely fit walking normally.
“So why did he owe you the favor?” Blanndynne asked when Armannii turned left into a room littered with more boxes. An acidic smell radiated from sludge in a corner, making Diomedes’s nose twitch.
“I let his nephew beat me in a round of arm wrestling.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” Blanndynne’s voice was flat.
“The sweetest,” Diomedes said before Armannii could respond. “Now do the spell before I lose all sense of smell.”
Blanndynne nodded, wrinkling her nose too as she held out her hand for the pen. Diomedes passed it to her, along with his knife. Though the cut on his arm hadn’t had much time to heal, it did need a bit more encouragement from the blade to continue bleeding.
Hissing through his teeth, Diomedes scrunched up his nose when the cold metal met the tender inner part of his arm.
“Let’s hope we don’t need to do any more of these spells for a while,” he said when Blanndynne put the knife on a nearby shelf and stepped back.
“Here,” Armannii said, stepping toward Diomedes, who was struggling to tie the cloth bandage back around his arm with one hand. “Let me.”
“Not so tight. I’d like to keep my hand, thanks.” Diomedes flinched when Armannii gave the cloth one last tug.
“I’d fix it a lot faster if I could write a healing rune on you, but we both know that isn’t going to happen. No magic, no direct runes.” Armannii’s response had Diomedes yanking his arm out of Armannii’s hands a bit harder than he’d intended. He hid the pain on his face by turning his back to Armannii.
“Would you two be quiet? I need to focus or else this won’t work and you’ll have to figure out another way to find your ancestor’s remains.”
“None of this is what I expected when I left yesterday,” Diomedes said, his voice soft as he picked up the discarded knife, wiped it with a cloth on a nearby shelf, and stuck it back on his belt.
“It’s certainly entertaining, that’s for sure.” Armannii grinned at him, smirking when Diomedes rolled his eyes.
“Are you going to be able to do this spell?” Diomedes asked, nodding to the blood-covered pen in her hands.
“I just have to be my own master, right?” Blanndynne spoke with a smile, but her voice was hesitant.
Raising the bloody pen in front of her, Blanndynne stared at it. After a few seconds, cloudy darkness covered the whites of her eyes until they were completely black. From her hands, however, came a bright light. It encircled the pen, and Diomedes watched until it was too bright and he had to look away.
When the light faded, Diomedes blinked a few times to help his eyes adjust. Blanndynne still held the pen, but the blood that had covered it was gone.
“Did it work?” Diomedes asked, pushing his hair out of his face.
Blanndynne tossed him the pen. “You tell me.”
He nearly dropped it. The pen was icy when it made contact with his hand. “Why is it so cold?” Diomedes held it with the fabric of his shirt, but the freezing temperature easily penetrated through the thin fabric.
“It’ll get warmer the closer we get to the body of the one connected.” Blanndynne rubbed her hands together, blowing on them to warm them up. “It seems like we might be a good distance away from it.”
“If it’s too cold to touch, how will we be able to detect slight temperature differences?” Diomedes asked, putting the pen in his bag.
“Do I have to solve everything?” Blanndynne narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t we just appreciate that I did another pretty big spell? I mean, I’d say that’s pretty impressive.”
“It’s not going to change temperature if we stay in one place, so let’s go.” Armannii passed through the doorway, his focus on anything but Blanndynne’s self-flattery. But he paused in the hallway. His attention rested fully on something or someone on the opposite side of the corridor. “Well, this is awkward. How about I buy you a drink and—”
A grunt came from the person Armannii was talking to, and Diomedes popped his head out of the door to look. A man with a familiar bald head and pixie tattoo stood across from them, guarding the only way out the back. It was the same man Armannii had beaten in arm wrestling the last time they were there. And by the canines he was revealing in a wicked grin, Diomedes had the feeling that Baldy’s dagger was going to make a reappearance—possibly in Armannii’s chest.
“Easy there, mate.” Armannii put his hands up when the hulking brute took a step toward him. “I’m not looking to start a fight.”
“My coin purse. Now.”
“I won that money fair and square,” Armannii said, still holding his hands up between them.
Blanndynne had joined Diomedes at the door, but he held an arm up to stop her, keeping her just out of sight. He mouthed for her to stay before stepping out into the hallway behind Armannii.
“Give me my money, or I’ll take it out of your hide.”
“I have a better idea,” Diomedes said, bending over the stacked crates to look the man in the face. “You move, and we leave.”
“I don’t know how, but he cheated.” The man with the pixie tattoo pointed at Armannii, who shook his head.
“I did not. I just used skill, and skill always beats brute force.” Armannii’s hand was creeping toward the crate next to him, but only Diomedes seemed to notice.
“I’ll show you skill,” the man growled. He took a few steps into the hallway, having to turn sideways like Armannii and Diomedes. By the time he reached Armannii, the elf had already freed a bottle from the crate and hidden it by his hip.
The hallway left no room to remove weapons—at least not big ones like Armannii’s bow or Diomedes’s sword. The man, however, had unsheathed his dagger and was sidestepping his way to Armannii. Diomedes took a step back, but Armannii stopped him.
Putting the rim of the bottle up to his mouth, Armannii bit down on the cork and yanked it from the neck of the bottle. He placed his thumb over the opening and shook it, aiming the mouth of the bottle at the attacker. Liquid and foam shot from it, spraying the bald man in the face. He roared, stumbling backward.
He pulled a few of the top crates onto himself as he frantically tried to wipe the liquid from his eyes.
Armannii took a long swig from the leaking bottle before coming up for air and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’ll be leaving now,” he said as he tossed the bottle onto the bald man, who was still lying on the floor. Armannii put both hands on the walls and used his arms to vault over the mess he had created. Diomedes did the same, stopping at the other end to help Blanndynne over.
The bald man was trying to get out from under the crates, but his struggling didn’t amount to much. Armannii tilted an imaginary hat in the man’s direction, smirking before holding the curtain back for Blanndynne and Diomedes.
“Thanks for letting us borrow the room,” Armannii said, slapping the bar counter twice before beelining toward the exit.
Diomedes knew the barkeep would put two and two together. He snorted as he followed Armannii and Blanndynne into the trees. The more distance they could put between themselves and the angry man with the pixie tattoo, the better.
“What was all that about?” Blanndynne asked after a few minutes of light jogging.
Armannii ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back. A wide grin spread across his face. “Just a little fun. Something to keep the blood pumping.”
“Well, your blood was almost pumping on the floor. I saw that man’s dagger,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What did you do to make him so angry?”
“I took something he’ll never get back.”
Blanndynne waited for him to go on, but he was clearly waiting for her to ask what he meant. She eventually did.
“I stole his dignity. Most precious thing a man like him has.”
“And the coin purse?”
“Oh, I took that too.”