I wasn’t sure how much longer I waited for Pulou. Time moved oddly in the dragon nexus — if it actually moved at all, which some days it didn’t. It could have been minutes, but I really hoped it wasn’t days. I’d arrived — via the portal in the bakery basement — a little after eight o’clock, knowing I might have to camp out all day to have a chance of seeing the treasure keeper.
Kandy, Kett, and I had been going on collection runs for Pulou for the last six months or so. These missions couldn’t really be classified as treasure hunting. They were barely even training exercises. I hadn’t pulled my knife during any of these so-called assignments, not once.
Kandy, my werewolf BFF — who managed to maintain her bright green hair no matter where in the world we were — was disappointed that there had been no call for breaking and entering, spelunking, or skydiving on any of the missions yet.
Kett had faded away about three months ago. And who could blame the vampire? He was the executioner for the Conclave. He had way better things to be doing. Not that I was at all sure what those ‘things’ were exactly.
So, yeah. I was bored out of my mind. Which was why I was completely determined that I was about to hand over my last benign artifact.
A pen.
Yes, a sorcerer-charmed pen that wrote by voice command. It had stopped responding to its owner’s requests a few months ago, and now wrote whatever and wherever it wanted to. The sorcerer from whom I’d collected it practically threw it at me in relief when Kandy and I went to pick it up. The only amusing part of the so-called mission was his harried look and the cursive ink markings all over his face and neck. Hebrew script, I imagined, since we were in Tel Aviv. Not that I’d taken the time to explore the city.
Today, Pulou would authorize a real mission — something with some importance — or I was taking matters into my own hands. No one could accuse me of being rash. I’d taken the time to heal. I’d trained. I’d explored my magic until I bored myself utterly. Hell, I was so bloody boring that I couldn’t manage to be in the same room with myself for more than a few minutes without wishing someone else was around. Someone interesting. Someone with a life beyond the bakery, and plucking trinkets out of the hands of witches and sorcerers without a single protest from them.
Was a lick of resistance too much to ask for? A simple offensive spell? Or even a protection ward that I had to exert actual effort to thwart?
I’d jumped through all of Pulou’s hoops since Tofino. Since Sienna’s death. And because the treasure keeper had me running around with training wheels for the last six months, it meant that Blackwell could have been running all around Europe with that damn circlet of his. I’d wanted to rip it from his bony hands the first moment I laid eyes on it. No sorcerer, least of all one as evil as Blackwell, should have access to a magical object that dampened or impeded the powers of any Adept who wore it. No one would wear such a thing voluntarily. And the circlet wasn’t made to be used benevolently. That, I was sure of.
I’d had the opportunity to face off against Blackwell last January when Desmond, the Lord and Alpha of the West Coast North American Pack, had asked me to come to Portland to identify the magic of a teen that was supposedly being stalked by Blackwell. Instead of blindly joining the pack hunt, I chose to do the right thing by the teen — namely, distract Desmond and the pack, then get Chi Wen involved. Last I heard, the far seer had taken Rochelle, who turned out to be a fledgling oracle, under his wing, and Blackwell was in the wind.
Now it was time to figure out my own guidelines and make my own choices. I knew good from evil. Hell, I could taste it.
Today, I would finally get Pulou’s permission to go after Blackwell. I knew exactly how to word the request, to present the evidence, and outline my plan. I’d been working on the wording for over three months, once I’d figured out that there was a proper way to ask. Dragons had a lot of rules and regulations. Extreme power came with extreme guidelines, it seemed.
I would have gone without permission months ago, because Blackwell pissed me off so much, except I was kind of banned from Europe. London, specifically. And just taking the circlet from Blackwell might get me into a whole lot of trouble from the Convocation, who strictly governed the behavior of witches and considered me subject to their will, though I was only half-witch. The sorcerers’ League wouldn’t be too happy about the theft either, despite how I got the sense there was no love lost between them and Blackwell.
Then there was the sticky bit about the elder vampire of London being seriously pissed with me. Not because I almost got Kett — his grandson by blood — killed, but because he’d had to divide his power to save him.
However, if the theft was dragon certified, then it became a ‘reclamation’ of a magical object deemed too powerful to be loose in the world. Even though that would still piss off the sorcerers — and probably the vampire — no one could stand against me without standing against the guardians.
Yeah, I had it all worked out. I just hoped Blackwell was home when I knocked on the door of his freaking castle. I wanted to see his face when I ‘officially’ waltzed in and took the circlet from him.
Hell, I wanted him to try to stop me.
I was almost dozing by the time the portal behind me — the door that my father and the healer had exited through — opened in a wash of golden magic. I pivoted, standing in the buoyant power and facing the door just as Pulou the treasure keeper stepped through into the nexus. As I once again awkwardly curtsied, I noted that my necklace thrummed softly against my collarbone and that my neck felt normal once again.
“There you are, alchemist,” Pulou said, his deep voice booming through the quiet of the room. “I’ve been waiting.”
I opened my mouth to be all bitchy about the fact that I had been waiting freaking eons for him, but then he threw back his head and laughed.
Ah, dragons loved to laugh.
The portal closed behind Pulou. The treasure keeper was a dark-haired bear of a man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties, when in reality he was more than five hundred years old. He wore his typical full-length fur coat despite the fact it was late summer … though I guess it wasn’t summer where he’d just come from.
Anyway.
The fur coat was actually some sort of manifestation of the treasure keeper’s magic, just as the sword was a manifestation of my father’s warrior power. Pulou had taken a magical object I’d made ten months ago on the beach in Tofino, somehow shrunk it, and then stored it in an inner pocket of his coat. The magic that accompanied this feat had scrambled my brain, and left me with the impression that something extradimensional had occurred while I dumbly watched and didn’t even remotely comprehend.
I was epically happy to never have to lay eyes on that object again, so I wasn’t terribly desperate to wrap my head around the process. I’d twisted my katana — a gift from my father — into a circle around my sister’s neck and filled it with all the magic Sienna had stolen from all the Adepts she’d killed and drained. Then I’d taken every last drop of her magic. Such a thing shouldn’t have been possible. But I had done it, half dead and under great duress. It was a secret known only to the treasure keeper and me. An ability he thought too dangerous for anyone else to know of, and I agreed.
I was already unique enough when it came to power and heritage. I didn’t need to be feared or even hunted by the Adept world. I just wanted to bake my cupcakes and steal Blackwell’s circlet.
“Treasure keeper, I have a request,” I said.
“Do you?” he asked, rather amused.
I nodded, and then launched into the speech I’d prepared. “Mot Blackwell, who’s a sorcerer, houses an extensive collection of magical artifacts …” — Pulou was frowning, just slightly, at me, but in a way that made me think I might be speaking gibberish — “… in his castle … Blackness Castle … in Scotland.”
“That is the territory of the guardian Suanmi.”
“Yes, but … he has this platinum and raw diamond circlet that’s some sort of dampener, an inhibitor —”
“Dragons do not steal.”
“Such an object should not be in the hands of such a sorcerer.” I tried to retreat back to my prepared argument, but Pulou immediately derailed me again.
“Would this dampener work against you … or me … or any of the dragons?”
“Well … I … I’m not sure.”
“The task I have for you is of much greater and immediate importance.”
Ten months, I almost screamed. I’d been waiting for permission for ten months. I could have cracked Blackwell’s wards — again — and waltzed in to lift the offending inhibitor months ago.
Pulou lifted one bushy eyebrow at me. I swallowed my inner brat, and when I could speak politely again I did so.
“It would be an honor, guardian, to hunt for treasure you deem of great importance.”
“All sorcerers are tinged darkly,” Pulou said. “That is just their way. Be sure that Suanmi has an eye on this Blackwell, if he is even worthy of such attention. I’m sure Drake has filled his guardian in on his escapade.”
I nodded. “I was going to bring peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes, but I was worried I would be … incapable of getting them to you without interference.”
“To bribe me with?”
“Yes.”
“I will come to the bakery.”
“Oh … I …” Visions of Pulou eating every last cupcake in the bakery flooded my mind. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Nothing to it. I should check on the portal as well. Perhaps tomorrow?”
I nodded. Last time Pulou had used the word “tomorrow,” the actual time lapse had been three months.
“Speaking of the portal —”
“We weren’t.”
“No, I … it’s an expression.”
“I know.”
Right. No talking about the sword filled with Sienna’s stolen magic — check. No talking about the portal in the bakery basement — double check. No going after Blackwell or his circlet without incurring Suanmi’s wrath — triple check.
I fished around in my satchel and found the charmed gold Cartier pen by the taste of its sorcerer magic. I held the pen out to the treasure keeper, presenting it on my open palm. Dragons preferred to be formal about such things.
“As tasked, treasure keeper,” I said. I neglected to mention that I hadn’t fixed its little writing-on-everything-at-a-whim glitch, because I found it entertaining. Plus, I wanted to see if dragons were prankable.
“I propose a trade,” Pulou said.
He pulled a folded piece of parchment — crumpled along with some candy wrappers — from his outer pocket and held it out to me. The candy wrappers fell to the floor and disappeared. Impressive cleaning spell. No wonder the nexus was always so pristine and practically ageless. Though how did it decide what was garbage?
I had to smirk at the presence of the candy wrappers, though. I came by my sweet tooth genetically. At least, that was how I currently justified my chocolate consumption levels.
The treasure keeper plucked the charmed pen out of my hand at the same time as I took the offered bundle from him. The moment I touched it, I thought — and immediately dismissed — that it might be skin. As in, human.
I ignored the bile threatening to rise at the back of my throat, unfolded the please-don’t-be-human-skin parchment, and stared at all the pretty colors and shapes drawn on it. I had an inkling it was supposed to be a map — based on the plethora of green and blue — but I had no freaking idea how to read it. I thought the triangles were supposed to be mountains? Honestly, it looked like it belonged under glass in a museum, not in my hand and soon-to-be stained with chocolate.
“A task more worthy of the alchemist’s skills,” Pulou said. “A task more interesting.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he wasn’t mocking me with the ‘alchemist’s skills’ part, but I was too intrigued — in a slightly disgusted way — to fret about it.
“This … this isn’t a tattoo, is it?”
“Yes, from my predecessor. Entrusted to me when I assumed his guardianship.”
The ‘tattoo’ was about as wide and long as my back, and undoubtedly that was where it had been placed … you know, before it was … removed. I was holding what was possibly a map previously tattooed on and then skinned from a guardian dragon. A flower-and-leaf motif along one side, multicolored striped circles in either corner, and what appeared to be interconnected blocks along the other side, blurred its purpose for me. It sleepily thrummed with magic.
“I must go. Bixi calls.”
My meetings with Pulou were always exceedingly brief and usually ended with me firing questions at the treasure keeper’s back as he was called away to open a portal for another guardian elsewhere in the world. Bixi was the guardian of North Africa. In human form she was the spitting image of Cleopatra, but her guardian-inherited ability was shapeshifting.
Pulou brushed by me. His magic was a far more bearable version of Suanmi’s. It didn’t constantly boil around him as the fire breather’s power did.
“Should I come back tomorrow for further instruction? Will we hunt together?”
“My magic will not help in this hunt. You must go where guardians dare not tread.”
Wait, what? Um, that didn’t sound good at all. “ ‘Dare not tread’?” I said. “But not like, ‘cannot tread,’ right? Not like this could kill me?”
“I do not hold you in such low regard, Jade Godfrey,” Pulou said. His tone was as serious as I’d ever heard it. “But I have now given you access to all the knowledge I possess in the matter. Unfortunately, my predecessor’s journals were lost in a fire before I had a chance to study them.”
He gestured toward the tattoo that I continued to hold gingerly by the edges. “As I’m sure you can taste, the tattoo was created by an alchemist. Luckily for me, you’re also an alchemist. Figure out how to read it, and then we shall talk about guardian myths.”
The treasure keeper pulled open a door covered in hieroglyphics. Or at least hundreds of shapes that I was guessing were ancient Egyptian writing, based on my extensive film-and-TV accumulated knowledge. The portal magic flooded the nexus, making my brain momentarily stutter. I swore the golden magic reached out for Pulou, as if welcoming him home with a cozy hug.
Pulou stepped into the portal.
“Wait!” I cried after him — regaining the use of my tongue if not my brain — as he disappeared from my sight. “At least tell me if it’s a map!”
The door snapped shut behind the treasure keeper.
I was once again alone in the nexus. Why did I have the feeling that I was the one who’d just gotten pranked?
It is a map.
I looked up. Pulou’s voice echoed through the nexus, but he hadn’t returned.
I sighed, carefully refolded the parchment along the lines that already creased it, and tucked it into my trusty Matt & Nat satchel.
Right. I finally got assigned a real treasure-hunting mission, but first I had to figure out how to read a map that even a guardian couldn’t read … great. It was like being stuck in a high school geography class all over again when I’d never been better than a C+ student. And I’d really, really been looking forward to stealing the circlet from Blackwell’s castle. Whoops, I meant reclaiming the inhibitor. Yeah, and kicking the sorcerer’s ass if he tried to stop me. I had unresolved feelings for Blackwell. As in, I was really resolved he was evil through and through, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
Okay.
If it was a map, someone should be able to read it. If Pulou thought that someone was me, then who was I to question one of the guardian nine?
I turned toward the First Nations-carved cedar door, through which I’d entered the nexus hours ago, and willed the portal to take me home.
“It’s my belated birthday.” Kandy the green-haired werewolf stood — arms crossed and glowering — in the middle of the bakery basement. She’d been waiting for me the moment I stepped from the portal onto the hard-packed dirt floor.
“I know,” I answered, giving her a blazing smile. It was her belated birthday because she’d gone camping with her Norwegian buddy, Jorgen, on the weekend of her actual birthday, August 8th. I’d been invited, but I had a feeling that my and a werewolf’s idea of camping were completely different. Plus, I still wasn’t sure whether I would have been crashing a date or not. Kandy was super close-mouthed about anything remotely personal. Her personal. Not mine, of course.
I hadn’t even known that Kandy was a physiotherapist until she got certified to work in Canada and started picking up shifts at the clinic a couple of blocks down the street. Even then, I thought she only told me because she needed a reference for work visa purposes.
I’d created four new cupcakes — Sass in a Cup, Tease in a Cup, Flirt in a Cup, and Tart in a Cup — with the taste of Kandy’s dark-chocolate berry-infused magic in mind, though without the bitter finish. I’d given Kandy two of her birthday cupcakes for her camping trip, because my main gift hadn’t been ready until today. My now-twenty-six-year-old werewolf best friend was perfectly happy to have two chances to eat cupcakes especially made for her, and I was more than happy to make them.
“You’re late.”
“Am I?” I said, as if I didn’t know we had any plans at all. Then I dug into the inner side pocket of my satchel, carefully avoiding touching the dragonskin map, and pulled out a folded, printed piece of paper. I handed the paper to Kandy.
Her glower deepened as she snatched the paper from me. The green-haired werewolf was about two inches shorter than me, and favored tank tops and ripped jeans. But tonight she was dressed in sleek black pants that fit her lithe body like a rubber glove and rode almost embarrassingly low on her nonexistent hips. Her black satin halter top draped, rather becomingly, down to the small of her back. Her hair, which she’d been growing out, was gelled straight up in various three-inch spikes all over her head.
I was going to need to change.
Kandy unfolded the paper and read the tickets I’d printed. I’d bought us two spots in a truffle-making course at Chocolate Arts that night.
Kandy huffed, hiding her approval of the gift behind her grumpiness. “So that takes care of dinner. Then what?” she asked.
I laughed. “Oh, I’ve got a few ideas. There might even be dancing.”
“You have exactly thirty minutes to look respectable enough to be by my side tonight.”
“Aye, aye, belated-birthday captain,” I said with a salute. Then I stepped past the werewolf to climb the wooden stairs that led out of the basement and into the pantry of my bakery above.
Kandy stopped me by wrapping her arm around my neck from behind, pressing her face into the curls at the back of my neck. It was like being held — carefully — by steel bands.
“Sometimes I worry you won’t come back,” she whispered. “When you go through the portal.”
“I won’t leave you.”
I felt Kandy nod, but she didn’t immediately release me. Ten months ago, she had chosen to stay in Vancouver with me instead of returning to the base of the West Coast North American Pack in Portland, though she’d visited at least once a month since making that decision. She really wasn’t a fan of the pack’s new beta, Audrey. And I also thought Kandy held some guilt about the death of a fledgling werewolf, Jeremy, at the hands of my sister over a year ago. Guilt because she was technically a pack enforcer, and she should have protected him better. She swore she stayed for my protection, along with some political mumbo jumbo about alliances and whatever. Except Kandy was the least political person I knew.
She also might have stayed because she thought Desmond had broken my heart. He hadn’t — we weren’t meant to be together despite all odds or anything — but he’d dented it pretty good. No matter that Sienna had deserved it. I wasn’t about to forgive him for killing my sister.
I hadn’t heard from or spoken to Kandy’s alpha since January, when I’d chosen to aid Rochelle instead of helping the pack get their collective hands around Blackwell’s neck. The visit had resulted in claws and knives unsheathed and insults exchanged, and had probably widened the divide between Desmond and me rather than repaired anything.
I wasn’t going to be a political ally — in or out of Desmond’s bed — and that was all he wanted me in his life for anyway. It was time to move on. Didn’t we all deserve to fall head over heels for someone who utterly adored us in return?
Sigh.
“I thought there would be more cupcakes,” Kandy muttered into my hair.
“There will be cupcakes. Two new ones, plus the first two you already tasted.”
“I looked everywhere.”
I laughed. “I baked them at Gran’s.”
Kandy swore and released me. “What are you waiting for, then?” she growled. Then she dashed ahead of me up the stairs.
Not all werewolves kept their emotions so far in check as Kandy did, but tears and robust laughter were rare occurrences with my best friend. We were complete opposites that way.
I switched out my T-shirt for a light-blue silk peasant blouse with a drawstring neck, and my jeans for a black silk skirt. The skirt had the most perfect, subtly ruffled edge that fell just above my knees. I kept my necklace coiled three times around my neck, where it rested nicely on my collarbone, and strapped the invisible sheath for my jade knife to my bare thigh. The skirt was loose enough that it didn’t show the outline of the knife when I was standing, but I’d have to be careful when sitting down. I usually left the unnerving of people to Kandy, and it was her belated birthday after all. I slipped on a pair of black Fluevogs — classic Gorgeous Minis — to complete the look. Thankfully I’d gotten my legs waxed last weekend, so I was good to go barelegged.
I hustled through the apartment to join Kandy in the living room, where she was sharing a glass of red wine with my mother, Scarlett. As I crossed by the kitchen, Scarlett smiled, her strawberry blond hair its usual perfect smooth wave down her back.
A plate of candied salmon, cream cheese, and onion-and-garlic brown rice crackers sat on the gray granite kitchen island, and I fell on this treat without a word. I had to compete with Kandy, though, and the salmon was already half gone. Scarlett laughed and touched my shoulder lightly. Her magic tingled through the thin silk of my blouse. She touched me every time she saw me these days, as if reassuring herself I was actually beside her. Gran as well. I’d scared them very badly in Tofino. Or rather, Sienna almost killing me in Tofino had scared my mother and grandmother terribly.
“Merlot, Jade?” Scarlett asked.
“No thanks, Mom. I think we’re almost late as it is.”
“The cab is waiting for us,” Kandy said. She swallowed the remainder of her wine in a single gulp. Her wicked metabolism probably burned off all the alcohol before it even hit her stomach. I had found — since recovering from almost dying, and draining my magic so severely in order to take Sienna’s — that I had to drink so much to get buzzed now that my stomach usually rebelled before my head did. Yeah, I’d tested it more than once. A girl had to try to have some fun, and Kandy was always up for a round of good pub food.
“It’s like a four-block walk,” I said.
“More like seven, and in those shoes?” Kandy said, a wolfish grin on her face. I took the grin to mean that my outfit was acceptable.
I laughed, and then cried out, “Let the revelry begin!”
Scarlett laughed. Kandy and I headed for the front door. As I passed the couch, I realized I’d forgotten to transfer my wallet and keys to a smaller, prettier bag, so I jogged back to my bedroom and grabbed my satchel instead. Thankfully, Matt & Nat satchels went with every outfit. At least every outfit I owned.
Chocolate Arts was on West Third Avenue between Pine and Fir Streets, just one block north and six blocks east of the bakery. The evening was clear and balmy. The sun still wouldn’t set for a couple of hours. Though it would be the first day of fall next Tuesday, the glorious summer weather had held and the trees hadn’t started changing color yet. The cherry tree and magnolia blossoms were months gone, but the air was still sweetly fragrant. Kandy could probably pick me up, throw me across False Creek, and I’d hit downtown Vancouver, but you’d never know that a big city was that near tonight.
We hopped into the completely unnecessary cab, which drove the half-dozen blocks and pulled up to double-park out front of the chocolatier. I passed the cabby a ten, happy that I’d thought to grab cash from the ATM yesterday when I dropped the deposit for the bakery. Kandy was on the sidewalk before the taxi had fully pulled to a stop. There was parking out back that led customers through the kitchen to the storefront, but the one time I’d entered through the back, I felt like I was totally invading the chocolatier’s creative space.
Chocolate Arts specialized in decadent truffles using Valrhona and Cacao Barry chocolate, as well as their own line of chocolate and ice cream bars. Their salted caramels were the first I’d ever tasted, and the eighth-inch rectangles of chocolate-covered goodness were a go-to purchase for me. As in, every time I dropped by. Tonight, we’d be learning how to make some of their signature truffles, which meant Kandy and I would be guzzling melted chocolate while we rolled balls of variously flavored ganache into lumps of tastiness. I planned to be cocoa-buzzed and covered in chocolate up to my elbows within the hour. Too bad I didn’t have anyone to lick it off me later … or I’d bring home a container cup.
Kandy, inches from opening the front door, turned back to grin at me as the cab pulled away. The green of her shapeshifter magic rolled across her eyes as she accessed some of her power — probably her sense of smell. Then she ducked inside the store with a husky laugh of anticipation.
Right. It was Kandy’s birthday, not my pity party. I was damn lucky to have her as a friend, especially with all we’d been through in the last year. I would have abandoned my trouble-enticing ass ten months ago … well, that was a lie. I was loyal to a fault. But then, so was Kandy.
I knew the green-haired werewolf was still nursing the arm she’d injured ten months ago in Tofino — and then had injured again, by Audrey’s hand, back in January. Werewolves healed quickly, so the lingering nature of the injury spoke volumes about its severity. The fact that Kandy remained in Vancouver with me — potentially unable to fully access the healing magic of the pack — meant the world to me. I could count my true friends on one hand.
No matter how many new cupcakes I created, how much chocolate I consumed, or how full I packed my days with treasure collecting and running a business, I just couldn’t shake this feeling of being out of sync with my life. My normal life. Or rather, the new normal. I just wasn’t quite sure what that was anymore.
Kandy poked her head out from the entrance and hissed, “We’re late.”
The only time the werewolf cared about being prompt was when food or lives were on the line.
I grinned and followed her as she ducked back inside. A double-masted sailboat made entirely out of chocolate occupied the window display by the front door. Even the life-rings, ropes, and pulleys were chocolate. The milk chocolate waves were capped with white chocolate.
Oh, yes. It was going to be a great evening.