The trio, fronted by Cicely, led us along empty sidewalks and through quiet industrial streets to a derelict warehouse about three blocks away from the underground club. They whispered between them for the entire walk, hastily dissecting the events that had transpired at the club and cobbling together a plan on how to deal with us now.
Apparently, they were unaware that the dragon and vampire behind them could hear every word. I didn’t bother to try to listen in, beyond the few words that filtered through.
The warehouse appeared to be empty from the outside and wasn’t magically warded. Even the soft moonlight that now filtered through the skyscraper-filled backdrop couldn’t prettify the peeling paint and boarded windows. I would have thought a hunk of real estate this close to the waterfront in San Francisco would have been way too pricey to sit half-abandoned.
The interior of the warehouse was littered with broken pallets, piles of blackened rope, and worn-out buoys. Three derelict fishing boats occupied the large main room. A lofted second floor ran the length of the back of the warehouse.
After unlocking an exterior side door, Cicely cut immediately right to a narrow set of wooden stairs. We climbed up to the loft, from where we could look down and see the fishing boats.
We passed a bathroom at the top of the stairs that scared me into not needing to pee, even by the muted moonlight filtering through its cracked window.
“Which one of you?” Cicely asked, rather abruptly, as she unlocked a paint-challenged, grimy glass-windowed door and led us into what appeared to be a makeshift office.
Again, I couldn’t taste any magic, not one single ward on the door, windows, or building.
“I don’t even know what sort of magic he wields,” the amplifier continued, eyeing Warner distrustfully. “And I’m guessing you’re a witch of some sort. Dowser, they called you. You need help finding something?”
“All expenses paid,” Paprika said as she threw herself onto a faded couch against the wall to the right of the door. Even in the low light of the single shoddily wired fixture in the center of the ceiling, I could see a cloud of dust rise up around her. “Hotel. Travel. For all three of us.”
An electrical cord ran through the rafters from the light to an outlet on the far left wall. The desk was actually propped up at one corner by a column of ancient phonebooks. Three mismatched chairs that looked as though they’d been salvaged from the dump completed the dingy decor.
“Three-month waiting list,” I muttered as I glanced around. “Right.” I caught Kett’s gaze.
“A lifetime of education is direly needed here,” he said. “About magic and etiquette.”
“Not our circus,” I said. “Not our monkeys.”
Kett nodded. Well, he tipped his chin about a millimeter, so I took that as agreement. The trio was going to have to find their own way in the world of the Adept. And make plenty of mistakes while doing so. Just like we all did … well, just like I did.
Warner snorted as he cased the room, then followed the smell of burnt coffee through a door to the back and right of the desk. I hazarded a guess that this led to a break room of some sort, and shuddered to think of seeing it in the daylight.
“I’m the client,” Kett said. His cool tone cut through the shabby atmosphere just by being completely at odds with it.
This really wasn’t what Cicely wanted to hear.
“How could we help a vampire?” the nullifier sneered.
“Sorry, what’s your name?” I asked before fangs were dropped and knives were pulled. “And you?” I looked at the orange-swathed fire wielder, who was so moronically confident she was lounging on a couch. Oblivious to — or in spite of — the two predators and an unknown ‘witch’ standing in her office. “It’s silly to enter into verbal contracts with people you don’t even know.”
They all exchanged glances.
I stifled a sigh. Kett was right, maybe we should school them … maybe just a tiny teachable moment … like about the wisdom of leaving the hall door hanging open behind three Adepts of unknown power, who — as soon as Warner took two more steps — occupied the entire center of the room. We were unencumbered by furniture or other bodies. They had no perimeter or defensive positioning.
Yeah. I thought about things like that now.
“Smells like fish in here,” Warner said, curling his lip as he returned from the break room.
“You like sushi,” I said placatingly. Then I let the teachable moment dissipate from my mind and attitude. “Look, I’m Jade. This is Warner and Kett. I caught Cicely’s name. I can just keep calling you Not-So-Ordinary and Paprika if you want to be babies about it.”
Paprika sneered and opened her mouth as if she was intent on continuing her stupid streak, but Cicely interrupted.
“Ash is on the couch,” the amplifier said.
Of course the fire wielder had a cute nickname.
“I’m Dave,” the guy said. So Not-So-Ordinary guy had a completely ordinary name. Not surprising.
“I gather this is a new venture for you?” I gestured around the office. Warner wandered off a second time to case the windows, then walked the perimeter of the front office again as I spoke. The floor creaked under his weight.
“Not that new,” Ash snapped.
“But you don’t know power when you feel it,” Kett answered.
“Yeah, you here to school us, vamp?” Dave said.
“I believe the dowser has already taught you a valuable lesson,” Kett answered coolly. “One you’ve obviously blocked, because you’re intellectually incapable of understanding that you just died and were revived by the grace of the most powerful being you will ever meet.”
Dave’s gaze flicked between Warner and me as he tried to decide which one of us was most ‘graceful.’
Kett looked at me and shook his head. Just a single head shake, but he was as exasperated as I’d ever seen him. Which was saying a lot, because he was still mentoring me.
“You brought us here,” I said.
“Perhaps my … intel was incorrect,” he said.
Wow, ‘intel’? And the vampire admitting to a possible mistake in judgement? I stopped myself from looking outside to see if pigs were flying.
“Listen, you wanted to hire us,” Ash said, backpedaling.
“No,” Kett corrected. “I wanted the amplifier. The dragon offered to hire you. I would have dealt with you two …” — he looked pointedly at Dave and Ash — “… quite differently.” Then he looked at me. “I’ve never had to repeat myself so much in a single evening … or year … before.”
“And you thought I was bad,” I said.
“You were raised well,” Kett said. “Justifiably sheltered.”
“You should mention that next time you chat with Gran,” I said with a grin. Kett and Gran didn’t speak. Like, not ever. I’d seen them spend hours together and still manage to not even make eye contact.
“How are we supposed to help you?” Cicely asked, attempting to be somewhat professional. “I can’t … I won’t amplify vampire … powers.”
“The other two will step into the hall.”
“No way,” Ash said.
“Screw that.” Dave’s vehement assertion overlapped that of the fire wielder’s.
“Now.” Kett’s voice resonated around the makeshift office, heavy on drama and magic alike.
I felt the vampire’s command brush by me. Ash and Dave stiffened. Then Ash stood up from the couch awkwardly and they both crossed to the door. Dave had some trouble opening it.
“Interesting,” Kett said. “He’s fighting the compulsion. I wonder if that’s an aspect of the nullifier power.”
Cicely gripped the edge of the desk, staring helplessly after her friends as they managed to open the door and exit into the hall.
Warner followed them, raising an eyebrow at me as he passed. Yeah, I didn’t like the compulsion trick either, but I was damn surprised that Kett had been this patient already.
“You’re scary, you know,” I muttered.
“Not to you.” Kett pulled one of the guest chairs farther away from the desk and turned it ninety degrees. Then he patted its back.
I sat in the offered chair, not disputing his assertion.
But Kett had changed after London. The power that ran through his veins — literally — wasn’t entirely his own. I wasn’t sure, especially after the display in the club, that he was wholly in control of that power yet. I wondered how long that took for a vampire. How long did it take to absorb the magic that reanimated them? I’d never met a fledgling vampire, but all the deep, dark rumors — all the whispered stories that even humans told about sunlight, wooden stakes, and feeding frenzies … well, I was fairly certain those were based in some sort of reality.
So was Kett a different type of uber-powerful fledgling now? Would the Conclave have made him an elder in that case? I knew that the witches’ Convocation had ancient ways of sharing magic, and when filling their thirteen seats, they typically only selected members from the most powerful and influential covens. Perhaps the Conclave was the same and Kett’s inclusion was power-based only. Or maybe it was a way to rein their suddenly unpredictable executioner in.
Kett pulled out a second chair, turned it to face me, and sat down. He looked at Cicely expectantly.
She looked at us, utterly scared and completely perplexed.
“She’s going to need some words,” I said to Kett. “Some explanation. Most of us don’t own manuals on what to do when powerful Adepts show up at your window and demand your participation.”
“You will amplify my telepathic abilities,” Kett coolly informed Cicely.
Her mouth dropped open. Yeah, vampires were terrifying. I’d gathered that — similar to witches or even dragons — they didn’t all come with a specific set of abilities beyond their immortality, strength, and invulnerability. I was fairly certain all vampires could use some form of compulsion — that was part of the whole hunter/prey aspect of their magic — but that not all of them were telepathic.
In fact, before he’d mentioned it yesterday, I hadn’t been a hundred percent sure it was an ability Kett wielded. The vampire was a lot of smoke and mirrors, right up to the moment he wasn’t.
Kett tilted his head, still looking at Cicely. “Does she require more words?” he asked.
Cicely shook her head and stood. Her legs looked shaky. I felt sorry for her … well, as sorry as I could feel for someone who’d given serious thought to shooting me.
The amplifier crossed around the desk to stand behind Kett. He reached forward, grabbed the arms of my chair, and tugged me and it closer until our knees were sandwiched together.
“I’ve … I’ve never done a vampire before.” Cicely caught my gaze over Kett’s head and bit her lip.
“If it doesn’t work, no worries,” I said.
“But the dowser will know,” Kett said.
I sighed. “I’m trying to calm her.”
“I’m trying to keep moving.”
I looked back at Cicely. “I already know what your magic does … what it tastes like … namely, the Adept you’re amplifying. So I’ll know if you don’t at least try.”
She nodded and reached to touch Kett’s temples from behind. He, in turn, pressed his icy fingertips to my temples.
Peppermint magic tickled my taste buds. Ah, this was going to be rather intimate. Maybe even uncomfortably so. I thought about closing my eyes instead of staring directly into Kett’s ice-blue orbs, but didn’t want to appear intimidated. For Cicely’s sake, not my own. Kett seemed to be walking a narrow line of self-control, and acting at all like prey might tip him to the wrong side of that balance.
“It might be more helpful if you removed the necklace,” Kett murmured, his voice low.
“And let you get your grubby paws on it?” I teased. “No way.”
“I am neither grubby, nor do I have paws.” A smile flickered over the vampire’s face.
I glanced up at Cicely, who did have her eyes closed in concentration. “Leaving it on would be better.” Removing my necklace around unknown magic was a terrible idea, though I might be forced to do so if it blocked Cicely’s amplifier power.
Kett tipped his chin in a nod. “You’ve worked with a telepath before?” he asked Cicely.
“Sort of,” she murmured.
“Well then, you know where to focus.”
Cicely’s magic rose underneath her fingertips, glowing a pale tint of blue that was a couple of shades darker than Kett’s eyes. Now that I was closer — and not surrounded by so much other magic — I could taste the amplifier’s own power … a subtle hint of rosewater Turkish delight. But though her magic appeared as a shade of blue, it held no hint of the grassiness I associated with witches or the earthiness that usually accompanied sorcerers. I wondered if that aligned her more with oracles and readers — Adepts who worked with mind magic — than witches.
Cicely’s rosewater magic was quickly overwhelmed by Kett’s deep peppermint. The vampire’s eyes glowed red, though his touch on my temples remained gentle and his gaze didn’t shift from mine.
“No screwing around in my head, Kett,” I muttered. “Or I’ll gut you.”
He laughed, low and husky. He was enjoying himself. But then, who didn’t when given a legitimate reason to exercise their powers?
“Think of the map, dowser,” he coaxed. “Relax. And don’t call up the power of the necklace or the knife. I’ll be in and out in a breath.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I muttered.
Cicely snorted involuntarily and I smiled at her. Then I closed my eyes to focus.
“Open,” Kett said. “Windows to the soul and all that.”
“Except you aren’t looking for my soul, vampire.”
He smiled, revealing his very white, very straight, and thankfully not yet pointy teeth. The expression was completely at odds with his red eyes. “I’m looking for your heart, Jade,” he murmured. “That’s where you keep all your darkest fears. And you fear the map.”
I swallowed. Then, refusing to dig meaning out of his words, I focused on the whirling shards of red ice I could see in his eyes.
I thought about the map. I thought about the centipede. That, I could see clearly in my mind because I’d felt its magic, and because I still had Rochelle’s sketch stuffed in my satchel. I’d seen the centipede shift, moving across the tattoo. Then the map had shifted as well. Blue and green reformed into … more green and blue.
“Hmmm,” Kett said. His cool peppermint magic intensified against my temples, as if he were icing my skin underneath his careful touch. My jaw began to ache. Red shards of ice danced and danced and danced in Kett’s eyes. Then I could feel the shards behind my own eyes, with more ice filling my sinuses and plugging my nose … burning across my tongue, coating the back of my throat … choking me. Slicing into my brain —
I pushed the peppermint magic away, shoving it all back toward Kett without stopping to think about it.
Cicely shrieked, stumbled back from Kett, and almost fell. She was holding her hands, with her fingertips curled as if she’d burnt them on something.
Kett grunted. He’d pulled his hands away from me, and quickly. “Not necessary, dowser.” He sounded as unruffled as always, though he was rubbing the tips of his own fingers together.
Trying to not look too relieved, since I’d obviously hurt them both, I asked, “Did you see the map?”
Kett nodded, and I slid my chair back from his knees until I had enough clearance to stand. He mimicked my motions.
“Thank you,” I said to Cicely. “If you’re ever in Vancouver … British Columbia, that is … I run a bakery called Cake in a Cup.”
Cicely nodded. She’d retreated behind the desk and was holding her arms crossed, with her hands tucked underneath them.
I stepped to the door. Kett got there before me to open it. Feeling insanely bad about running away from an Adept so clearly traumatized, I turned to look back at Cicely. She looked tiny and young behind the desk. I wondered if the evening would haunt her.
“Will you be okay?”
She bit her lip but nodded. I took her at her word as I stepped out into the hall. Kett followed.
Ash and Dave were leaning against the far wall, eyeing us as we exited. Kett snapped his fingers and both the Adepts jerked to life. Then they quickly cut a wide swathe around us to step back into the office. The conversation within turned quickly heated, but I tuned out the actual words. They’d been paid well for their troubles. Each one of those gold coins was worth hundreds of dollars — maybe a thousand or more — even if only sold to be melted down. A true collector, or an Adept who knew of guardians and dragons, might be willing to pay much, much more.
“You’re mad at me,” Kett said as we walked down the dimly lit, grimy-walled hall.
“That usually doesn’t bother you,” I answered.
“It always bothers me.”
“I’m not mad. Just claustrophobic.”
Kett nodded and stepped sideways into the shadows — still in the hall with me, always at my back, but not so present magically or in my mind.
Warner was waiting at the end of the hall. He looked at me, concerned. I shook my head.
“I was making the fledglings nervous,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not all of us can be centuries old and uber powerful.”
Warner smirked at me. I managed to grin back at him, though my brain was still feeling peppermint-iced over.
“Where to, vampire?” the sentinel asked the shadowed hall behind me.
“South America,” Kett answered. “Peru, specifically. It’s been many years since I’ve visited, but the shape of the country’s coastline is unmistakable even on a hand-drawn map.”
“Great,” I groused. “That’s the territory of the healer, and we all know how much he likes me right now.”
“Yes,” Warner said agreeably. “Too much.”
I’d been diligently doing my homework for the last three months or so, so I knew there was a grid point portal located in Peru somewhere. Over land, not water. Thankfully. But I knew little else about the region — so much so that I obviously couldn’t identify it on a map.
“I guess the grid point portal is the place to start,” I said as we stepped out of the warehouse and onto the night-shrouded city sidewalks, turning back toward Haoxin’s apartment. At least, that’s where I assumed Warner was leading us. I was still shaking off the residual feeling of having my brain frozen by peppermint ice.
“We’ll need Qiuniu’s permission to travel there,” Warner said. “And perhaps some guidance if he is amenable.”
We hadn’t needed Haoxin’s explicit permission when we’d used the portal to travel to Hope Town for the first instrument of assassination — nor had we gotten it to come to San Francisco, which in hindsight might not have been a great idea. Though technically, we weren’t hunting down the next instrument here. Like I’d said, things had changed among the guardians since we returned with the braids, but maybe I just hadn’t noticed that the nine weren’t always in agreement before. They certainly hadn’t been in agreement about me — so that, thankfully, my continued existence hadn’t been put up to a vote. Not that I knew whether the guardians exercised real democracy … it didn’t seem likely. By the prevalent mood in the nexus, however, it was apparent that Baxia wasn’t going to be the only guardian to close their territory to us and our mission.
“Text me,” Kett said. Then he stepped off into the shadows and around the block before I’d taken another step or opened my mouth.
“Text you what?” I called after him.
The nearest airport to the portal. Kett’s voice sounded suspiciously like a whisper in my mind.
My step faltered. “Did you hear him?” I asked Warner. “About the airport?”
Warner shook his head.
Damn it. Telepathy?
“A side effect, perhaps,” Warner said.
“It’ll wear off?”
“Hopefully.”
I sighed. I liked Kett well enough, but I didn’t want anyone in my head. Pulou could communicate with me like that, but only when we were both standing in the magic of the portals. And for some reason, it wasn’t so disturbing then.
I’d started walking again, but hesitated when another thought occurred to me. “You don’t think he …” I glanced back over my shoulder toward the warehouse and the amplifier’s offices, realizing midway into the question that I didn’t want to vocalize less-than-fantastic thoughts about a friend. And especially not to Warner, who was genetically inclined to be prejudiced toward vampires.
“I think,” Warner said, placing his hand on the small of my back and guiding me up the sidewalk past a closed pizza place, “that Kettil, the Executioner of the Conclave, collects more than he kills.”
I tried to not squirm uncomfortably at Warner’s vocalization of my thoughts.
“He’s different,” I said.
“And you feel responsible for that difference.” Warner tapped his left thigh where he wore the sacrificial knife when he was dressed in his dragon leathers. The knife was still there, of course. The clothing was simply an aspect of Warner’s chameleon magic.
“Sometimes I think he’d prefer to be dead,” I whispered. “True dead, full dead.”
“The vampire values his immortality. But perhaps he also chafes at its restrictions.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Two more blocks and two more left-hand turns, and we’d somehow arrived back at Haoxin’s steel-and-glass apartment building. Standing at its base, it felt like the skyscraper was towering over the city, though only because it sat two blocks from the water’s edge. The streets were quiet here but not completely empty.
A cool breeze made me shiver, though it didn’t stir my still-sticky-with-dissolved-foam hair. Warner brushed a kiss across my lips without warning.
“We’ll find the map,” he murmured.
I reached for him, for the strength of his arms, wrapping my fingers around his biceps as far as they’d go. I took a moment to breathe in the smooth, creamy-chocolate-and-sweet-cherry magic that he held so tightly coiled around him.
“We don’t know she’s in Peru,” I said. “Or that she can even read the map.”
“If she is who she claims to be, then she’s the daughter of the former treasure keeper and can most likely unlock the map. If not, then whoever she is, she seeks an object of power and for you to unlock her magic. She’ll follow us to Peru.”
“What does ‘to break with the guardians’ mean, exactly?”
“If, as she appears to be, Shailaja is in league with the shadow leeches, then I would conclude that she believes in immortality.”
“But dragons aren’t immortal. Only long-lived and difficult to kill.”
Warner shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, glancing around the street. “Is the vampire near?”
“Classified dragon secrets?” I asked, teasing but still somewhat serious.
Warner huffed out a laugh. Behind him, through the glassed entrance of the apartment building, a tired-looking businessman stepped out of the elevator with his pure white English bulldog. The dog made a beeline for the front doors, tugging his master after him.
Instead of reaching out for a taste of Kett’s magic to answer Warner’s question as to the vampire’s proximity, I took the sentinel’s hand and pulled him into the building before the door closed behind the man and his dog, who were now wandering up the sidewalk.
If we hadn’t opened the shades earlier, the apartment would be pitch black, but the glow from the city below and around us lit the room just enough to distinguish the furniture. And Warner, of course. He was kind of hard to miss as he stepped into the living room. Not that I’d had a chance to test that in the dark yet.
Warner sighed and ran his hand through his hair, leaving it a mess. Something about the gesture made me pause. So much of him was cobbled together from the people he’d first come into contact with when he woke from stasis … my accent, Kandy’s ideas of clothing, Pulou’s raised eyebrow. But right now, all I could see was Warner … watching me as I watched him.
I wanted him to close the space between us, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. I had a feeling that the level of intimacy I wanted, that I craved, was unusual for his time period. Not that he’d been a monk, but I think everything private took place behind closed doors in the last life he’d lived.
He certainly didn’t kiss like a monk.
And the door was most definitely shut and locked right now.
I closed the space between us. Slowly, deliberately. A smile spread across his face, and he leaned back against the couch and stretched out his legs. I would have to walk between them to get as close as I planned to be.
Yeah, he definitely wasn’t a monk.
“I like dancing in this age,” he said.
“You’re a quick study.”
I stepped between his legs but left the last few inches open between us. He ran his hand up over my invisible knife, resting it on my right hip, but he didn’t tug me closer.
“I was supposed to take you to dinner before the dancing.” His face was deep in shadow, but I could see the glint of golden magic in his eyes.
“Supposed to?” I murmured. I reached up and tucked my fingers into the collar of his silk shirt to feel the warm, smooth skin where his neck met his shoulder. If there had been more light, I might have caught a glimpse of his tattoo, which I still hadn’t seen beyond the thick black edge that curved over his collarbone.
“Drake indicated that our third date should be dinner and dancing.”
“Drake is fourteen,” I said with a laugh, then sobered quickly. “Wait, this can’t be just our third date.”
“Fourteen years spent living in your century,” Warner said. “And having a fortress collapse on you, then almost drowning, might feel like a hell of a date, but it wasn’t.”
I leaned into him a little more, swaying forward to capture his lower lip in a kiss. Then I said, “Dragons aren’t immortal.”
Yeah, I was unfocused. I was slowly warming up from the imagined brain freeze of Kett sifting through my thoughts, and oh so ready to collapse into Warner’s arms. Yet I was exceedingly aware that the map — and Warner — were compromised, and that the world was full of secrets I suddenly needed to know to move forward. Secrets I’d needed to know three months ago but hadn’t been aware of — because no one, not even Pulou, had known of Warner’s or Shailaja’s existence. Even guardian dragons weren’t infallible.
“But guardians could be immortal,” Warner answered as he brushed a light kiss across my left cheek. “And some argument could be made for the children of guardians, I suppose.”
That piece of information cut through the comfort of the kisses. “Sorry?”
“It’s rare for a dragon to mate after taking on the mantle of a guardian. Often, the children of guardians become guardians themselves. As I believe is the case for Chi Wen, Baxia, and Haoxin.”
“And guardians relinquish their power every thousand years.”
“Give or take, but yes. Willingly.”
“But they don’t have to?”
“An argument could be made.”
“What’s the argument against?”
“The magic a guardian carries is taxing, even divided as it is between the nine. It can wear on the mind and physical body. And living that long is disorienting. Elder guardians tend to withdraw, like Baxia. And delegate their day-to-day responsibilities, as Chi Wen soon will with Drake. Haoxin and Qiuniu have already begun to walk the far seer’s territory upon request.”
“You think that Shailaja broke with the guardians because she believes in immortality.”
“If she is Shailaja, then the company she keeps is telling.”
“And the sacrifices made to create that company.” The shadow leeches were most definitely a product of the blackest sort of magic, whether or not the sorcerers had been willing participants in their own ‘evolution.’ “She was attempting to collect one of the three ways to kill a guardian.”
“Yes.” Warner sounded grim, and I didn’t much feel like hashing through it all again. I would rather have continued with the soft, intimate kisses. But I didn’t.
“Does it bother you that I’m slow?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject. “You assimilate so quickly —”
“No,” Warner interrupted. “You aren’t slow, Jade. You’re thoughtful … focused on what matters to you. Life is not so clearly defined for most of us.”
“Life isn’t so clear to me at all.”
He laughed. “Well, you make it seem that way.”
“You make it seem that way!”
“Another reason we are well matched,” Warner murmured.
And just like that, I was exceedingly interested in renewing the kissing session. Just with more vigor.
“What was the first reason we’re well matched?” I asked, flirting as I reached up to tease open the second button of his shirt.
The portal blew open behind us.
“Goddamn it all to hell,” Warner muttered, more viciously than I’d ever heard him.
I threw my head back and laughed. Why not? I was terrible at delaying gratification. I might as well enjoy it while it was being forced upon me.
Haoxin, the guardian of North America, stepped through the golden magic of the portal and offered us a sunny smile. The petite blond was wearing a pretty pink-and-white, long-sleeved, form-fitting dress that showcased her every smooth curve.
“Just passing through,” she said, giving Warner a saucy grin as he slowly stepped away from me to offer the guardian a low bow.
I mimicked the movement.
Haoxin waved away the formality of our greeting. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“We have a lead, guardian,” I answered. “Peru.”
Haoxin snorted. “Qiuniu is going to love that.” Then without further comment, she crossed through the living room toward the kitchen. “The far seer awaits you,” she said as she glanced around. Then she added disappointedly, “You didn’t bake?”
“No, guardian,” I answered. “We’ve only been here —”
“Joking, warrior’s daughter,” Haoxin said as she pulled an expensive-looking espresso machine out from a lower cupboard. “The brownies are lovely, but they couldn’t make a great triple-shot, extra-foam latte if my life depended on it. And some mornings, it does.”
Warner winced, probably at the afore-forbidden dissing of brownies. Then he said, “Thank you for your hospitality, guardian,” as he turned toward the still-open portal.
I wasn’t in such a rush to see the far seer, but I also couldn’t just hang around Haoxin’s living room …
Sigh.
A shower would have been nice, too … with Warner washing my back. If by ‘back,’ you understand I meant everywhere, all over, upside and down. Yes, in the shower.
Double sigh.
“My employee Todd is a wizard with espresso. He makes a mean shot,” I said over my shoulder to Haoxin as I stepped into the magic of the portal. “Or so I’m told.”
“I shall hold you to this proclaimed wizardry, Jade Godfrey,” the pretty guardian called after me with a laugh. “And consider it an open invitation to visit you at your bakery.”
The thought of Haoxin — or any guardian — in the bakery gave me heart palpitations. I really, really had to work on connecting my brain to my mouth. Like, before I opened my mouth. I got into more tight spots just by being polite than doing any other thing … except for crossing paths with the far seer.