The Toymaker's Hoard

by Megan Derr

  His good mood was shattered, however, as he climbed out and saw a hated, familiar figure skulking outside his shop. "Wait here," he said hastily to Serena, then charged up to the front of the shop and shoved Vidner away. "I have told you to stay away from me and my shop!"

  "We're not finished—"

  "We finished a long time ago!" Cadmus snarled. "I want no part of this so-called discussion. I'm never revealing my secrets to you, and if I catch you near my shop again, I will ensure it's the last time."

  Vidner clucked his tongue. "Threatening me, Tulari? For wanting to talk? What would the authorities think of that, I wonder?"

  "They would wonder why the upstanding, respected lover of the Chief of Police is being harassed after being told quite firmly to leave," Serena said in a voice of authority that would do her father proud.

  Stiffening, Vidner looked from Cadmus to Serena and back to Cadmus. "You're fucking the Chief of Police? That stodgy, unbending bastard? Since when?"

  "Since none of your business," Cadmus hissed. "Go away. I don't need Harren to deal with you, and we both know it. Leave."

  Though Vidner looked like he'd rather do no such thing, he withdrew with a grunt and stalked off down the street.

  "I'll summon one of—"

  "No," Cadmus said, unlocking the shop with jerky movements. "I'm not running to your father because of one minor annoyance. That's not why I'm with him, and I won't use the connection."

  "But—"

  "Leave it," Cadmus snapped, then sighed at Serena's hurt look. "Please. He has enough to worry about without his brand new lover running to him with what amounts to a triviality. If Vidner comes back, I'll speak with him, all right?"

  She frowned. "Promise?"

  Cadmus stifled a sigh. "I promise."

  "Very well, then."

  He pushed into the shop, Serena close behind, and went to fetch her automaton from storage.

  Taking it to his work table, he gave it one last critical look over.

  He'd gone with a base of rosewood, polished to a high luster. On top of that he'd placed the bookcase as the focus—two sides filled with books and knick-knacks, many of them capable of moving. On one side, a boy climbed a ladder and removed a book, which in turn caused a little compartment on the bottom shelf to open and reveal a stack of love letters and a teensy locket made from a ruby.

  In a nearby chair, set on a beautiful, ornate rug, sat a small stack of books and a pair of sleeping kittens, a curious little mouse peeking at them from atop the stack.

  On the other side of the bookcase was a smaller rug where a large cat was curled up fast asleep. On the bookcase, set in a wide, tall shelf, was a lamp with a shade made of jewels arranged to look like stained glass, complete with a chain that, when gently tugged, would release the latch on the secret compartment hidden by the rug with the cat.

  Cadmus was proud of every single automaton that left his shop, but he had to admit this one was his finest work, and he was especially fond of it. Magic thrummed softly, and when he touched it, seemed to beat in time with his heart. As long as he lived, the automaton would run, a treasured part of his hoard shared quietly with the world.

  He carried it to the front of the shop and set it on the table in the middle of the shop where he always showed the final work to the client.

  Serena burst into tears. "It's perfect. A work of art. Oh, Cadmus, it's a thousand times more than I ever dreamed it could be." She fumbled with her reticule, then gratefully accepted the kerchief that Cadmus offered when she couldn't seem to get it open. Dabbing at her eyes, she said, "You're such an amazing artist. Truly, it's beautiful. I wish I could find words suitable to express just how much I love this, how much it will mean to Temnis. You even included his cat and kittens, however did you know of that detail?"

  "Your father mentioned it during one of our conversations, and they seemed to be the perfect final touch I was missing." He pulled open a drawer in the base, which was decorated with gold pens that spilled silver ink which turned into decorative swirls. From the drawer he withdrew the key that would start the automaton, modeled to look like a feather pen. He showed her where to insert it on the other side of the square base and how to turn it on and off. The sweet, tinkling tune of a popular dance piece filled the shop, and Serena started crying all over again.

  Cadmus looped an arm around her shoulders in a light hug. "Are you certain you can bear to part with it?"

  "Oh, it should most certainly belong to Temnis." She laughed and dab at her eyes again. "But I admit I sort of want one for myself now."

  Laughing, Cadmus hugged her again then stepped away to fetch the box specially made for transporting and storing the automaton. Each box was made custom to its automaton, to ensure there'd be no damage during transport.

  When he returned, Serena was gently touching each little piece, laughing in delight or cooing in turn. Cadmus gently placed it in the padded, velvet lined box and closed it up, locking it with a gentle push of magic that meant only he could open it. If anyone tried to steal it—which had been attempted—they would have a devil of a time breaking the seal or shattering the wood.

  "Payment in full, Master Cadmus," Serena said, and set several gleaming coins on the table.

  Cadmus stared at them. "That is easily twice what you owe me, if not more."

  "It's what you deserve," Serena said firmly, and kissed his cheek. "I will not tolerate argument."

  He sighed and scooped up the coins, stuffing them into an inner pocket of his jacket. "Very well, milady, but only if we agree you owe me no down payment on whatever piece you commission for yourself."

  She smiled at him, bright and beautiful, so much like her father, and likely her mother. "Agreed."

  "Then I shall be on my way and send you a note once the delivery is complete."

  "Thank you, Cadmus, so very much." She hugged him tightly, then gathered up her coat and departed into the waiting carriage. When she was gone, Cadmus locked up the shop and headed out, summoning a hackney to take him across the city to the fine part of town where Paali and his son lived.

  He knocked on the door, and a handsome servant in a smart jacket admitted him to a parlor with more colors than Cadmus could count.

  Several minutes later, the door opened—except it wasn't Temnis who entered, but Paali. "Good afternoon, Master Toymaker."

  "I think you may use my name, my lord."

  "Then I insist you do the same," Sula replied with a smile, and bowed over his hand, ignoring Cadmus's startled protests. "Alas, I must apologize that my son is not available. Something he ate at a party last night did not agree with him. From what I hear, it did not agree with anyone. The Whistlers will never live down giving everyone food poisoning at their precious Lantern Fete. I'm positively delighted. My son does not find me amusing."

  Cadmus pressed his lips together to prevent a laugh, but his mirth must have shown because Sula grinned.

  "I promise I'm taking the best care of him, and am not happy he's sick and miserable," Sula said. "But I really do hate the Whistlers. They're vehement 'humans are the best, and no one else should be allowed to be a citizen' supporters."

  "Yes, they once tried to commission an automaton that would have cost enough I could have retired and were not happy when I refused. They tried to ruin me for it, but…"

  "I recall. You made an automaton for Prince Bithley, a wedding gift for his husband. So no one, not even Whistler, could touch you. That was years ago; I'd forgotten all about it until now."

  "Thankfully, most everyone has," Cadmus said with a grimace. "Lady Serena will be disappointed Temnis will not immediately jot her off an ecstatic note, but I'll let her know when I convey the delivery was made."

  "I'll send a runner right now to inform her." Before Cadmus could reply, Sula called for a servant and arranged the whole thing—then arranged for tea in his private garden. "Come along, Master Cadmus. I insist you stay for tea. My friends are few, and they all have to work for a living, unlike me, s
o I rarely get to see them." He winked and offered an arm.

  Cadmus took it with a laugh. "I refuse to believe you're a man of leisure. You must do something with your time past stock portfolios and whatever else the nobility does."

  "Most of my money is in land, actually," Sula replied as he led the way up the stairs—all the way up, in fact, right to the roof, where Cadmus drew up short.

  Garden was too meager a word for the beauty and splendor that surrounded them. No, this was a veritable forest somehow contained to a sprawling rooftop. Moreover, many of the plants and trees were the sort that did not grow together, would even destroy each other, one way or another. But here, everything was in harmony. Flowers perfumed the air, and birds, bees, and butterflies flitted about all over. He couldn't count the number of flowers, let alone all the other plants—even fruit trees. "This is incredible."

  "This is what I do with my time," Sula said with a smile as he reached out to touch a rosebud, which shivered and turned from a pale pink to a beautiful blush, opening wide to the air. "Flowers, fruits and vegetables that are hard to get in Trice City, and more. This is my private garden, and most of its contents go to friends and family only. I have a larger one at the edge of the city, and my lands in the country provide even more. I may only be half-faerie in blood, but I am all faerie in heart."

  Cadmus smiled. "You smell too much like flowers and earth for me to have ever thought otherwise."

  Sula smiled back, and Cadmus's heart felt like it was going to pop. In a world where most nobles seemed to be sharp thorns and angry hornets, Sula was a bed of rose petals and afternoon sunshine.

  Oh, this wasn't fair. They were friends, or becoming so for certain. Cadmus was enjoying his blossoming relationship with Harren. He didn't want to be here, with memories of kissing one man tangling with a growing need to kiss the one in front of him.

  Sula gave him a crooked smile, as though he sensed—even shared—Cadmus's thoughts. Was it possible? Could it be possible? Surely not? But Cadmus's breath hitched with the possibility and stuttered completely to a halt as Sula reached out to tuck a stray bit of hair back behind Cadmus's ear, fingers soft and warm and lingering. "Toymaker—"

  "Paali! I need you to—" Harren stopped on the stairs landing, staring at them in shock and disbelief. Then his expression closed down, eyes going shockingly cold.

  Sula stepped away from Cadmus. "Harren, it's not—"

  "If you say it's not what I think, Paali, I will break your nose," Harren snarled. "I'm not stupid. I know what it looks like when two people desire each other. How long has this been going on? Is there a reason you couldn't simply be honest and decided to play me for a fool?"

  Cadmus reeled back. "You think I'm cheating on you? That either of us would do that?"

  "I told you—"

  "I know what you said," Cadmus snapped, real anger finally rolling through him like a bank of thundering clouds. "I know you like to lash out first and apologize later. You do it a lot. I didn't mind when you were worried about your daughter, but I won't tolerate my lover thinking me some sort of—of hussy or strumpet or cheating bastard. Good day to you both." He stormed the stairs, shoving Harren aside when he made a grab for his arm, and fled the house as quickly as he could manage without actually running.

  Outside, he opted for walking home, despite the distance, hoping to work off the anger.

  Chapter Four

  It took most of the walk, but eventually Cadmus's anger eased—but mostly because guilt took its place. No, he hadn't kissed Sula. But he'd been wishing fervently that he could. That Sula was part of their new—now dead, likely—relationship, instead of standing apart with unrequited feelings. Maybe it was just part of his hoarding nature, but he did not like to see such a jewel as Sula ignored and neglected. He belonged in the hoard, safe and happy.

  Stupid. He should have just kept to himself. That had been working well for him for a long time. Why had he decided to ruin it?

  But that answer was depressingly easy: because even if dragons were solitary by nature, Cadmus was lonely. Because he liked Harren. Genuinely liked him, temper and all. How hard he worked. His fairness and integrity. The police were ethical and hardworking and supported the paranormals just as much as the humans, and that was largely due to Harren, who had no tolerance for racism and bigotry. Unlike the city guards, who were called witch hunters by paranormals. Harren worked with paranormals, listened to them, saw his people did the same, was always striving to improve.

  He liked Harren's smiles and laughter, his droll humor. How much he loved his daughter. That he liked to dance and was good at it. Was a skilled and generous lover. The list could go on for ages, even if their relationship had only barely begun.

  And it might all be over before it had really had a chance, all because Cadmus was inherently a selfish bastard who wanted to hoard all the pretty things and keep them happy.

  Unlocking the door, Cadmus slipped inside, locked it, and made certain the closed sign was in place. He then trudged through to the back and up the stairs to his rooms above the shop, where he discarded his jacket, shoes, and collar before going to make a cup of tea that wound up being mostly whisky. At two in the afternoon. Fires, wasn't he maudlin.

  Though he waited with anticipation and dread for Harren to show, he never did. Finally, as dark fell, Cadmus gave up and went down to his workroom. But instead of the commission he should have been working on, he instead sat down and drew out plans and notes for two new pieces. When he was done sketching, he had to admit they'd be even finer than the piece he'd just completed for Serena. But would the recipients even want them?

  But at least he would have made the best apology he knew how.

  Gathering the pieces, making notes on fabrics and the parts he'd have to commission, were a welcome distraction. Eventually, though, he could not avoid once more wishing Harren would come see him. He didn't seem the sort to not want to talk. Maybe he'd been called back to work. As much as Cadmus hated it, that was an important point to remember. A lover's quarrel had to take second place to the urgency of Harren's job, where five minutes could make all the difference between attempted murder and a successful one, and catching a criminal before he vanished forever, never to face justice. Though Cadmus had no desire to see someone suffer, he hoped work was the only reason Harren wasn't coming to see him.

  But he couldn't avoid replaying his own words, over and over again, until he was sick of them. It was entirely possible his words had left Harren feeling like he couldn't send a note or come see him. Cadmus winced inwardly. He hated when he let his temper finally get the better of him.

  He didn't want to sever his relationship with Harren. But neither did he want to spend the entirety of it constantly waiting for another wrong assumption and loss of temper. Did Harren behave that way when he was working? Perhaps it was the job that had made him so. Still, it stung that he would so quickly think so little of Cadmus. What had he done or said that made Harren jump so quickly to such an awful assumption?

  But really, he had only himself to blame there as well. It wasn't as though he'd been subtle about how much he'd been wishing that Sula could kiss him right then, there in his beautiful garden, bathed in sunlight, surrounded by flowers and fresh air.

  Of course, all of this was just to avoid thinking about the one thing he truly feared: that Harren wasn't coming to talk to him because he and Sula had finally talked, Sula had confessed his feelings, and now they'd both realized they had no need of Cadmus at all. That would be his luck, and a fitting reprisal for his behavior and mixed-up feelings.

  He sighed and cleaned up the workroom, then trudged gloomily back upstairs to fix dinner and sulk by the fire with a neglected book in his lap. By the time he gave up all pretense and dragged himself to bed, he was more miserable than ever.

  On top of everything else, he never even got to see Temnis's reaction to his automaton. It was stupid, and minor, but it was a wound all the same.

  Eventually, exhaustion won
out, dragging Cadmus into a tense, fitful sleep.

  *~*~*

  A pounding on his shop door jerked Cadmus awake, and he stared blearily around the room, head aching from poor sleep, before he figured out that was the source of the racket. Why would someone be pounding on his door at… he glanced at the clock on the far wall and groaned. It wasn't even light out!

  He stumbled out of bed and shrugged into his dressing robe, not even bothering to put his hair in a queue as he stumbled through the apartment, down the stairs, and to the front of the shop.

  His steps faltered as he spied Harren through the glass-front doors. Setting his shoulders, he strode to the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open. But the dressing down he'd been determined to give died as he saw that Harren looked on the verge of tears.

  "Look, I have a lot to apologize for, but right now there's an emergency. There's something wrong with Temnis. Not the food poisoning. He was admiring your automaton, Sula said, and then suddenly screamed and collapsed. We can't figure out what's wrong with him—even a healer was baffled. I can't find Serena anywhere. Would you please come?"

  "Of course. Let me get dressed. Come in." Cadmus didn't wait for a reply, simply bolted off back to his rooms and yanked on clothes as quickly as was possible. Scooping up his keys again, he shoved them into a pocket, jerked on his shoes, and bolted back downstairs.

  Harren all but dragged him into the carriage, barely waiting for Cadmus to lock up.

  In the carriage, Cadmus tried and failed at least a dozen time to say something, but in the end there didn't seem to be anything useful or helpful to say. Instead, he shifted to sit next to Harren and gently took hold of his hand. "We'll find her."

  "I have every officer I can reasonably spare looking for her. She sent me a note last night that she would be staying with her friend Alice. When Temnis collapsed, and it seemed related to the automaton, I went to get her, only to find she'd never been there at all. I've no idea what's going on."