Wildwood Larkwing (Silver and Orchids Book 3)

by Shari L. Tapscott

  Because he’s being sweet, and because it feels so very good to be in his arms, I soften against him and let him hold me for just a moment before we begin our search.

  “All right,” I say as I pull away. “I’m fine. Let’s find Flink.”

  ***

  I was wrong—Sebastian doesn’t believe me. Adeline looks like she wants to, but her gaze keeps darting back to my business partner as if she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing in front of him.

  “There is no way Dante, or anyone else for that matter, wants your dragon, Lucia. He is a menace to society. You are truly the only person with the patience for him.”

  Well.

  I set my hands on my hips and stare him down. “But you’ll help look for him.”

  Sebastian doesn’t flinch under my gaze. “Of course.”

  The relief is instantaneous. “Perhaps you and Adeline can search the castle? We’re going to start on Avery’s ship, see if there’s some chance he wandered there again.”

  Though I’m only going there so I can convince Avery to go with me to the botanical gardens. I know Dante has Flink, just like I know we don’t have much time to get him back. The thought of my poor dragon in the clutches of the insane alchemist makes my stomach churn. My mind wanders to all the ingredients in Dante’s shoppe—of the dragon hide and scales and worse, but I shake my head and force myself not to dwell on it.

  Avery’s crew is already loading the Greybrow Serpent for their next voyage. The sight makes me ill, but I try not to look at the cargo and supplies making their way up the gangplank. It doesn’t escape my notice that Avery tries to ignore it too.

  “Gregory!” I holler as soon as I spot the mage.

  He glances over, smiling. “I knew you’d come with us, Lucia.” Then his eyebrows scrunch together when he sees the look on my face. “What’s the matter?”

  I explain Flink’s disappearance, but unlike Avery and Sebastian, he doesn’t immediately push my theory aside. “He left his ball?”

  Biting my bottom lip, I nod.

  “You might be right.”

  I shoot Avery a victorious look, but there’s no joy in it.

  “Given what you’ve told me, I think there is a chance the alchemist took him.”

  Avery scratches his ear, probably hoping the mage was going to talk some sense into me—not further convince me. “And why exactly do we think that?”

  “A dragon’s elemental essence encompasses every part of them. Every scale, every tooth, every drop of blood—” Gregory stops short when he sees the look on my face. Then he clears his throat. “It can all be used in concoctions, and if it’s carefully balanced with ingredients with similar characteristics, you can make a powerful potion indeed. A neutralizing concoction would be worth a fortune.”

  Dante’s going to kill Flink.

  Without wasting any time, I grasp Avery’s arm and yank him toward the gangplank.

  “Wait, Lucia!” Gregory yells.

  I look over my shoulder, but I don’t slow my pace.

  “Yancey hasn’t returned,” he says. “I just thought you’d like to know.”

  Fabulous. Now I’m worried about my dragon and the big brute.

  “Oh, and Lucia?”

  “What?”

  “I have some things that might help you if you’re going to break into the tunnels.”

  The last thing we need is a bagful of Gregory’s experiments. “There’s no time.”

  “But…”

  The mage goes on, but I block him out and drag the captain down the plank. Avery turns back to Gregory, not looking terribly concerned. “If we’re not back by sundown, you might send someone to find us.”

  ***

  We’ve been all over these wretched gardens, but have we found the courtyard with the passage that leads to the tunnels? No.

  The day is warm, more spring than late winter. Tinslefoil, one of the earliest flowers of the season, is ablaze with hundreds of tiny orange-red blooms, and the garden is full-to-bursting with them. Because of that, we are far from alone. Couples wander down the flower-lined walkways, heads bent together, not a care in the world. Families enjoy the sunshine as well, and we’re never far from the excited squeals of children.

  “Why didn’t I ask Sebastian where the entrance was?” I say, nearly defeated as we circle the area yet again. We find ourselves at the amphitheater where Madam Lavinia assaulted our ears.

  Not ready to give up, Avery scans the perimeter. “It’s here somewhere.”

  “But where?”

  Avery frowns as he watches the crowd. After several minutes, his lips tip in a satisfied smile. “Looks like we found ourselves a guide.”

  “What are you talking…” My words fade as I turn to see who captured the captain’s attention.

  There, looking as shifty as always, is our dear friend Ivan. He weaves past the crowd, his eyes darting this way and that before he squeezes past two close hedges in a flowerbed.

  Without a word, we follow him, pretending we are both very stealthy. To Avery’s credit, he actually is stealthy. Me? Not as much. Yet somehow, we still manage to sneak behind the thief without drawing his attention. Twigs catch my hair and scratch my exposed skin as we push through thick brush in this forgotten and untended area of the gardens.

  “This must not be the way we traveled in the carriage,” I quietly gripe as I struggle with an overgrown evergreen bough.

  Avery holds the branch instead of answering, reminding me with his eyes that I need to keep quiet.

  Ivan stops just once, standing perfectly still as if he senses something is amiss. Avery pulls me into the safety of another tall hedgerow, and we peer at him through the dense evergreen foliage. Barely breathing, I watch as he scans the path behind him, looking as if he’s about to bolt.

  Much to my relief, he nods to himself and then continues. Even more careful this time, we continue trailing him. Just when I start to wonder if he’s led us on a wild goose chase, we turn a corner, and the courtyard lies in front of us, beckoning us onto its ancient cobblestones. Without so much as a glance behind him, Ivan moves the bench aside, opens the hidden door, and disappears into the black interior.

  We wait a minute more, making sure he’s not going to pop back out, and cautiously make our way to the entrance. The trail the carriage must have taken goes off into the trees, into the dense forest, off to the left.

  Avery studies the road. “It would probably take hours to reach the entrance by foot if you were to go that way.”

  I eye Avery. “Can you wait to maim Ivan until after I’ve found Flink?”

  A quick grin creases the edges of the captain’s handsome eyes. “What makes you think I plan to go after him?”

  “Because I know you.”

  If he wonders why my voice has gone soft, he doesn’t mention it. He nods toward the door that leads to the tunnels. “Shall we?”

  A tremor of apprehension runs through me. The first time we went down those stairs, we were invited, but that is far from the case now. What will Dante do if he finds us?

  But we have no choice, because I will not leave Flink in the hands of a madman.

  Avery pulls on the door, but it sticks. “It’s locked.”

  Frustrated, I kneel next to him to study it. Then I angle my head toward him. “Can you pick locks?”

  “What do you think?”

  Without a word, I slide my dagger from its sheath and hand it to him.

  Grinning, he declines the blade and rummages through the deep inside pocket of his jacket.

  “Please tell me that’s not an actual lockpick kit,” I say, covering my eyes with my hand when he unties a leather pouch with an assortment of steel picks.

  “I could smash the lock if you’d rather,” he says, but he’s already gotten to work.

  “Pirate,” I mutter, but unlike the few times I used the word before, I’m only teasing. Mostly.

  It takes a few minutes. I peer over my shoulder the whole time, terrified we’re goi
ng to be discovered.

  Finally, the beautiful sound of a lock clicking open meets my ears, and Avery sits back on his heels, satisfied. After quickly stashing the pouch in his pocket, he opens the door. “After you, Lady Lucia.”

  I turn to him before I step inside. “Thank you…for coming with me.”

  “I’d go anywhere with you,” he says flippantly. Then his expression changes, and he lowers his voice. “You simply have to ask.”

  There’s so much unspoken meaning in those words. The knot in my stomach loosens, and my chest begins to tingle. I find myself leaning forward, close…

  And then something crashes through the brush behind us. Instantly, we leap to our feet, both of us reaching for our blades.

  The grouse stares at us for several moments and then lets out a squawk before she lowers her head to the ground in search for fallen seeds. I let out an exaggerated breath and grab my chest.

  Avery brushes off his embarrassment at being startled by a wild chicken and gestures toward the door once more. “We should probably…”

  “Right.”

  I slip in first, wishing for the lights our previous guide created. Before, the tunnels were mysterious, exciting. But now I find their dark, musty smell unsettling, and a premonition of trouble passes through me, eating at my confidence.

  Quietly, Avery closes the door. He’s about to reset the lock when I set my hand on his, stopping him. “What if we need to leave in a hurry? Wouldn’t it be best not to fumble with locks?”

  “Good point.”

  We make our way forward, and I trail my fingers along the walls to ensure we don’t miss a turn. Hints of sunlight shine down from a few cracks in the ceiling, and dust motes wink in the dim rays. The light does little to illuminate the tunnel, but it keeps it from being as black as night, and I’m grateful for it.

  I think we’re just about to the large cavern when voices drift to us from farther down the tunnel, echoing off the ancient stone walls. We creep forward until we reach a doorway.

  The ballroom doesn’t look as grand right now. Utilitarian torches burn along the walls, brightening the space with flickering light. Dante stands in the middle of the room, speaking with Ivan. Oddly—or not so oddly now that I think about it—Serena’s assistant stands with them.

  “Did you use the attractant?” Dante demands.

  Ivan crosses his arms. “Yes, and we caught a mess of all kinds of insects—but no larkwings. You’ve hunted them out. They’re gone.”

  Dante rubs his brow and stares at the ceiling. “Then we move onto the next project.”

  “I don’t care what you do—I want payment for the butterfly, and then I need to get out of the city before the Captain of the Greybrow Serpent tracks me down.”

  I glance at Avery, but his eyes are still on the exchange. Dante jerks his head toward the left, and Serena’s assistant hurries out of sight, perhaps off to collect Ivan’s money.

  Once she’s gone, Dante steps closer, lowering his voice to the point that I almost can’t hear him. “We had a good run with the Lark and Song, but I think I’m onto something that will make us richer than the king himself.”

  Ivan stares at him for a moment. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m working on a concoction that neutralizes magic.”

  Avery tenses next to me, possibly believing me for the first time.

  “Neutralizes?” Ivan says, incredulous. “Or lessens the effects?”

  “Neutralizes.”

  The thief looks impressed. “What do you need from me?”

  “Nothing too difficult to find. Dendrill root, a bag of fresh silverwart. My stocks are low, and I need to experiment.”

  “Do I look like a common scout?”

  “I’ll pay you a thousand denats.”

  If I didn’t know what those ingredients were for, I’d run out there myself, begging for the job.

  Ivan thinks about it for a moment and then sighs as if put out. “Fine—but you pay me for the larkwing now.”

  Dante nods, and the woman returns with Ivan’s payment. Afraid Ivan’s about to leave, I look around for a spot to hide. Unfortunately, the walls are smooth and offer no protection.

  “Oh,” Dante says, turning back to Ivan just as he was about to leave the cavern. “I need some kind of descaling tool. Think you can find me something? It’s such an inconvenience I had to leave everything behind when I ransacked my shoppe.”

  A descaling tool? I nearly pass out at the thought.

  “For what?” Ivan asks.

  Dante flashes him a lazy grin. “Dragon hide.”

  “Not a problem,” Ivan says, and then he starts to walk our way.

  Avery leans close to my ear. “I don’t suppose you have an invisibility charm at your disposal?”

  “Not on me,” I say, truly hoping it wasn’t one of the things Gregory had been trying to offer.

  “All right, here’s what we’re going to—”

  But I’ll never know what Avery is about to say because Dante hollers, “And a few glass beakers, too. I need something that’s sturdy enough it can take prolonged heat while I distill an element from blood.”

  And with those words, I temporarily lose access to my common sense and self-control. It’s simply gone, wisped into the air.

  Before Avery can stop me, overcome with rage, I charge into the cavern, ripping my dagger from its sheath. “If you have touched so much as one scale on my dragon’s body, I will descale you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Uninvited Guests

  Avery mutters a curse behind me, and then he follows, slightly less enthusiastic.

  Dante turns my way, only looking mildly surprised. “I wondered when you’d get here. With your reputation, I would have been sorely disappointed if you hadn’t shown.”

  “Where is Flink?” I demand, holding my blade in front of me. Though it’s an impressive dagger, I must say it looks a bit puny now that Dante’s brute guards are drawing their swords and slowly making their way toward me. I extend my blade, warning them to stay back.

  “Hello to you as well, Captain.” Dante waves down his guards, less than impressed with my entrance, and then turns to me. “He’s fine, for now.” He frowns and makes a clucking noise as if he’s thinking very hard. “I’m afraid I wasn’t ready for entertaining. I have just a bit of Lark and Song left, but something tells me you won’t be interested in that. Talia—you know how to make tea, don’t you, love?”

  Serena’s assistant frowns.

  “What am I saying? Of course you do. Run off and fetch us some—oh, and a few of those little biscuits too—the ones with icing.”

  He’s not taking my ambush seriously, and that’s very irritating. What’s the point of charging into someone’s secret lair if they don’t even bother to attack you when they notice your arrival?

  “This is not a tea party.” I slide my dagger back into its sheath, beyond put out.

  Ivan looks a wee bit nervous now that he and the captain are in the same room. Trying to stay as small as possible, like a rat, he inches toward the room off this one, probably not daring to cross Avery to make his way to the exit. Avery watches him, his expression nothing less than menacing, but he does not leave me to chase after the man.

  Dante walks toward us, but he doesn’t look threatening—more like he wants to do business. “How long were you lurking in the hall? Did you hear the part where Ivan said there were no more butterflies for my lovely concoction, or do I need to fill you in from the beginning?”

  I shake my head, ready to throttle him, but Avery takes over, volunteering to do the talking. “We heard.”

  “Oh good,” Dante says, looking genuinely relieved he doesn’t have to go over it again. “Let me be forthright with you. I believe there are larkwings left, and I think that if anyone can find them, it’s you. So, I’m going to make you a deal. If you want your dragon back, all you have to do is find me a few more butterflies. Nothing to it.” He smiles in the friendliest way. “If
you can’t do that, I’m afraid I need your Flink for my next business venture. You understand, I’m sure. I’ll pay you for him, of course, if it comes to that. How much do you think he’s worth?”

  Avery holds me back, which is probably a good idea, because I’m beginning to see red.

  “You listen carefully you pig-goat of a man, I will slice you from your navel to—”

  “Lucia,” Avery says, half-amused. “When in the enemies’ lair, we usually refrain from detailing how you’re envisioning their murder.”

  Dante makes a scoffing noise. “I’m not the enemy.”

  Before I can answer, Serena’s assistant walks back into the ballroom with a silver tray in hand. And there’s a tea pot—an actual tea pot.

  “This is insane,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Are you telling me that no matter what, you won’t be willing to do a few side scouting jobs for me then?” Dante says, looking quite disappointed. “And you won’t sell me the dragon?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” I give him my sweetest smile, one I reserve for times just like this.

  Dante exhales slowly and then nods. “Oh, well. Share some tea, let me try to persuade you just a bit longer, and if you still have no interest, I suppose I’ll take you to your dragon.”

  Avery narrows his eyes. “And why would you do that?”

  “Do you really have to ask? She is a siren slayer, and you are known to be ruthless in certain circles—a force to be reckoned with. What chance do I have of winning against the likes of you two? Do you think I’m ignorant of your achievements?”

  All very valid points. I suppose one cup of tea won’t hurt—and those biscuits do look tasty. Hesitant, Avery and I join Dante at the table.

  Talia pours our tea, and Dante leaps into the finer points of his business strategy. Neither Avery or I drink until Dante takes his first sip—which he does with gusto. After several minutes, I figure it’s safe.

  Dante prattles on so long, I begin to get very, very sleepy.

  “So,” he says, folding his hands on the table before us. “As you can see, you’d only have to work for maybe a year, and then you could retire anywhere you want—leave Kalae. Buy yourself an island.”