Dragon's Eye
Page 12
“Oh, nay, Miss Lake, dinna say so,”
Dervish said. “I have it on good authority that
there is more to the tale than meets the eye. But
again, that will be for the two of ye to decide. I
will leave it in yer capable hands.”
“We’ll be traveling outside the Veil at
times, since it does not shield the entire area we
must traverse,” Lancelot explained. “I hope you
like long journeys, Miss Lake.”
“Immensely,” she assured him. “It gives
me plenty more time to read.” Dervish and
Lancelot exchanged an amused glance, and she
added, “I saw that.”
“Yes, my dear girl, I am quite certain that
you did,” Lancelot chuckled as he offered her his
arm. “Shall we depart?”
“Now, I ken thot I used the Unveiling
Fountain once by myself, but are ye certain thot
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the thing is ready to transport more than one
Mage at a time, lassie?” Dervish persisted. “I
dinna want to send my entire staff to their doom
in one fell swoop.”
“Yes, I am certain of it,” Felicity said.
“You could probably send ten people at once
using the enhancements I incorporated.”
“Lassie, I dinna ken wot I would do
without ye,” he said as he smiled at Felicity
gratefully.
“I imagine you’d be spending a great
deal of time in Siberia,” she replied.
The three of them went back into the
secret entrance, and Felicity activated the
crystals, which began to glow brightly as she and
Lance took hands and stepped into the cool,
flowing spray of water.
“I hope you like cold showers, Master
Jones,” she teased him.
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“I must do,” he answered as he cast her a
wicked grin. “I’ve been taking quite a few of
them lately.”
Before Felicity could respond to his
statement, which had seemed rather suggestive
in spite of her lack of knowledge on such
matters, the scene shifted, and the two of them
were suddenly somewhere else. Somewhere
beyond the Veil.
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EIGHTEEN
Felicity and Lancelot emerged, quite dry
and unaffected, near the entrance to one of the
boatyards along the docks of Dover. They
stepped out into the open and began walking
together along the walkway.
As they started forward, Felicity caught
sight of a young man who observed them
stepping out from behind the building that had
concealed their arrival. His look was quite
knowing, and she felt her cheeks flush.
With an indulgent smirk at the man,
Lance took Felicity’s hand in his own and
brought it up to his lips, administering a kiss
across her knuckles that did nothing to dissuade
him from the notions he was entertaining.
“Lance!” she hissed, feeling mortified.
Still holding her hand, Lancelot smirked as he
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led her inside a small entrance to one of the
docks.
“I’m surprised we’re not heading for the
most luxurious liner in the bay,” she commented
wryly as they went. “Since you’re so very fond
of compelling the Mundanes, why not go full out
while you’re at it?”
Lance squeezed her hand slightly and
gave it a little shake. “A little bird told me that
my traveling companion might not appreciate
such an effort,” he explained. “In fact, my dear,
I have even brought along some Mundanian
money to pay the way.”
“Quite an astute bird.”
“Well, the ship should begin to board in
just a few minutes,” Lance said as he held up his
wrist to look at an actual watch that seemed no
different than the ones worn by any of the
Mundanes who surrounded them while they
waited on the docks.
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“Going native, I see,” she chuckled as
she grabbed his wrist to have a closer look.
One of Mundanes, a younger man,
rushed past so fast he almost knocked Felicity
down, and Lance reached out to steady her, and
then drew her close to his side as three other men
followed right behind the first. The grim look he
gave them should have been quite frightening,
had they known just how murderously he
wanted to deal with them.
Felicity had expected Lancelot to simply
set her back on her feet again and let her go, but
he kept hold of her hand afterwards, a fact that
did queer things to her insides. She worried that
he might feel the faster beat of her heart in her
pulse, or that he would notice the way her
breathing shifted into quicker, shallower breaths
than before. But if he was aware of these things,
he did not let on.
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“Young pups,” he grumbled. “What
makes them think they can just knock about a
lady with no care for her well-being?”
“It’s all right, Lance,” Felicity answered
softly, and her voice sounded odd to her ears.
Surely he would notice that. To forestall this, she
arbitrarily sought for something else to say. “So,
I’ve been wondering why you would want to
take so many cold showers. It seems like a silly
thing to do.”
“Have you never heard of the reason why
men take cold showers, my girl?” he chuckled.
“The occurrence usually coincides with being in
the presence of a beautiful woman. It helps them
to calm down, as it were.”
“Oh, so you must have went back to that
dating pub then?” she teased him.
“Where did you hear about that?” he
asked with a slight blush. “Surely Dervish would
not have told you.”
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“Actually, I heard it from someone I
knew at the Academie,” she hedged, not willing
to disclose the exact source. She didn’t know if
Lancelot would admonish Penelope if he found
out she had been the source.
Lancelot laughed. “Well, my dear, I
must say that there was no reason to return to the
place after the one time. I was—shall we say,
unaffected—by the experience.”
Felicity nodded at this, but noticed that
Lance was still watching her face intently. She
blushed slightly and furrowed her brow, not at
all certain why he persisted.
“How exactly did we get on this subject
again?” he inquired as he reached up and
playfully flicked her nose, releasing her from his
hold as he did so.
Felicity felt bereft at the loss of his touch,
but she couldn’t very well tell him so. To cover
> up the surge of emotions that suddenly assailed
her, she looked over at the boat.
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“I see they have lowered the gangplank,”
she pointed out. “Shall we head over there?”
“In a minute or so,” said Lance, taking
her by the elbow and drawing her a bit closer to
his side than was strictly necessary. “May as
well let some of this crowd pass by first. They
can be quite forceful about getting aboard.”
As they waited companionably, Lance
continued to press Felicity to his side, making
her heart pound in her chest so loudly, she feared
he must hear it by now. She glanced up and saw
that he was still watching her.
“Have you ever been on a boat, my
dear?” he inquired with a slight smirk.
“Only a very small one,” she admitted.
“The kind that holds two people, and requires
oars to move it.”
“You went outside of the Veil with your
aunt so often, but never left England?” he
clarified.
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“Right, exactly,” she said with a nod.
“There was nothing we needed outside of this
land.”
“Mm, so this is kind of like your very
first real adventure,” he teased her. “That’s a
good thing.”
“Why is it a good thing?” she asked
breathlessly.
Hearing her voice, and seeing the liquid
heat pooling in Felicity’s eyes, made Lancelot
want to kiss her. To quell the desire, he began to
walk toward the boat, bringing her along by her
elbow.
“Lance?”
“Oh, no reason, really. It’s just nice to
get to share a first with the girl who has done so
very many things,” he answered, giving her arm
a slight squeeze.
“I suppose so,” she answered with a
blush.
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Felicity felt glad he was the one she
would be sharing this adventure with, too. Of
course, she wasn’t about to tell Lancelot that.
She could only imagine what it would sound like
to him if she did.
She supposed it would not sound unlike
some sappy romantic novel such as the one
she’d been reading when they’d first met.
Remembering what else she’d read in that book
left Felicity’s temperature rising even higher as
they finally reached the boat.
As the few people ahead of them took
their turns boarding, Felicity asked Lance, “But
what about you, Lance? Have you ever been on
a boat before?”
“Indeed, yes,” he answered with a fond
smile. “I first boarded a boat at age nineteen,
when my grandfather was killed by giants in
Rome. After that, my grandmother insisted that
every year my brother and father and I must
come to see her on the anniversary of her
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husband’s death, for she refused to return to
England with us, and chose to reside in Paris
instead. The last time I was on a boat was the
same day she died. But that’s a memory I’d
rather not revisit, however.”
“No doubt,” Felicity agreed, in spite of
the fact she did not know the precise
circumstances of that particular event. “So
where are your father and brother now? One
never hears anything about either of them.”
Lancelot chuckled. “They are in France,
actually, running my grandparent’s estate for
well over a hundred years now. My family has a
great deal of wealth, you know, both in
Mundania and within the Veils of both France
and England.”
“Oh? No, I did not know.”
“Step aboard, miss,” said the boatman as
Felicity approached the top of the gangplank.
Lancelot held fast to one of her hands,
while the boatman held the other, and between
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the two of them they made certain Felicity was
safely deposited on the deck. Then the boatman
let go and gave Lance a steadying pat on his
shoulder as well before he turned away, intent
on helping the next group of passengers.
“Come, my dear,” said Lance as they
stepped forward. “We will find a couple of deck
chairs out here, I think. It’s perfect weather for
the trip, and you’ve worn just the right dress, I
see. It was almost as though you’d known where
we would be going.”
As they sat side by side in a couple of
chairs, Felicity snorted derisively. “Oh, so now
you think I’ve got some sort of seer
capabilities?” she scoffed.
“Perhaps you could tell me what you see
in my future, then,” he answered as he laid back,
placing his hands behind his head and looking
up at her with a smirk.
Felicity looked at him for a moment as
the smirk slipped slowly into a suggestive grin,
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and then she blushed profusely and looked
away, making him chuckle.
“No pearls of wisdom, then?” he
inquired. “I mean, it would be nice to know I
was not about to be eaten by a dragon, at the very
least.”
When
he’d
said
this,
Felicity
remembered the book she’d found in the school
library. She’d been reading it off and on since
she’d first found it, and had even begun taking it
to work with her as well.
Now she realized with a start of surprise
that she could easily spend some of the time on
board familiarizing herself with the precise
legend of Amaranth the Dragoness, and the
Grimoire Draconis that they now sought. She
pulled the shrunken book out and enlarged it.
“Where did you get that book, Felicity?”
asked Lance curiously as he glanced away from
the docks once they’d left his field of vision. “It
looks quite magical.”
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“Yes, I suppose it is,” she agreed. “It
called to me while I was in the library at
Academie Magica one day. When I told the
librarian about it, she told me not to concern
myself with returning it once I’d read it, since it
appears to have chosen me.”
“‘The Lore and Magic of Dragons’? That
is very interesting, my dear,” said Lancelot
tiredly as he reached over to give her knee a brief
squeeze. “Perhaps it will come in handy during
our little jaunt.”
He was barely able to stifle a yawn, and
Felicity cast him a smile as she settled down to
read. Soon a light snore greeted her ears as he
drifted off to sleep. Smiling contentedly, Felicity
had never felt more comforted in her entire
life
than she was by the sound.
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NINETEEN
Before ten minutes had passed Felicity
became completely engrossed in the book of
lore. She had been reading it for quite some time
while Lancelot dozed, and discovered the legend
of Amaranth within its pages.
Mostly, the book’s version of the tale
confirmed what Dervish had already discovered.
The Dragon’s Eye had apparently been cleaved
in two by the giants, and it appeared to be over
some sort of land dispute.
Broken but not destroyed, the dragon-
mage had hidden herself within a mountain
somewhere in ancient Gaul, which would now
be found in southern France and the other
countries that bordered it.
Felicity was not certain she liked the fact
that so many people had gone in search of the
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dragoness and never returned. When she thought
about how many people had gone searching for
that cave to date, it made her cringe.
She and Lancelot were now headed for
those very same caves, and she had no wish to
disappear in such a way. She’d only just
graduated; she certainly did not want her life to
be over so soon after it had just begun.
But then she remembered that she had
been drawn to this very book, and it was all
about the dragons. How did she know it wasn’t
her who was meant to go there? She might very
well be the one meant to set things right.
Before she could read any further, the
book was suddenly pulled away. Shock mingled
with irritation as she looked up to see what had
happened. She saw that Lance had finally
awakened, and now he was standing above her
with the book in his waving hand.
“Lancelot Jones, you give that back right
now!” she gasped indignantly. “At least have the
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