“What do we know about this particular dragoness or her book?” Lance asked as he enlarged the area they were looking at into a back-lit extension that floated above the original globe. Felicity moved closer to his side to have a better look, and he gave her a slight smile that made her stomach do a little flip as she returned it.
“Mostly just the legends, which are not always to be relied upon completely,” Dervish told him as he hid a smile when he noticed their exchange. “It has been said thot for reasons unknown, the giants cleaved a special gem she possesses in twain, and to date it was never able to be mended. No one who has ever gone in search of the Dragon’s Eye or Amaranth’s hidden lair has ever returned to tell the tale, so ye must be very careful how ye proceed.”
“Smooth sailing, eh?” Felicity scoffed with a wry smile in Dervish’s direction. “Sounds more like a thunderstorm waiting to happen.”
“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 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.
“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.
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 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.
“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.
“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.”
“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.
“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.
“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 k
iss 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.
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 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 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, 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.”
“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.
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 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 decency to let me finish that paragraph. Oh, I can’t believe this!”
With a playful grin, Lance held the book high above his head—well out of Felicity’s insistent reach—as he said, “Oh no, my dear, I think not. We have been sitting here doing nothing for long enough.”
“I’ll have you know that I have been doing something, unlike you,” she grumbled. “You’re the one who has been asleep all morning, while I was learning more about our destination and the dragoness we’re about to face.”
“Up, up, up, Miss Lake,” he insisted as he took her hands in his free one to gently bring her to her feet. “Do you not feel the wind in your hair, Felicity? Do you not smell the scent of the ocean breeze drifting in to play about? Surely it must entice you to enjoy its fragrance. Come to the rail with me, my dear girl, so we can have a better look at the sea.”
“But Lance—” Felicity began, hopping from one foot to the other as she leaned against his chest in an attempt to snatch the book away from him. His hand came up about her waist to make certain she did not lose her balance.
“Felicity, you must desist climbing up my anatomy before I have to jump into the water to cool off,” he teased her as he set her back onto her feet. Felicity’s cheeks began to flame as she recalled what he had said earlier about why men wanted to take cold showers, and she had to suppress some heat of her own as a result.
“Do you never do anything but read and write and file things away where they belong?” he wanted to know. “Don’t you ever want to actually see the things you’ve been reading about firsthand?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she protested. “I do so see things—” then her voice faltered, and after a brief pause during which he cast her a dubious, albeit extremely sexy, stare, she fidgeted for a moment or two before she amended, “Okay, fine, I don’t. So sue me.”
“No, my dear, I would not go quite that far,” he chuckled dryly. “But I refuse t
o return this little tome until you’ve seen at least three new things that you’ve never laid eyes on outside of a book.”
“You can’t be serious,” she protested as she tried to jump for the book yet again, making him back away and raise a brow. “How do you think I’m going to see three new things while I’m on a boat?”
“Ah, but my darling little bookworm,” he practically purred as he took her by the elbow and propelled her toward the railing. “You said so yourself, you’ve never been on a boat before. There are plenty of things to see on a boat, if only you know where to look for them.”
“Like what?” Felicity wanted to know as she laid her arms along the rail and leaned over to look down into the waves. The engine made the water bubble up from somewhere out of sight, and she tried to see if she could discover the source.
Lancelot stood behind her, and this made her look suspiciously back over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Hush,” he said with an innocent smirk as he moved closer, penning her in with one arm to either side. He tilted her face upwards to show her the flock of seabirds he’d just spotted. “Look up there, Felicity. Have you ever seen a flock of birds over the open water?”
“No, of course not,” she admitted as she watched them flying about above them. Some of the birds were chasing each other, and she gave him a puzzled look. “What are they doing?”
“Don’t you know, little bookworm?” he asked her with a wicked grin.
Felicity turned back to watch some more as two birds came together, and figured it out. Her face turned every possible shade of red as the coupling birds screeched and fell briefly together.
“Lance!” she gasped, hiding her eyes with her hands.
“Come on, now, my girl, that was only the first thing you’ve never seen,” he teased her. “You can’t give up on the game already. Don’t you want your book back?”
“Let go of me, you evil man,” she admonished him when she realized he had pressed her closer to the rail than ever. Lancelot snickered and rested his chin on the top of her head.
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