“Volponia told you!” Sophraea exclaimed. “When?”
“I called on her last night,” said Lord Adarbrent. “In a more conventional manner than my previous visit.”
“Really?”
A look of amusement softened the old man’s face. “Although she claims a few more years than myself,” he said, “we remember the same Waterdeep. I enjoyed our conversation very much and will call again.”
With a bow to Astute and a promise to return in a few days, Lord Adarbrent took his leave.
Sophraea turned the letter over in her hand.
“So you’ll leave here for that fine dressmaker’s in the Castle Ward?” said Gustin. “All billowing lace, pretty silks, and nothing but the chatter of ladies from morn until night.”
“It sounds a little dull, doesn’t it?” said Sophraea. “Sewing seams all day, I mean. And I would miss my family.”
“So what are you going to do?” asked Gustin with some trepidation and a little anticipation in his voice.
“Do you have your guidebook with you?” she countered.
He patted his pocket. “Always,” he said. “I might go for a walk later. There’s still so much I haven’t seen in Waterdeep: the Blackstaff’s Tower, Cymbril’s Walk, and, really, most of the famous monuments inside the City of the Dead. We never did go look at those!”
Sophraea held up her wicker basket. She had packed it with a lunch for two.
“Let’s take a look at the monuments today,” she suggested. He hadn’t asked her for a second kiss, not for a whole day, but with more than a little anticipation and no trepidation at all, Sophraea thought he might that afternoon.
Deciding one’s whole life in a moment was not necessary, she realized as she crumpled up Lord Adarbrent’s letter of recommendation and stuffed it in the bottom of her basket. There was time enough for dozens of adventures, just as Volponia always said, and a girl didn’t have to live in a dress shop or go outside the walls of Waterdeep to find them.
But, because she was always ruthlessly honest with herself or tried to be, Sophraea did admit to herself that adventures in the company of a certain brown-haired, green-eyed, lanky wizard might be more exciting than anything Volponia ever encountered on her old pirate ship. She’d simply have to let the future happen to find out.
Just then, she continued out loud, “Fish is worried that something odd happened in the portal that they use on the south end. He thinks somebody has been sneaking into that tomb. Maybe a graverobber. I said we could go and take a look.”
Gustin was still protesting that he wanted to see the sights, not more corpses and ghosts, as he followed her to the Dead End gate. But he did follow her and Sophraea noticed that the emerald gleam of his eyes was noticeably brighter under those lashes that were ridiculously long for a man.
“Stop complaining,” said Sophraea, unlatching the wrought iron gate. It swung open with a friendly creak, her uncles having decided to forge the squeak back into the gate hinges. She started down the moss-covered steps into the City of the Dead. “You know that as long as you are with me, you won’t get lost. Besides, Volponia gave me another ring from her jewel box. She’s almost certain that the spell in this one will work.”
About the Author
Rosemary Jones is descended from the Chicago stonecutter who carved the Cardiff Giant, a 19th-century stone hoax, as well as numerous memorials in the Windy City’s graveyards. The author of a previous FORGOTTEN REALMS® novel, Crypt of the Moaning Diamond, she also writes nonfiction on collecting children’s books. For more on her latest projects, check her websites at www.rosemaryjones.com or at www.myspace.com/jonesbooks.
Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep
CITY OF THE DEAD
©2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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eISBN: 978-0-7869-5583-1
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