by Grace, Viola
She folded the chips into the fabric carefully and tucked it into her cleavage. “Here I go.”
She dissipated into smoke and saw Inoth doing the same an instant before fire claimed the lab. Those boys were on time. It was a nice trait in a dragon, but letting them give the all-clear would have been polite.
Chapter Two
She didn’t stop off in her quarters. She transported directly into her workshop. It was an interesting space with no entrances or exits in the belly of the museum. The curator decided that she needed some truly private space and had it crafted for her.
Eltrinia pulled the packets out of her cleavage and set them on her workbench. There had been three monitoring units, and the memory was in her hands.
She pulled out some of the blank boards that the curator had provided her with, and she focused everything that Creata had told her about the process and slowly set the memory chips in line for the first attempt at reading them.
She plugged them into the power source and watched for signs of smoke. When nothing happened, she connected the display and the keyboard.
It was a blind system. If there were something toxic on the chips, she would know about it shortly. Files were on the chips, and they were all terribly technical. The truly interesting point was the schematics for the tanks. That was a dangerous piece of information.
She sat there and drummed her fingers for a moment before making a few small alterations in the design. It wouldn’t damage the inhabitant, but it would turn the water blue and slow the development of the new dragon. It would also send a signal that she was going to pick up on. The pulse through the fluid would resonate in her mind. If they built it according to her specifications, she would hear it anywhere around the world, and the distinct appearance of the fluid would give her a transport marker to find.
She made hard copies of the files and set them aside. She pried the chips up and wrapped them carefully before going on to the second batch. Outside she could feel the sun coming up, but there were more files to explore.
The second batch held a contaminated file that lit her board on fire. She wrinkled her nose and extinguished the hard resin before pulling out another blank board and setting the third set of chips into place.
She paused and removed two of the four memory chips, just to be safe. She fired them up and watched them, copying and printing the files on the first two chips before turning the machine off and switching out the next two. The second two caught fire.
She looked at the two bundles of working chips and kept the scorched ones in their own separate wrappings. Eltrinia wrinkled her nose at the loss of whatever data was on the chips and tried to focus on what she had snagged from the chips.
With a deep breath, she focused on Vasic Tal’s desk, and she set the chips down on it, using his stationary for a little note that explained what the chips were. She knew that she was on a number of security devices, so she gave a jaunty wave, a little twirl, and disappeared when she was finished.
It was really time for bed.
A mechanical brought in her lunch, and there was a note folded on top. Eltrinia flipped her bedding back, and she went to pick up the note. She unfolded the paper with one hand while picking up her cup of tea with the other.
Dear Eltrinia,
Your efforts last night were deeply appreciated, and I would like a chance to meet with you and make you a formal offer of employment in this particular branch of activity.
Sincerely,
Orisa Lefarge
P.S. I will be arriving at six o’clock. Do you know anywhere suitable to have dinner? I will meet you in the main entryway.
Eltrinia sat down, ate her lunch, and then went for a shower. She hummed and pinned her hair up for a cruise through the museum. She picked out her normal uniform of tight trousers, snug shirt, and the long-skirted vest that acted in place of her corset.
She should have put her boots on before the skirt, but she pawed it out of the way to pull her boots on.
The mechanical came back in to retrieve the tray, and she snagged the letter off it, sliding it into the inner pocket in her skirt. She did a final check on her appearance, closed one white-blue eye, and smiled. Her winking was really coming along.
She left her quarters and put the polite smile on her lips that she wanted to present to the strangers in the museum.
Personal presentation was something that took work. She had to focus on her expression and hold it. It was part smile with a touch of surprise. The surprise was what made her approachable. She didn’t keep an expression of shock on her features, but it gave those approaching her confidence that let them speak. Since she appeared to be off-balance, they were much more eager to make all the social moves.
The curator’s schedule had her in the arboretum, speaking to some of her friends and telling fortunes. Eltrinia had a moment where it would be appropriate to speak with her, and she kept to the thick branches of the trees until the group rose to their feet and left.
“Are you just going to lurk there?” The curator set the cups and plates on trays for the mechanicals to remove.
“No. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t interrupt.”
“So, this is about the letter.”
“It is. I do not know how you feel about me working for the senate?”
The curator came over and took Eltrinia’s hands. “I will be fine with it, as long as they don’t mess with your schedule in the gallery.”
“I have the feeling that they will.”
“Well, we will just have to restrict your contract to one mission per week.” The curator was cheerfully confident.
“We can do that?”
“We can.”
Eltrinia exhaled. “Well, in that case, can you recommend a place to have dinner? Rish will be here around six.”
“We can eat here. I will remain silent unless you ask for my assistance as your counsel.”
Eltrinia smiled. “That sounds good.”
The curator released her hands. Eltrinia sorted the information she had just gotten from the curator via the slight contact, and she smiled. Nothing that would be done could not be undone. The curator had a grasp for what Eltrinia was being asked to do and why they needed her. The valley had shattered, and those shards dug in and spawned dark crystals of underground societies that sought to restore the dragon rule of the world.
Trin was the only dragon that was in a situation to make that happen, and she had no interest in it. She was focused on raising the profile of female dragons beyond that of simply wife and mother. Trin was pretty sure that it was her actual calling, but she wasn’t what the valley had wanted to bring forward. They had wanted a conqueror who used her power to subjugate the other dragons. She just wanted everyone to be equal, and that was a cause worth fighting for.
“I am going to head down to my gallery and make sure that everything is behaving itself.”
“Your gallery?”
Eltrinia grinned. “The exhibits will definitely come out of it on my side if we have a quarrel about them.”
The curator smiled. “They probably would.”
Eltrinia bowed and left the room as the mechanicals came in to clean up for the next group.
The museum was home. There was no doubt in her mind that she considered this place home. It felt good to acknowledge to herself that there was a place that she belonged.
She smiled and nodded at the staff members when she got to the public area of the museum. She passed dozens of galleries and displays, including a new holographic projection of dragon anatomy next to human anatomy.
Eltrinia stood and examined the dragon anatomy, and her inner dragon snickered in amusement. Its body was not designed on such cumbersome lines. Eltrinia was going to have to find out what it looked like because what she was looking at was a standard dragon. If her dragon looked like something else, it was news to her.
There was cheerful chortling in a small corner of h
er mind.
She finished looking at the new display and continued on toward her gallery. A dark and masculine figure changed direction to meet her, and she inclined her head. “Ambassador.”
“Docent. How are you this fine afternoon?”
“Good. You? Did you get enough rest last night?” She quirked her lips.
“Yes, but I think that my hair got scorched in my dreams. That was a bit close, wasn’t it?”
She smiled at his midnight blue features and his familiar white-blue eyes. “You are made of smoke. You weren’t in much danger.”
“You were in that situation longer than I was.”
She shrugged. “I have found that in that particular situation, I can hang around for quite a while before completing the relocation.”
He raised his brows. “Interesting. That is a fairly advanced skill. How did you come by it?”
She laughed. “I am nosey, and I want to see what is happening when I am not there. It is the same way that I avoided the guard on the way in. I drift a bit and choose when I want to walk out of the smoke.”
She wandered toward her gallery.
“Are you going to check on the displays?”
“Yes. There are a few new ones coming in, and I want to verify placement. Some of the displays don’t like being next to each other.”
Inoth chuckled. “Is that an actual thing?”
“Well, you saw the orb in action. Would you want to put it anywhere it didn’t want to be?”
“Fair point.” He nodded, and they walked at a circumspect distance from each other while conversing in discrete tones.
She continued the verbal discourse. “How has your post as ambassador changed?”
“Well, I am now on permanent assignment to this continent.”
She stumbled slightly. “Why?”
“I refused to order your assassination. The king was very irritated by your destruction of the orb.”
Eltrinia made a face. “He was using little girls as weapons of mass destruction.”
“As had our ancestors. They defeated each and every enemy, conquered vast territories, and all with that little orb.” Inoth sighed.
“And it got more powerful with each member of the bloodline who wielded it.”
He nodded. “As you proved.”
“They needed out. By the end, they were screaming for it. I am just glad that no blood was lost in the rectification.”
They entered her gallery, and she felt the artifacts greeting her. Inoth’s eyes widened in surprise, and she knew he could feel a few of them reaching out.
“This is truly coming alive.”
Eltrinia wandered around the gallery. “It is. I just need to move a few more objects, and everything will be ready for the new arrivals.”
“So, is someone exchanging artifacts as we did?”
“No. They are sending the cursed items here so that they don’t have to worry about them anymore. My work with the orb didn’t just cause ripples between Jianoa and the continent, it went worldwide. If I can unravel the curses, it will be welcome, and if we can just keep the items away from a vast population, that will be a good thing as well. We have the security, and I have the touch.” She nodded and patted the thick plate glass that was soon going to be housing the fan of a mad emperor and the purse of a murderous courtier.
There were other artifacts that she was going to have possession of, but they would wait in carefully structured storage until it was their turn to be worshiped by the public.
Inoth stepped closer. “May I take you out for dinner?”
“I have dinner plans.” She looked up at him and smiled. “But you can buy me tea and a cupcake.”
“I will take it. Shall we go to the shop?”
She shook her head and linked her arm in his, much to his surprise. “I think that the shop down the street should just be cooling some fresh cupcakes, ready for icing.”
“You are willing to be seen on the street with me?”
She laughed. “Of course.” She began to lead him along. “I skulk around in the wee hours with you, I might as well share a cupcake and a pot of tea in a shop a few steps from the museum.”
He leaned in and whispered, “Do they have chocolate?”
She held up her fingers and wiggled them. “Four different kinds.”
“Well then, dear Docent, what are we waiting for?”
She chuckled and led the way.
Chapter Three
The pile of cupcake wrappers drew as many stares as her companion. When she met the gazes of the gawkers, they flinched, blushed, and looked away.
She smiled and peeled the wrapper off her second cupcake. Inoth was working his way to a full dozen.
“I am glad you like my selection of shop.” She picked up her teacup with her free hand and balanced the cupcake on her fingertips.
He smiled. “I had not appreciated the combination of the flavours that could be achieved.”
“It is an art form. Like many culinary trends, it will flare up and be popular for several months or even years, and then, it will fade, and all you will have left are memories of this day.”
He leaned back and bit into his latest victim. “Ah, but what a day.”
She chuckled. “So, why are you in Breaker City and not the capital?”
He paused. “I am checking up on you. It was a very near miss when the dragons fired on the lab.”
“I managed.” She was eating something called a unicorn swirl, named after the mythical shifters that once roamed the plains. It was sugary and a riot of colour and silvery glitter. Her ersatz-niece, Amesthet, would love it. Eltrinia was rather fond of it herself.
“You seem to be mastering the skills that you were born with at a rapid pace.”
She smiled. “I have an excellent tutor.”
“You were lucky to fall into the curator’s care.”
She ran a finger around her lips to look for sugar glitter. “It wasn’t luck. She came for me.”
“Fortuitous.”
“That is the curator. Everything she does has a purpose that she has already foreseen.”
He looked at his remaining cupcakes, took a deep breath, and continued his attempt to destroy them all. “Do you know if she has foreseen my vanquishing of this platter of cupcakes?”
“I think there are some things that even the curator cannot know.” She finished her tea and then refilled both of their cups.
He grinned and took out the eleventh cupcake, destroying it with a happy groan.
She chuckled. “Only one more to go. You might want to have some tea to make room. That icing can be a little overwhelming.”
“This last one was ganache.” He sipped the tea and smiled. “You are right. That does help.”
“I have learned the ways of cupcakes.” She chuckled.
“So, why don’t you have this evening free?”
“My trainer is coming in from the capital. She has a proposition for me.”
“Your trainer?”
She gave him a look under her lashes. “Yes. I have many people who are helping me to get better with every passing day. I gain knowledge and knowledge is power... or so they say.”
“You astonish me.”
“Thank you. I find you fairly impressive myself.” She sipped at her tea.
He grinned and took a deep breath, reaching for his final cupcake. A black hole. The triple chocolate, devil’s food, midnight brownie. It had tiny silver stars on the super dark brown frosting and looked more like a threat than a confection.
Eltrinia watched him take the first bite with horrified fascination. He was either going to explode from the richness or implode from the density. She couldn’t wait to find out which.
She sipped her tea again and sat back in her chair. Inoth bit slowly and deliberately through the cupcake until there was nothing left but a smear of chocolate on his fingers.
“Well done, Inoth. You h
ave done remarkably well.”
He was slowly savouring the last bite, and then, he took a sip of his tea before he exhaled happily. “That was lovely. We should do this more often.”
She snickered. “You make it sound like a date.”
Inoth carefully wiped his fingers on a small napkin. “I would like it to be a date, but I am aware that you are far too young for that sort of thing.”
Eltrinia smiled. “I am definitely too young for this. I am still learning.”
He nodded. “I understand that. I am happy that you have included me in your acquiring new experiences.”
“That actually is what I am doing. I am collecting every experience I can. I have shopped, ordered food, ordered other things. I have walked in parks around the world, gotten chased out of a few for inappropriate clothing as I had walked there in my nightdress.” She chuckled. “That is when I learned that the djinn can teleport in dreams.”
“Ah. We only start that when we are approaching puberty. So, you are proceeding rapidly.”
She chuckled. “I am. I know that I am.”
“So, are you wanting to take more of an active role than just acting as the docent of the on-loan gallery?”
“I am. I find the job of locating the labs and smashing them is rather enticing. I hope to do more of that.”
“What do you think they will do with the experiments?”
Eltrinia finished her tea. “They had better treat them well, or I will remove the new arrivals and put them in a safe place so they can get a good education.”
Inoth was surprised. “You would go against the senate?”
“In a heartbeat if there were innocents at risk.” She smiled and looked through the window and watched the people as they were passing. “I imagine that it will make my negotiations slightly awkward.”
“They are trying to sign you?”
She raised her brows. “If I wasn’t barred from your country, wouldn’t you? I am powerful, oddly exotic, and I am a snappy dresser. What is not to want on your side?” She shrugged and gestured to herself.
