by Sara Hanover
I realized then that it might be great to live a long life and yet be filled with regret for the things lost in doing so as he cleared his throat and moved to the double door to open it for us. I waited tensely for the crowd to pull us back, forbidding entrance but no one moved though I heard a few low and unhappy mutters.
Goldie swept in ahead of me, moving very quickly and yet without seeming haste as if she could not wait to leave the crowd behind her but did not want to be seen as fleeing it. I hurried a bit to catch up.
Broadstone Manor did not creak or groan as my Iron Dwarf friend stepped into its lobby. Wood and stone polished within an inch of their lives gleamed at us, and from the side, an immense sweep of gem-studded stained-glass windows reminiscent of pictures I’d seen of Notre Dame let sunlight dapple the floors and walls. Every piece of furniture sat as a massive, carved structure strewn with pillows and cushions and lowered to fit the frames of those who would sit upon them.
Hiram started to give me a tour, but Goldie swung on him. “We haven’t much time,” she told him. “It’s possible that when I begin to search for the journals, the Jewel of Nimora will reveal my lie which is unspoken though action will tell.”
“It has that power?”
She looked back over her shoulder, one foot on the curving staircase, and gave a wry smile. “It has many such powers, Hiram, that you will learn if given the time.” She hurried up the stairway, the case broad enough that an eight-foot sofa could have been carried crosswise up it without trouble, continuing up to the third floor. “You are the designated wearer, are you not?”
“Sometimes.”
Hiram kept his hand on my elbow, not for fear of my tripping or getting lost, but I think more to hold me back and give Goldie a bit of privacy as she faced a home she hadn’t been in for decades, yet which held distinctive echoes of Morty’s influence everywhere. My friendship with Morty had been brief but deep, and I could feel his influence pulsing about me. He had given everything to help the professor and me in the hunt for the items needed for that last phoenix ritual. Yes, he’d betrayed us along the way but only to unsuccessfully ransom Goldie. How torn he must have been, and what a great friend he still had been. Hiram’s hand rested on me warmly as I gave a little hiccup of emotion, my eyes brimming.
“Now, then,” he said to my ear. “No mourning. This home stands because Mortimer lived. And it will continue to do so in his honor.”
“A legacy.”
“Indeed. In our blood and in our bones.”
A door opened somewhere ahead of us on the third floor, the hinges giving off a faint noise of usage and Hiram made a little “Hrrmmm” in the back of his throat. I realized he had held a notion that the rooms might not have opened for Goldie, but they had.
She hadn’t moved from the threshold when we caught up with her.
I could understand why when I stood at her flank. It spoke of Morty, every handspan of it, with a plaid shirt hanging from a nearby peg and a pair of colorful suspenders that had seen eye-blinding times next to it. Framed shards of gems arranged like tiny suns and stars hung everywhere. A stand in the corner held two cudgels that might have been used as canes rather than weapons, a sledgehammer, an ax, and a crossbow. The crossbow Goldie gathered up and put on the edge of the double king-sized bed. Then she went to the armoire/closet in the corner of the room and flung it open.
She drew out a set of leather armor that obviously belonged to her, although this one was a stunning white leather, fitted with bronze parts here and there. She smiled at me over the handmade hanger that held it. “My wedding armor. It is a family heirloom. Centuries and centuries old.”
I gawked at it a little before asking, “How do you keep the leather from going to pieces?”
“Oh, my dear, dragon leather is practically invincible, and unicorn oil keeps it supple.” She winked at me as she said it, and Hiram covered a snort by coughing briefly instead.
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” I leaned into the closet as she withdrew all the silken dresses hanging there, five in all, and all fit for a queen. She tossed them onto her pile. “Shoes?” I prompted.
“Boots,” she corrected, and withdrew three handsome pairs, one of which was white to match her wedding outfit. Then she pulled open a drawer built into the cabinetry which rattled with jewelry as she did. Hiram produced a drawstring bag and she emptied the glittering collection into it quickly. I only caught the barest glimpse of 24 karat gold and many, many gems before she fastened the bag shut.
Then, with a lift and a twist, she pulled the drawer out, and the one under it. Goldie knocked once or twice, experimentally, and motioned for me to join her. Having been in the professor’s study, I had an idea what she was looking for, concealed book shelves, and I tapped around until I found a likely square.
“Here. I think I’ve found it.”
Hiram held the armoire/closet doors open while we broke a few fingernails trying to get the hidden bookshelf unlatched, but nothing worked until she fisted her hand and punched the corner. It popped open with a squeak.
Now, I had been through enough of Broadstone Manor to know that the noise had to be intentional, a kind of alarm of its own, that the shelf had been opened. It wouldn’t have been heard beyond this room (at least, I didn’t think so, but I had no idea how keen dwarf hearing could be) but it would definitely have alerted anyone sleeping in the double king-sized bed or sitting at the desk and suite in the corner.
Goldie gave a little nod and reached inward through the opening. She took out no less than ten massive, leather-bound books. I closed my mouth as I spotted her armful, reminding myself that Morty had seen a lot of history. My mother would have given her eyeteeth to have a look at them, but that would be out of the question. Goldie shook out the one on top. “This is the most recent.”
I took it from her. I could tell the ones that had been filled out by that rippled, written upon in old-fashioned ink quality to them, but even if he’d only written half a page a day, I held maybe a hundred years’ worth of journal. The diary was close to full. I felt as though I held one of the professor’s massive lore books, containing nearly as many possible and obscure answers to the world, in my arms. Hope for my father rose in me. I should find something in those pages that would tell me what happened. And then I could work on undoing it.
“That will do it,” she said to Hiram. She paused. “Shall I put them back, or are you wanting to read any of them?”
“Thanks to you, I know where they are when I need them.”
She nodded to him and redeposited the journals; this time the hidden bookshelf door closed with a nearly imperceptible click. She hung her bag of jewelry from her arm and gathered up her armful of wardrobe. I tucked in the sweeping skirts to keep her from tripping over anything and then hugged the journal to my chest.
“You’d better hide that.”
I looked at the leather book. The only place I could fit it in was the backpack I customarily used for a purse, so I slid it in there. “Will I be searched?”
Hiram scratched his chin. “I doubt it.”
But he hadn’t guaranteed it. I stood hesitantly. “Maybe I should try to read it before we leave?”
Goldie shook her head. “They’ll want me out of here as soon as possible.”
Hiram seconded her assessment of the situation.
I shrugged. “All right. Good thing you talked Evelyn out of coming with us.”
He frowned. “I’d like to know how she got the idea in the first place.”
“Not from either of us. But she seems to be jumping the gun on a couple of ideas.” I stared at him pointedly till a faint blush pinked his dwarven cheeks. He decided not to say anything further.
Emerging into the sunlight on the front steps, Goldie stated, “I have retrieved what was mine and thank all of you for the hospitality.” I followed her out into the sunlight, and everything looked
fine, when the elder who had been wearing the Eye pounced on us. The jewel on his brow gave off a ray of glistening crimson.
“Liar!” he shouted and pointed at Goldie.
CHAPTER FOUR
STICKS AND STONES
FOR THE BAREST part of a second, I had the inane thought of “So that’s how it works” run through my mind and then I plunged to a halt. The Eye of Nimora had been alerted to something about us. On Goldie? What the . . . and then I had it.
I turned on my heel, but before I could say anything, the elder in question, in a rippling blue-and-green–plaid shirt and dark blue cotton pants with a sharply defined crease, pointed again and repeated, “Lies!” Just in case we hadn’t all heard him the first time, I suppose.
A niggling suspicion went up my spine, and I swung around to look at my friend.
I raised my voice a little. “No kidding. Goldie, I thought you were serious when you told me your armor came from dragon hide and unicorn oil!”
A groan rolled through the assembled crowd. Goldie gave a light laugh as I looked over my shoulder at them. “How was I to know? I’m new at this. No dragons? No unicorns?”
“Not in this century, lass,” a tenor voice answered me. I looked into the crowd and saw one of Hiram’s construction crew grinning back at me.
I waved both hands in the air in frustration. Goldie stepped down to join me, Hiram’s hand on her elbow as if he might buffer her from any further challenges from the crowd, and everything seemed fine until a woman pushed her way through.
Not only was she not bearded, she wasn’t short and stout either. This one was as tall as any of the men around her, and slim as well as curvaceous. No longer young but no telling how old she might be, as dwarves wore their years like trees grew rings, quietly if steadily. I could, however, tell she held some power within the group because they gave way to let her through.
“Not so fast,” she said. “Goldie Germanigold has not been an honored guest here for a number of years. Have we all forgotten why that came about? And one lie may hide another.”
But the shining ray from the Eye of Nimora had gone out, and it looked as though the falsehood matter had been settled. Goldie nodded toward it before she turned to face the other.
“And shall we have a duel of words, Ludcrita, to see which one of us alerts the gem? I daresay you might be cautious in that regard because there is a traitor amongst you.”
Hiram made a tiny noise at the back of his throat as if he wished Goldie had not brought up that little accusation, but she continued speaking, as headstrong as the harpy warrior I knew her to be. “Perhaps it might be said that falsehoods amongst the tribes are not as important as lies outside them.”
“You are a guest here,” Ludcrita answered, her eyes holding a gleam deep within them. I had a moment to wonder if the two had, at one time, been rivals for the widower Mortimer’s favor. Likely there was another reason for the dwarf’s animosity, but I stood in fascination, mouth half-open, to watch and listen.
Goldie threw her head back a little. “While it is true,” she declared, “that my own nest sisters betrayed the place where I kept the Eye safe, it is equally true that they had no inkling whatsoever of the bridal gift Mortimer had given me, not until told of it by a dwarf. Their treason began here. Without that knowledge, they could not have planned a theft. So which one of you—or your sons and daughters—betrayed me? I left no stone unturned until I was given names and one of them, Ludcrita, belongs to your son Milardi.”
A gasp ran through the crowd, and the comely Ludcrita’s face paled into a color close to ashes. Her head swiveled to the Eye of Nimora, but it did not reveal a lie. She put a hand to her face and stepped back, disappearing into the crowd, words choked to silence.
“I pray you find out differently,” Goldie called after the woman as she ran from the gathering, her skirts knotted in her hands.
“It is well you leave, Germanigold, before you harm us further.” The elder wearing the gem beetled his brows at her in a hard stare.
“I concur.” She swept past Hiram to the SUV and stopped one last time. “I have given the names of three others to Hiram, and if you’re brave enough to investigate, ask him what he knows.”
I think I heard him mutter “shit” as he opened the car door and hustled her inside, dresses, armor, jewel pouch and all, before shutting her away from further provocation. I hopped in alertly, thinking he might well leave me behind if I didn’t hurry.
We bounced onto the gravel road when well away from the manor houses and Hiram paused only long enough to throw our hoods at us.
Goldie batted hers away serenely. “Not needed.”
I grabbed for mine and pulled it on. I had looked forward to seeing Hiram’s home, with Morty’s touch everywhere within it, but the afternoon felt soured now. I really hadn’t expected Goldie to lob verbal grenades as she left. I’d no idea of the grudge she’d carried.
* * *
• • •
Hiram said little to me and nothing to Goldie as he dropped us off. The screech of tire rubber on the road as he drove off, however, spoke volumes. Goldie looked after his vehicle and gave a little shake of her head. “So young he is. And, as Mortimer might say, opinionated.” She smoothed the heavy bundle she carried over her forearm. “If you have any questions about the journal, you know how to reach me. I hope it holds some of the answers you need.”
Indeed, I did know how to reach her, although talking to an owl and asking for her seemed on the odd side, but nothing like what I’ve been through the last year or so. The corner of her mouth quirked as though she could read my thoughts. “He didn’t write in code, I believe, but he might refer to names and events as though you should know what they are, with little explanation. The past influences the present more than you might guess.”
“How old was Morty, anyway?”
“Nearly four hundred years when he died in battle.”
“Four—wow.” I revised my opinion of Hiram’s probable age. “Seriously?”
“Very.” Goldie tilted her head. “I was a child bride, barely more than two hundred years myself.”
I tried to smother down my reaction and ended up hiccoughing. She pounded my back with her free hand. She laughed when I finally lifted my head to meet her expression. “Tessa, all of us . . . all the ones of us you might call magical . . . we live in a niche outside of your time. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t exist today.”
“Truth?”
“What do you think?”
Before I could answer, she wrestled her car phone out of a heretofore unseen pocket in her dress skirt.
“Can I drive you anywhere?”
“No, I’m going to call for a car. It should be here soon.” She shifted her booty in her arms. If I’d thought she was out of ammo, I found myself greatly mistaken when she began to speak again.
“Your house is being watched,” she told me. “I wish I could say it was Brandard, looking the situation over before he comes home, but it doesn’t appear to be. You and your mother need to be very careful.”
“Watched? How would you know?”
“My little friends about the neighborhood have sharp eyes and ears and noses. They know.”
“I’ve got Carter. And Scout. And Simon.”
She tilted her head dubiously. “I’m not certain any one of those could help you in time. So promise me. You will take care?”
“I will, if you’ll promise me that you’ll let me know anything else you find out.”
“Done.”
Before she finished, a car swept up to the curb, a limo, and its trunk bounced open. It must have been waiting around the corner. Goldie leaned over, brushing her lips across my forehead.
“Be safe, Tessa.” She said it like a benediction, sending shivers down my back as she walked to the car, stowed her things, and got in. She did not look back as the c
ar drove away.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I’d see her again.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOME AND HEARTH
SCOUT DID HIS usual riotous welcome home dance when I unlocked the door and entered, his youngish body with gangly long legs in jeopardy of tripping both of us up before I convinced him to go out the back door and run around the yard. I watched him, a little in disbelief so much time had passed, but it had. My hands itched to pull the journal out, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to read it easily in the dusk. Outside, as night fell, smudging the corners of our yard in shadows, my pup ran about in big loops, with an occasional return to nudge my hand with his cold nose and then to race off again. If we were being watched, he gave no sign of it, and despite his half-grown puppyhood status, Scout was a great watchdog. So whatever it was escaped his senses. What could a dog not smell or hear?
I fed him his dinner kibble and went upstairs as he ate noisily, the hard chunks rattling around in his stainless-steel bowl with great commotion. Upstairs, in their vase standing in a hallway niche, the tell-tales brightened at seeing me, little magical rose faces turning up to me without alarm as well. I shook a finger at them. “I hear someone’s been watching the house. How could you not tell me?” I’d only been alerted that one, awful time.
The roses reacted very little. If there was a danger, the tell-tales seemed unaware as well, which made me wonder how they had reacted so strongly that once.
I knew the professor and Carter both had wards on the house. I didn’t know if they faded with time or distance (no one knew where the professor could possibly be, not even Simon whose demon tail had an intimate binding with the wizard after having been used as a relic in a bonding ritual). I decided to ask many questions of several people because Goldie’s warning had seemed solemn and important.
I checked my phone to see when Mom would be home. Not long from now . . . her office work and staff meetings finished, she had only her dissertation group to get through and she’d be home. Dinner was on me tonight, then, and I headed down to the kitchen to rummage through the fridge to see what I could fix without too much trouble that would please both of us. I wrinkled my nose as I came across a container half-filled with blueberries that needed to go out in the trash, their little round buttons dotted with white. I shoved them over on the counter and found the fixings for chili, a mix we didn’t often eat, and which would be welcome to stave off the winter chill. Also, about as easy to make as I could hope. Mind occupied by worries, I chopped onions and a not too hot pepper, and mixed them into browned hamburger along with chili pepper. Then I threw everything together in a deep pot with a can of diced tomatoes and set it on a back burner to simmer for an hour or so as rich smells filled the kitchen. Scout occupied a corner, his belly to the floor and his front paws crossed in sincere yellow Lab interest in our dinner as well. I paced around him.
