Steel flakes.
Slowly, her gaze scanned upward to the bottom of the interior, to see two beady, glossy brown eyes staring back at her. A scream rose in her throat, but she cut it short by slapping a hand over her mouth. The thing with dark gray fur stared back at her, blending with the inside of the oven but absolutely motionless. Realizing she’d seen it, it bared its teeth and hissed. The sound raised the fine hairs on Rosalia’s arms beneath her bracers and pebbled her skin in goosebumps.
Of all the places she’d searched to find a gremlin, seeking one at her favorite bakery never occurred to her.
Moving slowly, so as not to agitate the beast, she removed the canister hooked to her belt and aimed its nozzle. The moment she squeezed the handle, the gremlin rocketed out of the oven and shot across the room, pinging off equipment like a ricocheting crossbow bolt. Pots and pans tumbled from mounted racks, and cookie sheets skidded down to the floor.
Shit!
Rosalia dashed after him, pumping clouds of pale white mist that lingered in the air, but always just shy of catching her prey.
“Who’s in there?”
Damn. So much for having the endless luck of the gods. She froze and scooted into a dark corner, holding her breath until—
The little fucker bit her. Jerking her hand back, she squeezed him, but he only popped out like he’d been oiled. She scrambled after him across the floor and pumped the canister again to release another cloud of mist. He ducked it and bounded forward onto a shelf and darting over a pile of tins. Just as she debated giving up and diving out of the nearest open window, the cake pan mountain slid down, and he stumbled into her path. She squirted him point blank in the face with a jet of sleeping agent.
The little bastard slumped to the floor, a limp pile of ferocious fur.
And that was how Rosalia was busted red-handed standing in the middle of the bakehouse with a fat gremlin clutched between both of her hands. Behind the menacing woman clutching a rolling pin in her hands stood a drowsy young man wielding a hammer. To the rear of him, the nine-year-old girl held a knife.
Double shit.
“The hell are you doing in my bakery?”
“Uh.” At a loss, Rosalia waved the limp gremlin at them. “Pest control?”
“I called no pest control services.” Maxmila squinted. “What is that?”
“Looks like a gremlin, Mum. I told you there had to be a bloody gremlin in the bakehouse,” the young man said. He could have been as old as Jabari, still a boy, but not quite a man either. He lacked the broad shoulders and biceps of adulthood, his frame too lanky and thin.
“It would seem you were right, Tonio, but that does not explain our other early morning visitor.”
“Want me to run and grab the guard?”
Maxmila studied her, dark eyes boring into Rosalia. “No. Take your sister back to bed.”
“But Mum—”
“Do as I said.”
Tonio hesitated in the door. He eyed Rosalia then slid back and took his little sister by the hand to escort her away. Once they left ear shot, Maxmila shut the door behind her. She didn’t set down the rolling pin.
“I know your face.”
“Uh.”
“You’re the performer who lived next door.”
Rosalia’s panicked heart tried to burst from her chest. “I…”
“They say you murdered that other actress out of jealousy and set fire to LaVerci’s boarding house.”
“I wouldn’t! I could never hurt Mira.”
A sad smile touched Maxmila’s lips. “I know. They can say many things, but I know what I saw with my own eyes. I saw two friends who loved each other as closely as family. You both visited my shop so often for rolls. Watching you both reminded me of my own lost sister.”
The furious rhythm didn’t ease yet. “I loved her very much.”
“They also said you died. That a dragon slaughtered you.”
“I escaped.”
Maxmila’s lips pursed. “Come with me.”
Still fearing the guard would burst in to apprehend her at any moment, Rosalia trailed behind Maxmila while stuffing the unconscious gremlin into the mesh cage. Its soft body was no larger than a rat, squishy and covered in wiry fur, though it felt lumpy like a plush bag filled with marbles. She slipped it beneath her cloak into her satchel and stepped into the kitchen.
Maxmila loaded a small white bag with summer rolls then pushed it into Rosalia’s hands. “Take these. I won’t ask why you came here, but I thank you for finally ridding me of that nuisance. My son told me there was a gremlin, but I didn’t believe him.”
“I came to find it for a friend.”
“Just the same. Thank you.” The woman paused. “Dressed as you are, I presume you are one of the Initiated.”
“I am.”
“Bad business, that deal done to your people in the guild.” The matron dragged in a deep breath, heaving her enormous bosom. “In my younger days, before I was too old and plump to climb out of a window, I toiled in your art.”
Rosalia stared.
“I was never truly talented, but I made enough to survive and leave the streets behind. Enough to open this shop and start a family. Burglary wasn’t my calling, but it provided an escape from a period in my life I prefer to forget. You could say I even have a soft spot for thieves when they’re not greedy assholes. If someone nicked the occasional tip from my jar, I ignored it.”
“That was kind of you.”
“It’s the Circle of Fortune,” Maxmila replied, grinning. “What goes around comes around. I stole to open my shop, and years later, thieves, like the young woman I once was, occasionally creep behind my counter to take a few coins from the till when I am in the back room. I leave it unattended. It’s fate’s tax.”
“That won’t be happening anymore.”
“No, it certainly won’t,” Maxmila agreed sadly. “This city has a sickness—no, not this city. The kingdom has a sickness. A decay of its very soul. It is not the place I once loved thirty years ago. Whatever happened, whoever hurt your friend, I do hope you make them pay, child.”
“I will.”
“Now go. Get that little wretch away from my home.”
Rosalia gladly left, taking the sleeping gremlin and her delicious bounty of pastries with her.
Xavier leaned over and stared through the cage at their new captive. Due to the nature of the enchanted walls, the gremlin couldn’t grasp them to bite the metal mesh its razor-sharp teeth. They bent or molded to it face every time, giving Rosalia no small amount of amusement while she watched it for the three hours she allowed Xavier to slumber following her return.
Now, nearly seven hours after she’d set out from the hoard, he stood beside her in his study with both hands clasped behind his back.
“You did it.”
“It’s the least I can do. You’re helping my friend, and I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be sure to set her loose in the engine room when I report for duty to the Silver Dagger this morning.”
“Her?”
“Yes. Didn’t you notice?”
Her nose wrinkled. Peering between the creature’s legs had been the least of her concerns. For the sake of her own pride, she spared Xavier the tale of its capture. “No. I didn’t.”
“Well. This one is pregnant. I imagine she’ll make quite the mess once she whelps her little ones, as she’ll be ingesting enough to produce milk for a litter then.”
Rosalia’s heart sank as she recounted the desperate struggle to capture the beast and how many times she’d made it bounce off the walls and hard metal surfaces during her dogged pursuit. “Gods. Now I feel awful for the way I manhandled her. Are the babies going to be all right?”
He smiled, and the genuine warmth in his expression lit her up. “Fear not for her, Rosa. She appears uninjured. A little hungry, as can be expected, but I’ll solve that shortly. Again, I thank you for this.”
“As I said, finding the little beastie was for
my benefit, to help one of my friends. Don’t thank me for that…instead, thank me for this.” She offered him one of Maxmila’s summer rolls. “Join me for coffee before you leave?”
He glanced at the cage then at his toolbox. “I shouldn’t.”
“No pressure.”
“But I will. After all, she isn’t going anywhere, and I sense you have a tale to share with me of your days in Ilyria. You were gone far too long to have been up to any good.”
14
A Light Dimmed
The longest week of Rosalia’s life ended on an early Vacheresday morning—the day of peace, worship, and prayer for the devout, and a day of laziness for the wicked heathens like her who couldn’t be bothered to enter a temple. Bishop Roma would be delivering the morning sermon in an hour.
Shortly after the Devout Radiance returned the previous night, her childhood friend set sail on a ship with a thoroughly sabotaged engine. Now it was up to her to follow through on the rendezvous he risked his life to arrange.
Arriving precisely on time as Adriano had instructed, Rosalia crept in the shadows of the city’s grandest temple, praying her cloak concealed her as the dragon promised. Nine white marble columns surrounded the Cathedral of Light, and they all glowed brighter than the stars in the velvet sky. Each one had been inscribed with a different tenet of the faith, though more frequently than not, many of Arcadian’s followers bent the rules or broke them altogether.
Retribution is justice. Revenge is anger.
Cherish new life. Little ones are the future.
Darkness is only the precursor to light. All sorrow shall pass in time.
The maxim inscribed on the fourth column resonated most with Rosalia. Honor thy ancestors. They paved the path ahead. Her mother had certainly carved out a rough road for her to travel, but she loved her no less.
Rosalia had never visited the grand temple devoted to the god of justice and retribution, too much of a heretic to follow any of the divines and too much of a believer to risk stealing from their houses, especially given Arcadian’s sphere of influence.
Knowing what she did now about her mother, she wondered if her Dahlia had followed the Islenja. Musing over this, she avoided a radiant path of white stepping stones leading to the garden, preferring the safety of the shadows along the way.
The tips of Xavier’s small claws prickled against her ear. “I’ll part from you here to look out for danger.”
“And if you find danger?”
“It’ll wish I hadn’t.” He jumped down from within her hood then scampered into the shadows.
Her informant awaited her on a bench beneath a magnificent tree with weeping limbs that extended over most of the garden, each one home to strands of fragrant golden flowers. He looked old and afraid, a frail man in resplendent robes trimmed with gold.
Hands trembling, Bishop Roma raised a steaming mug and sipped. The priest’s rheumy gaze darted left and right, seeking her until the moment she emerged from the shadows. Then palpable relief shone in his eyes. He set the cup aside and rose to greet her with a fragile smile on his weathered face.
“At last. I wondered if you meant to come at all, child. Before this meeting is to begin, I need you to prove your identity to me.”
“You do the same.”
He blinked, the old man apparently taken by surprise. Then he chuckled. “Fair point, I suppose. I would expect nothing less from a seasoned agent of the Initiated. A mutual acquaintance arranged our meeting, a man I hold in high regard. Who is he?”
“Too vague. If you’re at all familiar with our ways, you know we’d never give up a name.”
His widening smile deepened the craggy lines in his face. “Anamesco was right. He said you’d never give up his name.”
Rosalia still hesitated. She’d die before letting anyone drag Adriano into danger, not when he’d already sacrificed and risked his career for her.
“He gave me another way to verify my authenticity to you. When you were children, you stole something, and he took the blame.”
“A pie. But what kind?”
“Peach.”
The relieved breath exhaled from her in a long whistle. “Gods, I apologize, Your Grace. An unusual number of city watchmen are in Temple Way tonight, and I’ve seen doppelganger spells at work before.”
“You wouldn’t be a professional if you didn’t challenge my identity. As for the guards, that’s no surprise, given many of them are hoping to find this.” Bishop Roma opened his palm, revealing the star-shaped opal on his outstretched hand. It gleamed with veins of gold and pink, and a hundred stars glittered beneath the glossy surface.
Mesmerized, Rosalia leaned closer. The breath caught in her throat. “The Light of Arcadian.”
“It is yours to take, as I have protected it for as long as I can. The king’s men have already turned my cathedral upside down once, and I wouldn’t put it past them to do it again. So now, I pass it to your care as your mother once passed it into mine.” When the old man placed the stone on her palm and closed her hand around it, a jolt shot through her fingers and sizzled down each nerve ending. Warmth and love and the pure sensation of divine righteousness pulsed through her.
“You knew my mother, too?”
The old man’s smile deepened the branches of heavy wrinkles framing his blue eyes. “A fine woman to know. And if you’re anything like Dahlia, I know this relic is entering safe hands. It’s only a matter of time before they find it here.”
A whiff of herbaceous incense reached her nose, sweet like freshly sheared grass and smokier than oak. She glanced left and right for the source but saw only a subtle fog arising from the flower-studded bushes framing the garden. “Did she tell you what she did with the other stones?”
His eyes twinkled. “She did. She returned the Tear of Nindar to the goddess and spoke of walking the Traveler’s Path with the Heart of Moritan. My guess is that she gave it to the desert nomads.”
“That leaves one more stone to find.”
The bishop nodded. “The Luck of Islenja. I fear for you, it will be the easiest and yet the most difficult to recover.”
“Why?”
His smile faded. “We buried her with it. The gift of the twin divines rests with your mother’s body. Of all the stones, the Luck of Islenja is the most inconspicuous, and yet the most attractive to a thief like you.”
Before she could process the news—that she would have to rob her own mother’s grave—a prickle danced across the back of her neck. Everything inside Rosalia screamed something was wrong, visceral certainty gnawing in her gut. Her heart raced.
“It’s with my mother?”
“I placed it there myself. It was her final request, a hope that it would remain safe with her body until the end of time or the twins chose to take it back from this world.”
“I don’t understand. If she returned one stone to Nindar, why couldn’t she do the same with the others? Why not ask Islena and Inja to take the stone back instead of burying it with her corpse?”
Roma smiled. “The gods are all around us, my child. They see our day to day struggles and they gift us with moments of insight when they are truly needed. And there are times when it becomes necessary to seek them on their own terms. We are not always blessed to know what those terms are.”
“So, the Tear of Nindar is at the Chapel of Tranquil Waters?”
“No. It was returned to the—”
Metal glittered from the corner of her vision and leaves rustled. Before her eyes adjusted, blood spurted from Bishop Roma’s throat and a few hot droplets splattered across her face in a fine arterial spray. The dagger she’d missed seconds before flashed again, at the same time she registered a svelte form in a body-hugging black suit of leathers had fallen from the tree to Roma’s left. A matte black facemask painted with red war stripes cast a diffused gleam beneath the garden’s lantern light.
Rosalia ejected her wrist blade and parried, only to catch a kick to the abdomen delivered faster than a c
obra’s bite. Stumbling back, she blocked a dagger sweeping toward her ribs. The blade missed the mark, but it still snuck past the edge of the leather guard and sliced through skin, leaving behind a streak of blistering pain near her elbow. The assassin’s reflexes matched Rosalia’s speed, and she had an enchanted weapon.
Shit.
Desperate, she thrust out with her wrist blade, but the metal point glanced off her assailant’s mask with a bold flash of magical light.
Double shit. Another enchantment.
The Light of Arcadian pulsed in Rosalia’s hand, its warmth a comforting presence she didn’t know how to activate or use. The most powerful artifact known to creation wasn’t much good to her if she didn’t know what the hell it did.
And the one person who probably did know? He bled out on the garden square’s cobblestones, Bishop Roma’s blood puddling beneath his white face and the yawning smile below his chin.
Where the hell is Xavier?
Metal scraped over metal as Rosalia and her opponent traded blows, the assassin’s dagger meeting both the wrist blade and anellan because Rosalia needed both to keep ahead in the fight. They traded blows and kicks, always just shy of landing solid punches, attacks meant to cripple missing by mere millimeters.
She had to be a former thief.
Had to be someone on the inside, a traitor who’d traded their freedom for the lives of the entire guild—someone ambitious enough to doom even children to death or a life in slavery.
Rosalia tapped a button on her wristguard, releasing a sleeping dart in close quarters. The spry assassin spun in close, the narrow miss taking the dart to a nearby tree trunk instead. Their blades clashed, and then the assassin spun out and kicked with her right foot in a series of combination roundhouses and aerials that knocked both the anellan and Light from Rosalia’s hand.
The stone went skipping over the ground into the bushes. Adapting to her opponent’s style, Rosalia ducked beneath the next hurricane kick, and twisted behind her, slamming her elbow into the woman’s left kidney.
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 12
