Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic Read online

He nodded. Then, without another word or admonishment, he disappeared around the corner faster than any human could run.

  Pretty much oblivious to my surroundings — because I seriously had too many things to think about all at once — I slowly wandered the last block and a half to the bakery.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I slipped into the bakery kitchen from the back alley entrance, avoiding West Fourth Avenue by routine. Then, caressing my pristinely clean, stainless steel workstation as I passed, I wandered into my tiny office, pushing the door mostly closed behind me so I could access the large, heavily warded safe that sat behind it.

  After doing a bunch of research, I’d decided to replace the safe I’d had repaired after Warner cracked it like it had been overbaked meringue. The squat model now bolted to the concrete floor was about five feet tall and two-and-a-half feet wide. Its steel casing was layered with so many magical protection wards that I wasn’t sure it could actually hold any more. Thankfully, though pure iron wasn’t particularly receptive to magic under normal circumstances, the safe’s steel alloy accepted my alchemist power readily.

  I reached through the layers of warding and spun the five-digit combination code into the dial lock. It was old school, but electronics and magic didn’t pair well.

  The safe door was easily three inches thick. Completely excessive for a bakery, but quite possibly still not enough security for what it held. Namely, the dragonskin tattoo map that led to the third and final instrument of assassination. A map that supposedly only I — or another alchemist like me — could unlock and read. A tattoo that had once been inked onto the back of a guardian dragon by another alchemist — then had been skinned from that dragon after he’d passed on his mantle.

  Pulou had inherited the map, along with the powers and responsibilities that came with being the treasure keeper of the guardians, about four hundred years ago. Then he’d handed the map over to me, a year and a half ago now. Which was crazy — both the time that had passed, and the freaking responsibility of collecting the only three known items that could kill a guardian dragon.

  Though I’d opened the safe to tuck the betrothal rings into it, I was suddenly hesitant to part with them after retrieving them from my satchel. Adding rings to my necklace wasn’t as easy as soldering trinkets together, not even with my second bedroom vacant and feeling more like the craft room it had once been. My mother had moved into Kandy’s apartment while the werewolf was gone — to give me space. Or so she’d said once I figured out she’d been gone for more than a week. But after clapping eyes on my father wandering the streets of Vancouver, I wondered if there was more going on.

  I snagged the map out of the safe and wandered with it over to my underutilized desk.

  Dropping the strap of my satchel over the back of my desk chair, I sat down and contemplated the betrothal bands. As I rolled the rune-etched rings around in my hand, I could taste echoes of Warner’s black-forest-cake magic within the residual traces of power in the gold and gems of the rings.

  Once again, the significance of the gift was overwhelming. And I still wasn’t sure about … anything. I still felt solid in my decision to walk away from the nexus and the treasure keeper’s tasks, which had made me feel used and unappreciated. But the conversation with my father made me feel childish and selfish rather than self-assured.

  I opened the dragonskin map with my free hand, leaning across the desk and gazing at the incomprehensible pools of blue and green that made up the bulk of the tattoo. The blocks that I’d moved to create the centipede that had been one of the keys to the map had disappeared over a year ago, after I’d collected the second instrument of assassination.

  The tattoo’s flower-and-leaf motif still remained tangled across one side of the map. The white blooms that decorated almost-barren branches were reminiscent of cherry or apple blossoms, but they wouldn’t simply be flowers from a fruit tree. As with the other items previously represented on the tattoo — the five-colored silk braids and the metallic centipedes — there had to be something deadly about the flowers and the light-green leaves. Or perhaps it was whatever they represented that was malicious. I just didn’t know what that was yet.

  What I did know, and had known for some time, was the process that would let me unlock the final map. I hadn’t bothered to figure out where the map was trying to lead me, but I probably could have if I’d wanted to. Well, after I determined the first location. That was how the other maps had worked. Figure out the country, narrow it down by the nearest portal, then trigger the map.

  I ran my fingers along the edges of the dragonskin. When Warner or any other dragon touched the map, lettering appeared along its top edge. ‘Where dragons dare not tread.’ But we’d figured out that warning wasn’t necessarily true. Not if the dragon was a rabid koala accompanied by shadow demons of her own creation, for instance. Or not if the dragon was accompanied by an alchemist.

  Forget the ‘unlocking her magic’ crap. The final instrument of assassination was what Shailaja really wanted from me. With the braids and the centipedes tucked safely away in Pulou’s treasure trove, she needed me to collect the final weapon for her. How she expected to wield it, I had no idea. When I’d nicknamed her ‘rabid koala,’ I didn’t know how well the name would fit or how unbalanced she really was.

  Shailaja wanted to live forever, and she needed a guardian’s magic in order to do so. How I could be the only one who understood that — just a cute-but-silly, ignorant, half-blood abomination of nature, according to certain guardian dragons — was beyond me. But maybe everyone else was just too powerful to see Shailaja as a threat.

  Except that wasn’t my problem anymore. It actually never had been. I just needed to keep reminding myself of that.

  I leaned farther over the map, blowing on the cluster of blossoms tattooed along its top left edge. The flower petals fluttered as if stirred by an early-morning spring wind. Magic sparkled from the stamens in the center of each bloom, like pollen caught up in the breeze. That glittering pollen sprinkled down over the center of the tattoo.

  Then the map shifted to reveal a vast land mass — specifically, a ridge of mountains denoted by black triangles of varying sizes, but with no blue bits to indicate lakes or nearby oceans. If this was a country, I couldn’t distinguish it from any other landlocked country. At least nothing I recognized from Google Maps.

  And I wasn’t interested anyway. Was I?

  I brushed the sparkling magic away from where it had settled over the triangles and the darker edges of the landmass. It scattered underneath my hand, tickling my dowser senses as it dissipated. The map shifted back to its default mottled blue-green aspect.

  Sitting at my desk and playing with magic. That wasn’t childish at all.

  “Switzerland?” a reedy voice asked from the right front corner of my desk. “The Alps?”

  I flinched, though I tried to suppress the reaction. No one magical snuck up on me these days. Ever.

  Except Blossom.

  I lifted my gaze to find the brownie hunkered down on my desk. Peering at the map with her large hands folded across her bent knees, she resembled an olive-skinned gargoyle, except less craggy.

  I nodded, catching a hint of her lemon verbena magic. “I thought that too. The mountain formations look wrong, though.”

  Blossom nodded sagely, lifting her miniature-muffin-sized dark-brown eyes to mine. Then she deliberately lowered them to look questioningly at the betrothal bands.

  “Warner said you found them for me,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, then straightened and ran her hands across the pink Cake in a Cup apron she wore as a dress. “I’ve been tidying the house in Gamla Stan for him,” she said, playing with the ruffle on the edge of the apron. “I planted some of your favorite flowers there … the chocolate ones.”

  “Cosmos? Do they survive year-round there?”

  Blossom snorted, as if the idea that any flowers she planted wouldn’t be perennial was preposte
rous.

  She glanced at the rings a second time, then at the half-open safe door.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. “Something you want to tell me about the rings?”

  She shook her head. “No. I see I have been hasty. I must go.”

  “Um … okay.”

  Blossom disappeared before I could say goodbye.

  The brownie was difficult to figure out. She mostly kept to herself, though she’d expanded her cleaning territory to include my apartment, then Kandy’s/Scarlett’s apartment, and then Gran’s house, all without asking. Pearl had yet to actually catch Blossom in the act of cleaning, though.

  I had figured out pretty quickly that the brownie preferred it when I left dirty dishes in the sink rather than running the dishwasher, and that she loved my lemon or lemon-frosted cupcakes best. But other than that, I didn’t know where she lived or whether or not she had any family. It was difficult to chat with someone who could slip around me unnoticed.

  And now something was going on with Blossom and the betrothal rings, but I was apparently too thick to figure it out.

  I sighed. Then I rolled up the map and carefully placed the betrothal rings in their platinum box.

  A gentle knock came on my mostly closed office door. Bryn, my alternate baker and full-time employee, poked her head through the gap.

  “Jade? You available?”

  “For you? Anytime.”

  Bryn pushed the door open a bit more, chuckling softly. Her straight dark hair fell over her eyes. She’d had it cut last week and the stylist had been a bit scissor happy, so now it wouldn’t stay tucked back.

  “It’s for a customer actually. A new customer … who’s very …” Bryn bit her lip, contemplating her next words.

  Well, that was interesting. I’d never seen her at a loss before.

  “She’s just … very, very.”

  “Okay, then.” I laughed. “I’m either being entangled in some nefarious plot or about to win the lottery.”

  “It could go either way,” Bryn said, perfectly straight-faced. Then, breaking into a grin, she turned and headed back through the bakery kitchen and into the storefront.

  The double doors into the store swung shut behind her as I locked the map and the rings in the safe. I didn’t spot any ‘very’ looking customers before they closed.

  But when I stepped through those doors myself, Suanmi, the fire breather of the guardian nine, stood before the glass display case in the middle of my bakery storefront. She was gazing at the chalked list of cupcakes on the back wall.

  Yes, Suanmi.

  The fire breather.

  In my bakery.

  My knees went a little bit to jelly at the sight of her.

  Her dark hair, which was usually pulled back in a severe-but-perfect bun, was braided at both temples, then joined into a single braid at the back of her head while the remainder of her unruly mane cascaded over her shoulders. She was wearing an utterly gorgeous, slim-fit cashmere cardigan in royal blue, which fell all the way to her ankles. The sweater was held closed by a single button over a deep-charcoal turtleneck and vintage black skinny jeans.

  And … her boots.

  Suanmi scared the crap out of me, yet I was salivating over her knee-high black leather Louboutins, with their two-and-three-quarter-inch heels, industrial red soles, silver spikes across the toes, and thick silver chains at the back of the ankles. Yes. The fire breather had paired crazy expensive biker boots with cashmere.

  And on top of the massive change in her costume? I couldn’t taste a single drop of her magic. Not a single drop of the guardian power that had once thundered around me so intensely I feared it might crush me.

  She had walked right through the bakery’s blood wards and they hadn’t even stirred.

  All the hair rose on the back of my neck.

  “I’ll take one of everything chocolate,” the fire breather said. Her French accent was a sultry melody. “And a triple espresso.”

  “Um … to go?” Todd, my part-timer and espresso wizard, was staring at Suanmi like she was … well, very. Very, very.

  “Non,” she said in French. Then she turned dismissively from the counter to survey the tables by the front windows.

  Oh, God. She was looking for a seat.

  Slipping in behind Bryn as she was serving the next customer in line, I whispered fiercely in Todd’s ear, “Get one of the silver platters we use for bridal showers.”

  “What?” he mumbled. He was still staring at Suanmi, blinking at her through his horn-rimmed glasses as if he wasn’t sure she was real.

  I bumped him with my shoulder. “And make that the best freaking espresso you’ve ever brewed.”

  “Right. Cool.”

  Todd crossed to his skookum espresso machine and began sorting through frothing pitchers, grinders, filters, and … well actually, I had no real idea what the equipment was or how it all worked. We only served fancy coffees at Cake in a Cup because of Todd — and even then, only while he or Tima, my other part-timer, were on shift. But Bryn and I could make a fierce hot chocolate.

  Suanmi settled onto a stool at one of the high round bistro tables by the middle window. She reached up and brushed her fingers over the trinkets hanging beside her. With her outfit cutting at least ten years off the appearance of the forty-five-year-old woman she usually pretended to be, the fire breather stuck out among my Lululemon-clad clientele like … well … like one of the most powerful Adepts in the world had wandered into a bakery on their day off.

  Yeah, the guardian of Western Europe was slumming.

  I combed my fingers through my hair, then tugged down the exposed edge of the tank top I layered underneath my long-sleeved T-shirts in the cooler months. My brand new cashmere-and-jean outfit looked like grubby rags next to what the fire breather was wearing.

  Thus smoothed, I crossed out from behind the counter to greet Suanmi. Since I was certain that the summons and Shailaja were beneath the guardian’s notice, I racked my mind for whatever transgression I’d committed that was so atrocious that the fire breather had felt compelled to come after me, hoping with each step I took that I wasn’t about to be burned to a crisp in my own place of business.

  I stopped a couple of feet away from her table. Then, as she turned her golden-flecked hazel eyes on me, I took a half-step closer. I nodded in her direction, casting my gaze onto her folded hands on the table and her prettily French-manicured nails. I couldn’t exactly bow while surrounded by customers in my freaking bakery, now could I?

  Suanmi lifted a hand, casually gesturing toward the empty stool across from her.

  Jesus, she wanted to chat.

  Give me spells and sorcerers and demons from hell. Those, I could handle. But cupcakes and coffee with the fire breather? Not so much.

  I sat, woodenly perching on the edge of the stool so my feet remained planted firmly on the ground.

  The corners of Suanmi’s red-glossed lips lifted in a light sneer.

  Todd appeared beside the table, first sliding the triple espresso in front of the guardian, then following up with a silver platter packed with cupcakes. ‘Everything chocolate’ was practically one of each item on the Cake in a Cup menu.

  “Hot chocolate, Jade?” Todd asked.

  “No. Thank you.”

  “No?” Todd seemed exceedingly puzzled. And he was right to be so, because that might have been the first time I’d ever refused chocolate in my life.

  “Please, indulge,” Suanmi said.

  I swallowed and nodded to Todd. Frowning, he looked back and forth between us, then returned to his machine.

  “Guardian,” I said. “Your presence is a blessing —”

  “Oui, oui,” Suanmi said dismissively. “No one expects formalities from you, alchemist.”

  Lovely.

  “The cupcakes?” Suanmi asked. “What is your favorite?”

  “Um …” Oh, God. Why did I name my freaking cupcakes so freaking provocatively?

  “You do not know
your own favorite?”

  “Lust in a Cup.” I blurted the name so loudly that I had to smile away the glances from customers at the neighboring tables. I modulated my tone as I gestured toward a cupcake on the edge of the platter. “Dark-chocolate cake with dark-chocolate cream-cheese icing.”

  “Hmm.” Suanmi carefully lifted the cupcake, then held it aloft as if it were a glass of fine red wine.

  Todd returned with side plates and napkins, along with a sixteen-ounce hot chocolate for me. The napkins were printed with my bright-pink Cake in a Cup logo, the white version of which embossed my pink mug. With the platter of cupcakes at its center, there was barely room for the extra plates on the table.

  “Good first choice,” Todd said to Suanmi. “Personally, Buzz in a Cup is my favorite.”

  The fire breather turned her elegant sneer on him.

  He fled.

  I grabbed the hot chocolate and took a swig, burning my tongue but not caring one bit as the thick, bittersweet ganache hit my tummy and grounded me.

  Suanmi took a bite of the Lust. She tilted her head to the side contemplatively while chewing, nary a speck of cake or icing on her red lips.

  “Delightful.” She placed the cupcake down on her plate, then looked at me expectantly. “And another?”

  “Ah …” My mind was a complete blank. I stared at the dozen or so cupcakes in front of me for inspiration.

  “Perhaps Drake’s favorite?”

  I lifted my gaze to meet the fire breather’s. Was Drake why she was here?

  “He likes them all.”

  Suanmi laughed. Her amusement sounded like sweet chimes.

  My heart rate picked up. I took another swig of hot chocolate to calm down. If Suanmi was going to reprimand me, she would have done so already. All of this was … polite conversation. Terrifying but polite conversation.

  The fire breather wanted something from me.

  “Thrill,” I said. “Drake is partial to Thrill in a Cup.” I gestured toward the mocha-buttercream-frosted white cake at the center of the silver platter.

  Suanmi snorted softly as she retrieved the cupcake. “Not surprising.”