Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) (10 page)

He winked at me.

The bar disappeared from the pristine white marble floor.

I stifled a scream of frustration over wasted chocolate. “I’ve seen that cleaning spell before.” I gritted the words out between clenched teeth, aware I had my hand resting on the invisible knife at my hip. Chocolate bar stealing wasn’t worth a gutting, but throwing away fantastic chocolate might be.

“Mistress Winterbloom?” Warner called. “The warrior’s daughter has a request.”

I gave him a look. It wasn’t a nice one. I was almost certain he was screwing with me. I hadn’t quite figured out his sense of humor yet.

A reedy voice spoke from behind me. “Mistress Winterbloom no longer attends the guardians, Warner, sentinel of the instruments of assassination, son of Jiaotu-who-was. She has retired her placement and moved into the beyond.”

I flinched. It was rare these days that anyone magical snuck up on me. I slowly pivoted to see a tiny woman with olive skin and massive brown eyes standing behind me. She was holding my half-eaten chocolate bar in hands that looked way too large for her tiny body. She stood about a foot and a half tall and was wearing a tunic similar to the one the far seer preferred, but without the gold stitching.

The brownie — assuming the name wasn’t part of whatever elaborate joke Warner might or might not be playing on me — scanned me toe to head, then down again. She clicked her tongue, but I couldn’t tell if it was an affectation or disapproval of my outfit.

“I have slept many years,” Warner said. He hadn’t moved from behind me. “Are you Mistress Winterbloom’s daughter or granddaughter?”

The brownie tilted her head to look around me, and I stepped to the side so she had a clear line of sight to Warner.

“Grandniece,” she said. Then with a flash of pale pink magic — or maybe pale peach — tasting of lemon verbena, she smoothed the cardboard wrapping of the chocolate bar and tucked the ragged foil neatly back inside. She even repaired the cardboard tab opening that I’d ripped though I was trying to be careful. The restored chocolate bar now looked pristinely new. “Winterblossom. Miss.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Winterblossom,” Warner said. “The warrior’s daughter’s place of business has been attacked.”

The brownie’s eyes widened as Warner spoke, until they occupied over half her face. Then they narrowed with anger. “The bakery?” she squeaked fiercely. She curled her too-large hands into fists and placed them at her hips.

“Yes, but —” I said.

She disappeared.

I whirled to look at Warner questioningly.

“Wait,” he said. Then he turned toward the other half of the nexus and scanned the closed doors. “Treasure keeper, the sentinel and the alchemist attend you.”

His words — or, rather, the magic conveyed by his words — hung suspended in the air for a moment. Then the polished ebony-etched door that led to the territory of Southern Africa — Baxia’s domain — clicked open to swallow the summons. I hadn’t had any interaction with Baxia, also known as the rain bringer, since I’d first tumbled into the nexus. The fact that I’d been dragging a demon with me hadn’t made me many BFFs among the guardians, though I didn’t get the sense that Baxia had even spared me a second glance. From Drake, I’d heard that she preferred to walk the soil of her territory rather than the hard marble of the nexus. I hazarded a guess that it was the politics that kept her away. Politics and bickering that I’d only begun to really notice since retrieving the first instrument of assassination.

Miss Winterblossom appeared before me, with a noticeable but muted popping sound announcing her arrival. So apparently, she didn’t always sneak up on ignorant Adepts.

“Unbelievable,” she spat. “What immoral creature would do such a thing to such an oasis?”

And I instantly and desperately loved her. She’d seen my wounded soul and felt protective of it. I opened my mouth, but she silenced me with an upthrust palm.

“I will make it right,” she declared. Then with a flick of her large hands, she unfurled a pink apron with a ruffled edge, emblazoned with the Cake in a Cup logo.

Then she spun, becoming a blur of pink-streaked browns. When she stilled, she was wearing the apron like a sleeveless dress. She smoothed her hands over it. Then with great satisfaction, she tucked my half-eaten chocolate bar in the front pocket, which spanned her chest.

“Thank you, Miss Winterblossom,” I said, not really knowing what the hell was going on at all.

“You may call me Blossom,” she said. “I like cake in a cup.” Then she disappeared.

“Umm,” I said, looking at Warner for an explanation.

He grinned. “She comes and goes as she wishes. She doesn’t belong to you.”

“Of course not.”

“You don’t pay her, I mean. But you may leave her gifts.”

“Like the chocolate bar?”

“I believe she just expressed her preference for cupcakes.”

“Right.”

“It’s a blessing to have a brownie in your household, but they will not tolerate any slight from you … or an invading force. Their magic is simple but powerful. As you’ve noted, the family usually passes down the responsibility of a household through generations.”

Warner was more confident in my powers of observation than I was. “Okay. And the apron?”

“Claiming her place, Cake in a Cup, and probably your apartment. They are now … well … her dominion. Brownies can get a bit possessive with age, but Blossom appears to be younger.”

Lovely. “Younger than the sixteenth century, at least,” I said. “And the tunic she was wearing? Have I just swiped the far seer’s brownie?”

Warner laughed.

“That’s not an answer,” I grumbled. “Chi Wen scares you just as badly as he scares me.”

Warner sobered instantly. “The far seer doesn’t scare me. Neither does the future … except for the parts I’ll miss.”

The air was suddenly heavy with everything that was still unsaid between Warner and me. With everything that naturally always took time to know about another person, but also with everything I was pretty sure was keeping him out of my bed.

My internal musings — on the barriers between Warner, me, and my bed — slammed up against thoughts of the mission or hunt that we were about to embark on. Then it all clicked into place. The pain of my own stupidity lanced through my heart like a heated needle, wickedly sharp.

“Shailaja has the map,” I whispered.

He nodded tersely.

Oh, God. I hadn’t thought through the ramifications. Warner was the sentinel of the instruments of assassination. Even Blossom had known.

“Oh, God.” The seared pinch of pain in my heart expanded as my mind exploded with the worst of the consequences of losing the map to Shailaja. “I should have … maybe I could have … I just let her take it!” I broke out in a light sweat, feeling the beginnings of panic.

“It will be fine.”

“You’re tied to the map.”

“No,” Warner said, his voice measured and his phrasing carefully chosen. “I’m tied to the instruments or to an incursion of the location of the instruments.”

“That’s the same thing!” Now I was shrieking, which wasn’t at all sexy, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I’d just done one of the stupidest things I’d ever done before. All because I’d been trying to not hurt a kid.

“It’s not,” Warner said. He brushed his fingertips against my cheek, giving me a taste of his magic.

I closed my eyes against the concern and compassion in his green-blue gaze. “I fucked up.”

“I’m tied to the map, yes,” Warner said, “because that was the strongest way the former treasure keeper could anchor that part of the sentinel … sorry, I don’t know the proper word in English … the sentinel’s magical installation? Incantation? Invocation?”

“In his own skin.”

“Exactly.” Warner maintained his soothing tone, reinforcing it by lightly running his fingers along my upper arm.

Goddamn it, I was such a baby.

“We know that the treasure keeper had somehow retrieved the key to the fortress of the braids,” Warner said. “So he must —”

“The centipede!” I shouted in his face.

He paused in his babying of me to raise a questioning — maybe even slightly irritated — eyebrow. I liked that a lot better than the babying.

“Sorry, that was abrupt. The key to the second map is already imbedded in the tattoo. The blocks on the side move to form a centipede, and then —”

The door to Southern Africa blew open with a blast of heat and rain that hit us like a hurricane.

I stumbled to keep my footing. Warner just leaned into the onslaught. Had I been questioned about it two seconds before, I would have sworn that weather couldn’t travel through the portals or enter into the nexus.

Baxia stepped through the open portal onto the white marble floor. Her otherwise bare feet were adorned with exceedingly cute golden toe rings and ankle bracelets inlaid with various gems. The storm that had pummeled Warner and me whipped back and around the guardian of Southern Africa. This left us exceeding damp and windblown, whereas Baxia’s bright African-inspired print maxi dress appeared to be bone-dry. Her ebony skin reminded me of the finest dark chocolate from Madagascar. I tamped down on the pure envy that rose as I stood before the powerful and beautiful guardian.

The rain bringer had come to the nexus.

Pulou stepped through the portal after Baxia, his fur coat showing no evidence of him having just walked through a hurricane. The remaining vortex of water and heat snapped back with the magic of the portal as the door closed behind the guardians.

Warner dropped to one knee and I curtsied deeply. I’d never actually spoken directly to the rain bringer. I understood her guardian gifts had something to do with water, or the control of water. Either way, a guardian who was preceded by a hurricane was definitely someone to bow before.

“Alchemist,” Baxia said. Though her accented English was lyrical, my title was spoken with a sharp edge, as if the guardian was unhappy to find me standing before her. “You do not have permission to enter my territory. If something lies between my borders that is deadly to guardians, you will let it sleep.”

Pulou shifted his feet uncomfortably. I peeked up through my curls to see Baxia glaring at the treasure keeper.

“Is that understood?” she asked him. Her guardian magic — an intoxicating blend of too-dark-to-ever-be-sweet chocolate, well-ripened papaya, and a hint of tobacco that lingered long on my palate — momentarily rose to cloak her in a golden aura.

Wind stirred, lifting the unruly curls off my face. The storm threatened to return as the question — or, rather, the declaration of war — hung between the two guardians.

Pulou turned his stoic gaze on my still partially bowed head. Then I figured out the question had actually been directed to me … or at least through Pulou to me, but for me to answer.

“I understand, guardian,” I said. “I would never walk where I wasn’t welcomed.”

“The map doesn’t lead you to Africa?” Pulou asked, sounding as if maybe he was hoping it did. He was cruising for a bruising, as Gran would say.

Yeah, and guardians were supposed to be peacekeepers. “Not that I know of, treasure keeper,” I answered. “We’re here to request passage to San Francisco.”

“The map leads you to North America?” Pulou asked. “A second time? That is surprising.”

“Not the map —”

“No one enters my territory,” Baxia repeated. Then she padded away. Magic glinted off her toe rings in a way that made me itch to add them to my necklace. Yeah, my magical magpie tendency was verging on obsessive-hoarder-disorder territory these days. I deliberately looked away from the guardian’s flashy feet. I really wasn’t interested in turning into Blackwell. The sorcerer was so obsessed with collecting powerful objects and powerful people that he’d allied himself with my blood-frenzied sister and risked the wrath of the West Coast North American Pack — twice. I knew which lines were not to be crossed. At least, I hoped I knew.

Pulou grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Stroppy biddy.” Then he turned to me. “You’ve unlocked the map, alchemist?”

I straightened, looking the treasure keeper directly in the eye and fully prepared to unleash every bit of the tongue-lashing he deserved for allowing Shailaja to run around unchecked.

Pulou eyed me expectantly.

Expectantly … expecting that I had the ability to unlock the map and the skills to retrieve the instruments that threatened the existence of the dragons …

Instruments that guardians couldn’t even touch.

I snapped my mouth shut.

Pulou frowned. He looked at Warner, then back at me. Waiting.

I twined my fingers through the wedding rings of my necklace. Though it held only a fraction of the magic that it usually did, it grounded me.

“The child has returned,” I said.

Pulou tilted his head, listening intently.

“Though she no longer wears the guise of a toddler. She’s more of a teenager now …” I knew I needed to get to the point about the map, but I was trying to figure out a way to ease into it.

“She calls herself Shailaja,” Warner interjected.

Pulou looked at him sharply.

“She completely trashed the bakery and held Jade’s family at the mercy of her shadow leeches, until the alchemist used the magic of her necklace to unlock the containment spell that held her in child form.”

Pulou’s expression turned stony, but was filled with disbelief. “Did you know her magic, sentinel?”

“No, guardian. Not while she was in her child form,” Warner answered. “And unfortunately, I wasn’t there when she attacked the bakery.”

Pulou ran a hand through his short-cropped, slightly thinning brown hair. “This is difficult to believe.”

Warner stiffened. “You doubt the alchemist?” He sounded ready to beat Pulou to a pulp for some insult that had gone completely over my head.

“No,” Pulou answered, turning his gaze on me. “I apologize.”

“I wasn’t able to contain her,” I said.

Pulou waved this statement off as if it was a given, or maybe just inconsequential.

“She took the map.”

“Deliberately?”

“Why does everyone keep asking that?”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” Warner said, his muted tone informative rather than reprimanding. “With her presence at the fortress, and now tracking you.”