Page 26 of Fortune's Blade

It hit the little bit of flora full on and, oh, the difference that made!

Ray suddenly found himself battling, not a small roadside weed, but a three-foot tall woody specimen with a head of wild purple blossoms, a dozen arms each capped by a familiar-looking claw, and a forest of pale roots sprawling over the ground and moving so fast that I couldn’t be sure of the count.

“Auggghhh!” he yelled, as I dropped our purchases and leapt for the crazed sort-of tree.

I landed on its back, judging by the fact that it was facing off with Ray on the other side, although it was hard to tell as I received a bunch of blossoms in the face. They smelled divine, so much so that they almost became another defense, distracting me in a cloud of lush perfume for a second. Until Ray screamed again.

And this time, it was a high pitched, panicked note that I had seldom heard from him, and it sounded terrified.

And then flowers were falling everywhere, limbs were cracking and leaves were raining down on the people who were pushing back from the melee that I was not at all sure that we were winning. Which made no sense, as Dragon’s Claw merely transferred attributes from one creature to another. Meaning that the little weed now had some of the abilities of the Dragon’s Claw itself, and of the pixie who had helped to enchant it.

And that was trumping a master vampire and a dhampir?

I snarled and upped the ante, but the creature was regrowing limbs before I could finish severing the things. Probably because all of the pixies were now in on it, I realized, shooting little bursts of magic our way, wanting to keep the fight, which had drawn quite a crowd, going as long as possible. For they were suddenly selling massive quantities of their brew, which they had cooked down into little pastilles and stuffed into homespun bags.

And for what? I thought, as a thorn bedecked limb wrapped around me, and squeezed like a vise. What insanity was this, to sell such a concoction in an area devoted to candy?

But it did not appear to be affecting the local fey nearly so much. I saw a child munch on a pastille, and then grip her friend’s hand and push a pug nose out of her face that looked just like his. The two of them laughed and pointed, while his hair took on the ashen quality of hers in streaks among his natural black.

The effect was muted, then, unless aided by an outside force, which was definitely the case here. The former weed was resisting all my efforts to break its hold; if anything, it got tighter, as if it would like to see what color sap I had. I was already covered in its pale white version, and then in red before I finally broke the stranglehold that had now reached my neck and beat the thing with one of its own, still-flailing limbs.

And then beat the pixies with it as well, since the nasty, vicious things were the cause of our distress. They did not seem to like that, and while some scattered to the winds, small wings whirring, others chose to dive bomb us in between the mad thrashing we were still receiving from the weed. Which was now more like six feet tall!

But it suddenly went up in flames, why I didn’t know unless Ray had gotten a piece of the pot’s firewood onto it. I couldn’t tell as the former weed began even more wild thrashing, and then abruptly made a beeline for the forest, clearing a path through the spectators as it did so. And I took the chance to send the pixies tumbling into each other and rocketing out of sight as I laid about with two of the creature’s still-thrashing limbs.

Finally, they were gone, including the ones at the vendor’s table, who had scarpered for less dangerous parts along with their bags of coins. Leaving me panting and heaving, with my pretty new outfit in tatters and the pixies’ spell light still buzzing over my skin. But I was okay, if bloody and alarmingly sap covered, and so was Ray, who was lying on the ground and staring up at me in alarm.

“It’s okay,” I told him, tossing away a thorny limb and reaching out a hand.

“It’s not okay,” he said, sounding strangled, and shifted his gaze to something behind me.

Something I saw as I turned, but only for an instant.

No, I agreed as I sank to the ground alongside him, after a bolt of far more powerful magic hit me square in the chest.

Probably not okay now.

Chapter Nine

Dory

“You’re late.” Tanet sounded annoyed as we approached the table.

“Had to climb the stairs,” Claire said carelessly. “I’d forgotten how many there were. You remember Dory, and this is Louis-Cesare.”

Tanet did not so much as spare us a glance. “You might have given them a lift,” he pointed out, all but glaring at his sister.

“I’ve spent enough time scaley today—”

“Not nearly enough!” he said, and his hand hit the table.

The item in question was a slab of black granite, glittering under the few lamps that swung on chains here and there, and looking like the same stuff that made up this part of the mountain. In fact, it appeared to be still attached where it had grown, with the stone of the dining chamber having simply been carved away from it. Yet he managed to rattle the golden plates and goblets it held anyway, causing one of the latter to tip over.

Claire righted the goblet and ignored her brother’s outburst. “Sit down. He won’t tell you to,” she said to me. Louis-Cesare and I obediently sat, me beside her on her brother’s left, and my partner on the only other pillow available, across the table by Tamris, who shot him a shy smile.

I took the few moments while we got situated to reevaluate Tanet. He had changed a bit since we’d first met, while he was on a visit to New York. He’d been thin and gangly then, with his muscles not matching his considerable height or the occasional flash of fire in his eyes. His hair had likewise been short and red, and of a hue not naturally found on Earth, and sticking up in tufts. As if he spent more time in dragon form than in human and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

That . . . was no longer the case.

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