Page 72 of Of Scale and Blood

“Sorry, I have no time for buts.” I paused. “What are you practicing?”

“Spell craft. I thought you were in a hurry?”

“I am.” And I had vague suspicionhewas in a hurry to get rid of me. Or maybe that was just my paranoia showing. “Talk later.”

I left, slamming the door behind me. The noise echoed, and the door to my parents’ suite opened. My father stepped out and strode toward me, a long cup of what smelled like shamoke in one hand.

“Lovers’ tiff?” he said as we headed down the stairs together.

“No. I’m just running late.”

“Considering you’re supposed to meet your fellow scouts in five minutes, I would say late is an understatement.”

“I know.” I waited until we were out in the courtyard and hopefully beyond Gayl’s range, and quickly told him what I’d discovered.

Annoyance flickered across his features. “I’ll order the dust covers to be placed over all furniture in the pertinent rooms and have them locked. We won’t be using them anytime in the foreseeable future anyway, as most of our trading partners have been warned of the danger and are keeping clear until we give the go-ahead again.”

Which meant that if these attacks did develop into a war, certain commodities were going to become scarce. East Arleeon’s rich farmlands could provide the basics, and the west had plenty of woods and mines to supply the smiths and fletchers with all the raw materials necessary for making weapons, but there was plenty we didn’t make—like shamoke.

A shortage ofthatwas nightmare material in itself.

“Oh,” he added, “please do remember what I said about not attacking. We don’t need to be prompting a retaliatory attack until we have some means of combating their weapons.”

“I understand, but if weareattacked, we will respond.”

“If you’re attacked, I expect you to destroy them.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “You do know that, in theory, I could just claim we were attacked and destroy the bastards anyway.”

“Yes, but you’re generally a bad liar, and guilt would soon have you confessing the truth anyway.”

I laughed, rose on my toes, and kissed his cheek. “That is a statement I can’t argue with. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Aye,” he said, lightly touching my cheek. “Keep safe.”

I nodded, saluted, then ran down to the gates that led to the mountain path. Kele and Hannity were already waiting.

Kele eyed the sacks I was carrying with something close to avarice in her expression. “Are they what I think they are?”

“It is indeed.”

“I think I love you.”

Hannity’s gaze flicked between us. “Why? What’s in the sacks?”

“Hutzelbrot,” Kele replied, with a dreamy expression. “Once eaten, never forgotten.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” She took a deeper breath. “It smells like bread.”

“It is an affront to call Hutzelbrot mere bread.” I handed them each a sack. “You’ll have to eat on the wing, because we can’t risk landing in Mareritten for any longer than it takes to pee.”

Hannity raised her loaf and sniffed. “Oh. I think I get it now.”

I smiled. “Wait until you taste it. Let’s go.”

We moved as fast as my still-healing leg would allow up the mountain path. Though the morning had started out fine, by the time we reached the halfway point, the wind had whipped up and dark clouds were gathering. Thankfully, the storm held off until we reached the tunnel, but if it didn’t clear as quickly as it arrived, it was going to be a miserable day’s flying.

As it turned out, it wasworsethan miserable.

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