Page 33 of Elixir of Strife
Leon sniffled again, his nose and his lips doing this odd, wobbly sort of thing. I kept my eyes on the road, but reached over and scratched the end of his nose with my fingernails. He sighed in relief, his shoulders relaxing just the slightest.
“Oh, wow. Thank you. Feels like it’s been itching forever now.”
“I’m sure you can hold the glass in one hand just fine. I mean the compass. Whatever.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “I don’t think I’ll have to for much longer. Down that way. Yep, there we go.”
We’d found ourselves in a residential area. Big, beautiful houses, the kind that the Dos Lunas elite liked to live in. Driving past the mansions and hillside houses, a small, nervous fire burned in my belly, wondering if one of them might belong to one of the great magical families.
I didn’t recognize any of the properties, though, not the large, ornate golden letter N that the Nurs liked to blazon everywhere, nor the lion’s head that the Lyons used to mark their territory. And certainly no diamonds, either.
“There,” Leon said, pointing through the windshield at one house in particular. “It should be in there.”
I tilted my head, almost leaning across the dashboard as I studied the cube built out of concrete and glass. Very modern. Very expensive. “How do you know, exactly?”
He didn’t answer, only raising the glass in response. It made a rhythmic chinking sound, the shard of ice poking the edge of the glass repeatedly, like a bouncing arrow on a digital map. “You have reached your destination,” the seawater compass seemed to say.
We parked a couple blocks away, just to be sure. Even after circling a couple times, the compass kept pointing in the same direction. At least that confirmed our target. I almost asked Leon to carry it with him as we infiltrated the house, but he gave me a look as if he already knew what I was thinking.
“There is no way I am creeping around a house carrying a salty cocktail. Besides, that clinking is only going to give us away. We don’t even know if anyone’s home.”
Leon was right. A few lights were on in the garden, but the interiors themselves were dark. It was reasonably late enough that the occupants might have been asleep, but there was no way to really tell. As we got out of the car, he patted down his knapsack, then his pockets, cursing.
“Rats. Fine time for me to go around without any sleeping salt. Would have been useful for tonight, too. I should remember to grind up some more.”
We approached slowly. Leon had told me about his small magics, the little spells he’d learned from his many mothers in the Alcantara line. I could relate closely to that sort of magic, all the preparation involved in mixing the right ingredients, in bringing the right tools for the job, like that clever brass bell of his, the one without the clapper.
On most nights, I would have been far more cautious about an infiltration, taken more time to prepare. But time was of the essence here. Someone had already snatched the first Aqueous Elixir from under our noses. We couldn’t afford to lose the second one, and the paycheck to boot.
“We’ll just have to play it careful,” I told him, reassuring myself as much as I was reassuring him.
Not that he needed any telling. Something about Leon’s attitude had rubbed off on me, his willingness to improvise, to take risks with his magic. I never thought I’d be totally fine with the idea of breaking into someone’s house sight unseen.
But Leon’s very presence was like a shot in the arm, a confidence booster. He was just as good at running headlong into danger as he was running away from it. There was almost something impressive about it, how strong-willed and slippery he could be, how there was order to his chaos.
And if worse came to worst, he could always count on one of those dragons.
“Obfuscate,” I whispered, blowing a cloud of diamond dust toward the house, watching as the glittering chaff faded and settled into our surroundings. No movement from inside, and no sign of pets, either. “Penetrate,” I added, producing my diamond lock picks, easily working the front door open. We entered.
In the gloom of that odd cubic house, my sense of smell seemed heightened, mostly because its interiors did smell exceptionally good. None of that artificial air freshener with the chemical tang that assaulted the nostrils. No. Whoever lived here knew how to appreciate fine fragrances.
Faint, clean scents. Citrus wafting from the foyer bathroom. Something woodsy and spicy from a center table as we headed deeper into the main hall. Sandalwood, maybe, with a touch of amber. And deeper in the house, perhaps from a distant room, the unmistakable smell of roses.
Leon pointed up the stairs. He was the last one to check the saltwater compass, so I was more than happy to follow his lead. Something in his hand gleamed with the gold of brass. His clapperless bell, a spell of silence already cast on the soles of our feet. I smiled to myself, again reminded of how I felt more secure with him at my side. Stronger. Safer.
We reached the top of the stairs. The air was sweetest here, this delicious mingling of something earthy, something smoky, something wet. Like moss, like strolling through a cool evening forest. I almost lost myself in the darkness, following the beckoning trail of fragrance.
“Hold it right there, boys.”
I froze. Leon froze. My balls receded into my body. Fuck. Me and my hubris. Why didn’t I activate my invisibility spell? It’d only take me out for thirty seconds, a minute tops, but it was always an important precaution. As for Leon — well, again, dragon.
A shape glided out of the darkness, a slinky, feminine silhouette. A sliver of moonlight illuminated her face, this oddly familiar woman, her and her silky nightgown, her beaded braids of hair held back with a silk bandanna. Something about those doe eyes, those high cheekbones. Where did I know her from?
The woman wrinkled her nose. “I thought I smelled poverty.”
“Whoa,” Leon said, holding his hands up. “That is way out of line, lady.” He thrust a finger at me. “This guy’s pretty rich. I’m not. But we are not smelly.”
Her gaze flitted between the two of us, stinging with suspicion. When he thought she wasn’t looking, Leon pinched a bit of his shirt and gave himself a cursory sniff.
