Page 63 of Wizards & Weavers
“Moongrass filament? What in the world is moongrass filament, and when were you planning to tell the rest of us about it?” Augustin picked his rake up the way a wizard might wield his magical staff in battle.
“I didn’t think it was important. It’s something I can weave into my work. I can imbue my crafts with magic. I can finally make something worth selling. None of us wanted the dungeon sealed, Augustin — and now, all of a sudden, you don’t want it sealed, either. When were you planning to tell us about the whistle stone?”
The wizard’s knuckles went white as his fingers tightened over the rake, his eyes going dark. “What about the whistle stone? I thought we were still talking about moongrass.”
Braiden frowned. “It was a simple question. You told us you were going down the dungeon for one reason until you suddenly weren’t.”
Augustin grumbled, raking the leaves hard enough to leave gouges in the grassy dirt.
“You have your reasons. I have mine.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Braiden gavethe wizard a hard look, scoffed, then went back to attacking the bush. The nerve of him, being all deceptive and defensive about his dungeon sealing and his elemental stone. Snip. Clip. And a snip again.
And then Braiden froze in place, shears wide open like a crab’s pincers. He stared hard at his work, studying the bush. Surely he couldn’t have sheared off an entire section of wood in his anger. Why was this bit so perfectly angular, like — he felt so silly thinking it — like the back of a chair? Nature didn’t work this way, at least not nature as he knew it.
He sheared and sheared some more, twigs and leaves falling faster, drawing the occasional annoyed glance from Augustin. Braiden thought the wizard deserved the extra work for being such a jerk, but he wouldn’t have stopped clipping either way. With every snip, he was exposing more of this strange bush’s structure.
It was a chair’s back, after all — and a chair’s seat, and a chair’s four legs.
Braiden gaped at the newly revealed chair. They weren’t cleaning this room up so Elyssandra could move new furniturein. It was growing furniture on its own! This elven house wasn’t just fully furnished — it was fully furnishing itself.
“Unbelievable,” Braiden breathed.
“No,” Augustin snapped. “What’s unbelievable is how you and I both entered the dungeon for such forgivably similar reasons, and yet I’m the villain for being a tiny bit secretive about my purposes. I never had impure intentions. I meant every word I said from the start. If thereisdanger in the dungeon, then Iwillseal it — at the source, if that is what’s necessary. I’ll leave the rest of the dungeon intact. There. Would that be enough to make you and Grandmother happy?”
Braiden blinked, watching as the wizard panted and wheezed, so much of his rant expressed in a single breath. He pointed at the freshly exposed chair.
“I was talking about this thing, actually. It was hiding in the bushes. Unbelievable. That’s what I meant.”
The wizard deflated, his shoulders rounding. The anger fell from his face, quickly replaced by embarrassment.
“Oh. R-right. Elyssandra did say that — never mind. Look. You wanted to keep your family’s business afloat. Maybe I wanted to start something of my own, all right? I came to Weathervale as soon as I heard a dungeon had appeared outside town, but the more I learned about its inhabitants, the more I built up hope that I could find what I needed here. Yes, I wanted to assess the dungeon’s safety, but was it really so awful to get a piece of the pie for myself, too?”
Braiden set his gardening shears flat on the floor. “The dungeonisa very large pie, to be fair. Several layers of it, too. You know, maybe it works better if we think of it as a cake.”
Augustin chuckled, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. “Fine. Let me show you.”
He collected a pitcher of water from among his tools, along with a single matching glass. The Wizard of Weathervale wasvery wise indeed, knowing to stay hydrated in this warm indoor weather. He reached into his comically inflated pocket and pulled out the whistle stone, still issuing its strange little song.
“Remember the pool of water in the luminous cavern? The one with all the fizzy water. Remember how I said that bringing it out of the dungeon didn’t make any sense? You’d just run into elementals on the way. They might break all your bottled water. A waste of a trip.”
He dropped the stone in the pitcher, then waved his hand over it, whispering a soft, small spell. The water bubbled and fizzed. A moment later, the whistle stone leapt out of the pitcher. Augustin caught it in one hand, then gestured at the water.
Tiny bubbles raced up through the liquid, dancing merrily, exactly like the fizzy pool water.
“What if I could make my own fizzy water any time I wanted?”
“You’d make a killing at the night market,” Braiden breathed. Augustin had found a way to make his dream elixir a reality. “Weathervale loves to try new things. And with all these adventurers around, you’d have so many willing customers.”
Augustin scratched the back of his neck. “It does feel a bit awkward for me to use my reputation this way, but I’ve been on the road so long. Stopping tidal waves and saving princesses sounds all grand and heroic, but adventuring takes its toll on a man.”
The sloped shoulders, the tired eyes. It was clear what the wizard wanted. Braiden poured himself some water, watching as it bubbled in the glass. He took a tentative sip, then nodded in approval.
“It could use some sweetness. Otherwise, it tastes no different from the stuff we drank from the pool.”
