Page 44 of Magick and Lead
“WereLacunae,” Clua corrected.
Rohree stared at her. “And you killed them?”
The dwarf snorted. “Well, they didn’t smash their own heads.”
Clua was only an inch or two taller than Rohree and no more than waist-high to a tall man. The idea that a diminutive person like her had taken out a pair of the most respected and feared knights in all Maethalia was staggering. More shocking was the idea that she’d risked her life for Rohree—a mere sprite. A servant. A nobody.
“Is Essa here?” Rohree asked. “Or the riders?”
“If we had a dragon to ride, do you think we’d be chuggin’ away on foot?” the dwarf asked without slowing. “Essa and the Skrathan are busy trying to save the kingdom, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. Can you go invisible?”
All sprites could become invisible—or nearly invisible, for there was always a tiny telltale shimmer for those who looked closely—but it took a certain amount of energy to make the shift. Rohree tried, but the effort made her head throb and her knees nearly buckle.
“I can’t,” she said.
“No matter,” Clua replied. “Since I can’t turn invisible and you can’t run on your own, it wouldn’t have helped us muchanyway. Besides, the Gray Brothers have ways of seeing that don’t require eyes...”
Rohree glanced down at the satchel of correspondence bobbing at her side and thought of the witch again.
What if she were gazing into her scrying bowl now? What if she were watching them? What if she werecomingfor them?
The thought could almost have paralyzed her with terror, but she pushed it out of her mind. She couldn’t go back, and she wouldn’t let herself be taken again. She’d cut her own throat first. And she certainly didn’t want to slow Clua down and endanger her after she’d risked so much to save Rohree. There was only one thing to do: run. And so she did, sprinting toward the dawn, her legs wobbling with every step and Clua’s stout hand leading her onward.
22
CHARLIE
Iset the bowl on the table in front of Essa, then stepped back as if I were feeding some dangerous beast or making an offering to a goddess.
Now that I thought about it, neither analogy was too far off…
She stared down at it. “What is this?”
“Cereal,” I said. “Honey O’s. With milk.”
She just looked at me. I cleared my throat.
“I mean, I can cook,” I said, a little defensively. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have bought some eggs and bacon and...”
She arched an eyebrow. Her face… God, I loved that face. Even when she was angry, and cold, and?—
“If you knew I was coming, perhaps you wouldn’t have been here with another woman,” she said.
That one hit me like a bullet. I winced. “That… no. She’s nothing to me.”
“Nothing. So, the two of you have never…?” The implication hung in the air.
“Well… we have… I mean, we were... That was Kitty Rowley. Her ID was in my flight bag, that’s how I had the documents to pose as a reporter when I crashed in Maethalia,” I explained.
Essa nodded slowly. “So that’s your fiancée?”
I winced again. “Former. Former fiancée. We broke up.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, her voice so cold I was surprised I couldn’t see her breath.
“You know why, Essa,” I sighed. “Because of you. Because every beat of my heart is for you. Every breath is for you. Because I would die to prove the way I feel for you.”
One corner of her lips quirked into a dark half-smile. “You might,” she said.
