Vaskel looked up, meeting Lira’s confused gaze. “I mean, how do we give Marina cookies without it seeming suspicious? I can’t walk up to her and offer her one. She’d see through me in a second.”
“Son of a wand waxer,” Lira cursed.
I strangled laugh escaped Iris. “I guess I was so focused on brewing the potion that I didn’t think that even if we snuck it into something more palatable, we still had to find a way for her to want to ingest it.”
“I’m not opposed to force-feeding the hellkin a cookie,” Lira said, sliding the rest of the treats from the pan to the plate.
“It’s too late to ask Pip to lure her into his shop and offer her a free cookie, and so far today, she hasn’t shown her face inside the tavern.” Vaskel muttered some choice hellkin curses under his breath. “And she probably won’t if she’s preparing to leave.”
He didn’t say the part that they were all thinking. She was preparing to leave and take Cali and him with her, since his three days were nearly gone.
“We still have options,” Lira said, her voice more shrill than usual. “We’ve faced more dire situations than this, Vask. We just have to think.”
Vaskel didn’t remind her that when they’d faced those dire situations, they had the strength of their entire crew. They’d had Malek’s talents and Pirrin’s blade, Cali’s stealth and Rog’s bravery. Now, it was just down to them.
The doors swung open again, and Erindil swept into the kitchen with the gravitas of someone being announced at court.
“Greetings, my friends. This delightful dwarf tells me you require my assistance.”
“Sass,” the dwarf in question said as she rolled her eyes.
“Yes, yes.” Erindil bestowed a glorious smile on her. “Dear little Sass.”
Sass bristled, but before she could show Erindil her displeasure at being called little, Lira cleared her throat.
“We added the potion to the cookie batter, but now we don’t know if it will be enough to do the job.”
“Ah, yes.” Erindil bent over to examine the cookies, squinting one eye. “How much potion went into the batter?”
Lira held up the empty glass bottle. “This much.”
Erindil nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Very good, very good.” Then he counted the cookies on the plate. “From what I can remember, it doesn’t take a lot of potion to break the bind.” He held up a slender finger. “It does, however, require both those bound to consume it at the same time.”
Vaskel bit back another groan. So they had to contrive a reason for Marina to eat at least one cookie while he was also eating one. All without arousing the suspicions of a naturally suspicious hellkin.
Iris put a hand on his back. “Don’t worry. We’ll come up with a way to trick Marina into eating one.”
Sass looked from Iris to Vaskel and shook her head. “Is that why you look like you just stepped in dragon dung? Well, it’s simple isn’t it?”
Lira stared at her friend. “Is it?”
“Aye.” Sass jerked her head toward the great room. “We get Thrain to take them to her. He can pretend he’s trying to win her back. He can even say that Pip made them. No offense, Lira, but everyone knows the halfling is a baking genius.”
“If your plan works,” Lira said, “no offense taken.”
Erindil scrunched his lips to one side. “And is Thrain a good liar?”
Sass grinned. “He’s never met a tall tale he couldn’t make taller.”
Forty-One
“Aye.”Thrain dragged a hand down his beard before his fingers snagged on a tangle and he had to jerk them out. “I could persuade Marina to eat some cookies.”
He sat at one of the long tavern tables, the plate of dark potion-filled cookies in front of him and Vaskel, Lira, Sass, Iris, and Erindil standing across the table from him. Korl and Val sat in their massive upholstered chairs by the spluttering fire, but the rest of the patrons were gone, although the tables still held the occasional emptied tankard or pewter plate littered with scraps of pastry crust.
Sass had just waved off the last customer, but hadn’t finished cleaning the place. They’d all agreed it was more important to get Thrain on board with their plan than it was to polish all the glasses behind the bar and sweep the floors.
“I can make quick work of that while Thrain’s off making cow eyes at the hellkin,” Sass had said when they’d decided to approach Thrain, although not within earshot of the dwarf in question.
