“Lorik is no threat,” I said, striving for a bored tone.
Lorik might be a threat. He was quietly making moves behind the scenes while I dealt with my father and my professor.
“Lorik has already won,” the prisoner said with a laugh. But he quickly began to shake. His lips opened and closed. Sweat dotted his forehead, and his pupils blew wide.
“What’s wrong with him?” I called. I’d witnessed plenty of catacomb madness, and this wasn’t it.
Adelaide rushed to my side. “Something is shimmering under his skin.”
An oval-shaped symbol resembling a dragon’s eye formed, its edges glowing brighter and brighter, buried embers fanned awake. The air itself seemed to tighten, as if the catacombs held its breath.
A kill switch. Lorik’s kill switch.
“Step back,” I yelled at my sister.
The shifter’s head snapped awkwardly, and his eyes darkened, all life draining from him.
Lorik had played me. Had wanted his man captured and questioned.
Two daggers in hand, I turned on my heel and stalked from the underground chamber. Adelaide kept pace at my side.
Thoughts whirled. The race was on. If I didn’t get multiple steps ahead of Lorik, he could do serious damage to my forces. “Bonded by blade…”
“Yeah, about that,” Adelaide began. “You want the good news or the bad?”
Ugh. “Just give me the news, period.”
“So. From what I’ve been able to dig up, thereisa way to sever the bond to Locke, no matter the method he used to create it. Which you’ll want to do ASAP. Babble Boy made a good point. Locke is a danger to you as long as you’re bonded to him. I mean, no wonder Lorik sold him the Yrnblade. Lorik wants Tar-bear dead, and you crazed. Talk about diabolical.”
“Don’t you dare sound impressed. Taron wanted the same thing.”
“As if I would ever be impressed by a shifter or a mortal. Please.” Disgust molded my sister’s features. “Not more than a teensy-weensy bit impressed. But now with the bond cemented, you’ll have to protect Locke until it’s severed.”
Protect Professor Hotpants, who despised me and wanted me dead. Whatever could go wrong?
We reached the palace foyer, and I breathed deep of the clean air. “Well?” I demanded, stopping to face her. “How do I sever the bond?”
“Oh. That. You have to gather the ingredients. A lot of ingredients, most of them unpleasant. I’ve already spoken to Emma, and she’s ready to brew a special potion. But you gotta gather the ingredients with the one you’re bound to. The recipe claims it is quote unquotenecessaryfor reasons not stated.”
Emma, our most bookish sister and two years younger than Adelaide. She specialized in concoctions for every occasion.
“Go get your man,” Adelaide said, shooing me off. “According to intel, he just snuck through the Frankfurt Airport. Avoided detection until he made it outside. But none of our people knows which direction he went. He vanished in the crowd.”
With a nod, I rushed up a flight of stairs. A queen on a mission, I headed straight to my room, leaped from the balcony, and flew to the traveling stones.
Chapter
Six
Blow a little smoke to remind them a burning is only ever seconds away.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon’s Tale of Human Management
As soon as I flew into German airspace, the temperature dropped and scents changed. I traded the pleasant odor of amber and smoke for the briny breath of the Weser River.
Rows of red-brick warehouses lined the water’s edge. I’d watched these steep-gabled buildings with their arched windows being built in the 1890s. The crafters were long gone, but their imagination and ingenuity remained. Though the town didn’t bustle as it once had, this working port gave us the perfect cover.
I aimed for the warehouse tucked between two shuttered storage halls that acted as my home base in the human world, sailing through dragon-berserker security checkpoints without hassle.
