“You are radiant this morning,” he said.
“I love you. I’m happy.”
A flicker of sadness crossed his face, there and gone so quickly, she thought she’d imagined it. Then he took her hand and they strode out the door.
Chapter thirty-four
Valenna
A steady rain pattered on the cobbles, and thunder rumbled in the distance as Valenna and Evander made their way past pastry shops and butchers, tea sellers and milliners. Dragons darted out of the billowing clouds overhead, meandered along the streets, and stood outside restaurants with saddles on their backs, awaiting their masters.
Cobblepine’s main street ascended to the center of town and then sloped downward until it piled up against the mountain wall. The road turned sharply here, the buildings on the left of the street free-standing, and those on the right carved into the mountainside.
They had reached the magical district.
Cobblepine proper was young, tidy, thriving. But before Talwaith withered and Ariadne led her people to the mountains to establish a dragon sanctuary, the magical district had hidden in this pass for centuries, cloaked by enchantments, curses, and spells.
Here, the shops were older, the paint chipping, the doors creaking in crooked jambs. No sunbird flags adorned the doorways.
The air sparkled, as if shining embers blew out of the shops—magic debris wafting out of the shops like dust.
Women strolled past in silk dresses, their hair done up in curls, their shoulders bare. The men wore satin coats embroidered with mountain tigers, dragons, snakes, and peacocks. They wore top hats dyed amethyst and ocean-deep blue.
Valenna and Evander passed a shop that sold insects—butterflies with wings like stained glass, beetles that looked like human eyes, caterpillars furred with black velvet. One jar was edged with frost, and inside fluttered a pure white moth, its wings dropping snow. A case beside it housed a bee perched on a cactus no larger than a thimble. Sand showered from its wings. When Valenna’s shadow passed over it, it dove into a tiny dune in the corner and dissolved.
The spice and oil consortium was a crooked building, painted mulberry purple. The door stood open, the scent of rosemary, mint, and camphor curling out into the street. Valenna rushed inside, but Evander hesitated on the stoop.
“Come on,” Valenna urged.
But he stood still, the raindrops wetting his shoulders as he gazed at the shop looking … almost frightened.
“Vander.” Valenna returned to him and searched his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s just …” He ran his fingers through his hair. “We’re happy right now. If we go in there and there’s nothing to help me … well, all this will deflate.”
She squeezed his hand. “They will have something that can help. They have to.”
He swallowed and, with a forced smile, followed her through the open door.
In the center of the shop stood a long table. With no proprietor in sight, Evander and Valenna stopped to study the table’s contents, which were all labeled in a tidy hand on little slate tags.
In a teapot made of some insubstantial material softer than glass, harder than smoke, bubbled a tea to cure anxiety. Beside it, in a kettle shaped like a beehive, simmered another to cause anxiety. A pot overgrown with moss brewed an elixir to chase away the winter blues.
Behind each teapot stood a tiny, ornate cup containing oil or a dusting of spices. There was an oil that made your food taste delicious even if it was rotten meat, one that would counteract the effects of heartbreak, and a compound of spices to change the color of your hair.A glass case at the end of the table held a tiny glass phial swirling with iridescent liquid. The label read: “Rare Tear from the Ransom Tree,” and below that, “NOT FOR SALE.”
A narrow door behind the counter opened, and Valenna drew up short when Lysander stepped out, holding a rusty red tin. He stopped when he saw them, like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit jar. The proprietor followed him.
“That’s the last of it, I believe,” he said.
Valenna made out the faded label on the tin in Lysander’s hand. “You little puddle of dragon spit,” she hissed.
The boy looked between her and Evander, and then he bolted. Valenna charged after him, catching him on the stoop. She grabbed his shoulder and he whipped around, his nostrils flaring.
“What have you got there, Lysander?” she asked.
He held the tin against his chest as if it were a baby.
“You wouldn’t happen to have come and bought out all the wyvern bone powder, would you?”
