“It’s notnotallowed, but dragons are inherently magical, so it’s hardly fair that they be allowed to compete.”
“Aren’t elves inherently magical too?” Vormalt asked. “And gnomes and dwarves, for that matter?”
“Yes. But notdragonmagical.”
“I see you’ve a well thought out and rational argument on why he shouldn’t be competing.”
“Quit pestering me, Vormalt. I don’t know if my neighbor is coming or not.” Yerin lowered his voice, sounding more like he was shifting to absent muttering than anything directed at Vormalt. “Magic isn’t usually anything that affects the taste of food, so the judges don’t worry about it much, but it’s not fair. I’ve heard of a few species—elves, in particular—that create alchemical concoctions to enhance people’s emotions andfeelingsabout ingredients and use them in their food, but that’s not what the dragon is doing. I know it. I couldtellby tasting his food. People have been talking about special dragon spices. I don’t know muchabout those specifically, like where they come from or if he could get more if his stash mysteriously disappeared…”
“Sneaking into a dragon’s diner to steal ingredients sounds even less wise than sneaking into a lord’s library.”
The library? Yes, Vormalt had mentioned that before, hadn’t he? Apparently, it hadn’t been her company or theviewthat had kept the castle in his mind for seventeen years.
“I agree,” Yerin said. “But I’m going to get him out of the competition. One way or another. I’mnotgoing to lose the Golden Whisk, not again. I still can’t believe that bumbling gnome won last year. It was completely unfair. There was a gnome judge when there shouldn’t have been, just because the dwarf got sick and pulled out, and I’msureshe was predisposed to favor dishes made to appeal to the tastebuds of their kind. I’mnotgoing to lose again. I’m tired of my father thinking— Look, if you’re going to hover, you need to help out. Get me a jar of blackberry jam, will you?”
“Where is it?”
“The pantry.”
Rylana swore under her breath and peered through the crack, but Vormalt was already heading toward her. She grabbed one of the salamis and hefted it with a vague notion of clubbing Vormalt. Maybe if she knocked him on his ass quickly enough, he wouldn’t see who was responsible…
As he reached for the doorknob, a scream came from the backyard. Alarmed shouts followed.
Salami clenched in her hands, Rylana didn’t know whether to hope Sylin had lit the back of the house on fire or not.
“What is it?” Vormalt paused, his hand inches from the knob.
“Fire!” came a cry from outside.
Someone else shouted, “The pig!”
“My pig?” Yerin charged around an island and toward the exit. “What’s happening to my pig?”
He and Vormalt ran out of the kitchen and toward the backdoor. Rylana slipped out of the pantry and went in the opposite direction, trotting through numerous rooms to reach the foyer and the front door. The butler and two other staff were peering out a back window and didn’t notice her ease outside. She jogged for the road, trusting that Sylin would catch up with her.
Plumes of smoke rose from the backyard, and shouts continued, calls for buckets of water. Rylana might have felt guilty about inadvertently causing the chaos, but after listening to Yerin, she wagered he was behind the attempts to get Jildarin to change into his dragon form and be kicked out of the city. The problem was that she didn’t have any idea how she could prove that.
Sylin stepped out of a hedgerow in front of the property next door, and Rylana jumped. Her elven comrade’s hood remained up, but a smudge of soot was visible on her cheek.
“Thank you for your assistance with the distraction,” Rylana said, wondering how Sylin had started a fire—or caused the existing fire under the pig to spontaneously quadruple in size—without anyone noticing.
“You are welcome.”
“You’re a good friend,” Rylana said as they walked up the road toward the ferry. “Even if you don’t considermeone.”
“Assassins can’t allow themselves to get close to others, lest enemies manipulate them by their emotional attachments.”
“You don’t think we were close when we were smashed into that closet together? The hilt of your knife was jabbing into my kidney.”
“Not emotionally close, no. Feelings weren’t involved.”
“Are you sure? My kidney had some feelings. I—” Rylana stopped as the gate to her family’s property rolled open.
She glanced left and right, but there were no convenient hedgerows to leap behind along this section of the street. She almost whirled to sprint back toward Yerin’s estate, but the plumes of smoke still wafting from behind his manor convinced her thatreturning would be a bad idea. Besides, her father stepped into the street, and it was too late to escape notice.
He halted and stared at her, back rigid and nothing inviting about his pose. Rylana didn’t know what to do but stare back at him, noting that his formerly brown hair was gray, and he now wore it short, cut to meld into a well-trimmed beard that lined his jaw under his stern lips and a tidy mustache. His cool brown eyes regarded Rylana with mild surprise but not utter surprise. Right away, she guessed that Vormalt or another acquaintance had reported her presence in the city to him.
“He’s stiffer than an alpha wolf with its hackles up,” Sylin murmured too softly for him to hear.
