“Have I mentioned how helpful you are?”
“I did suggest a course of action.”
“One that could result in me being tortured for information that could betray you.”
“I’ll make sure I’m in an undisclosed location while you visit the elves.”
“So that I can be torturedwithoutbetraying you?”
“Precisely.”
“It still sounds like a less than delightful time.”
“That sums up dealing with elves, yes.” Sylin lifted her cup in a salute.
Rylana made a face.
“Dragons are also long-lived,” Sylin said. “Now that you’ve been introduced to some, perhaps you could consultthem.”
Oh, yes, Rylana longed to swiftly reacquaint herself with Jildarin's aunt and mother. “I have heard that the gardens in the elven enclave are beautiful in the spring.”
“My nature-loving kind like to offer their guests a memorable view while torturing them.”
“They’re a genteel people.”
“Indeed. If it makes the prospect more appealing, it’s unlikely they will physically torture you. Especially here, in Tranquility, where they’re supposed to be peaceful toward all their neighbors. Typical elven interrogations involve them using their magic and mental powers to inflict duress on your mind.” Sylin’s expressionhad alternated between amused and dry throughout the conversation, but a haunted look flashed in her eyes for a moment.
Rylana wondered ifshe’dbeen caught and interrogated at some point during the war. Doubting Sylin would admit to it if she had, Rylana only asked. “Is that a better experience?”
“It leaves fewer visible scars.”
Loud shouts came from the street out front where a steam-powered carriage had crashed into a peacekeeper wagon. The drivers waved their fists at each other while yelling. Meanwhile, green mist drifted from the nearby stormwater grate.
Rylana finished her latte, stood, and mentally braced herself. How the curse on the city had become her problem, she didn’t quite know, but the sooner she could find a way to resolve it, the sooner life could get back to normal. She looked forward to the day when her largest challenge would be haggling with a contractor over the cost of a rooftop seating area.
“Are you going to see the elves or the dragons?” Sylin asked, no doubt wondering how long she could safely linger before disappearing to her undisclosed location.
“The elves haven’t accused me of distracting their son from mating with his own kind and threatened to slay me.”
“Enjoy the gardens.” Sylin raised her cup in another salute.
13
Before heading to the enclave,Rylana returned to the diner to ask Jildarin if he would come with her. The elves called himlordand respected his powerful dragonness. If he walked at her side, she doubted they would torture—or mentally interrogate—her. Going alone seemed a lot dicier.
An ogre who occasionally visited the diner with his mate for the special soup was in the front room, drawing glowers from the handful of other customers braving the curse as he waved incense around. Rylana’s nose wrinkled at the pungent scents of frankincense, patchouli, and orcwort filling the air. Outside, the odors diffused quickly, but in the diner, they would interfere with the ability to taste and enjoy the food.
Rylana paused to tap the ogre on the shoulder. “The chef appreciates your desire to keep our establishment free of curses. Would you mind waving that around outside the front door? There’s a suspicious green ooze wafting out of a grate.”
“Isawthat,” he said, then swore in his own tongue and stomped out with the sticks of burning incense.
As if he’d been poised in the hallway and waiting, Gniknikappeared, pushing a wheeled box-shaped contraption with hoses protruding from all sides. He’d first produced it after the fire in the diner, and Rylana recalled that it, among other things, purified air.
Nodding with approval, she pointed toward the center of the dining room. Gniknik returned her nod firmly and turned it on with a rumble-whirring noise. The hoses came to life, floating in the air as they sucked. Rylana stepped away quickly enough to avoid any of them attaching themselves to her clothing.
In the kitchen, she found Jildarin grinding spices while Zalani flipped through a stack of old cookbooks on the counter. With pages yellowed by time, they looked like they themselves might have come from the elven library—someone’s old library, anyway. Their presence surprised Rylana since, thus far, she hadn’t seen Jildarin consult cookbooks or so much as pluck a recipe card out of a drawer. He seemed to have memorized how to make everything with intuition and experience guiding him.
“Looking for something new and exotic to cook to lure in guests daunted by the curse?” Rylana stopped beside Zalani to peer closer at the texts. The pages were full of crudely drawn pictures with little in the way of instructions, only lists of ingredients. “That looks like the work of a goblin scribe,” she added.
