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"It's an enchanted dagger, lass," Lachlan growls. "It's not silver. But you look like you're ready to do some damage, and neither of us is stupid enough to get hit by a fucking enchanted blade."

"So do vampires eat garlic or not? Because if I can set up a line of garlic perfume bombs as a ranged weapon, that sounds pretty⁠—"

"I swear to God," Lachlan interrupts, looking up at the ceiling as if begging the universe for moral support, "if my charge feels she has to start setting off garlic-flavored smoke bombs to stay safe, I think I'll just fucking die right here on the spot."

Theo lets out another loud, booming laugh, and I scowl at them both.

"Oh, okay, so it's not that it's a bad idea," I say icily. "It's just that it would embarrass you if I didn't defend myself in the exact violent way you want me to."

"Honestly," Theo says, shooting a long glance at Lachlan before turning his attention back to me, "it isn't a terrible idea. It just wouldn't be very effective. Vampires don't love garlic—or anything strongly scented, really. Most creatures don't, including wolves and bears. Unless, of course, it's the scent of their mate."

He gives Lachlan a long, deliberate look.

I frown at the weird tension, then shrug it off. "Okay, fine. Garlic bombs are out. You guys want me to use a crossbow or a gun, even though my magical powers..." I wiggle my fingers in the air for effect, slightly disappointed when nothing sparks from my knuckles. "...can take away someone else's magic. But only if they're close enough for me to see them? What's the actual range on that?"

"I'm not sure range matters until you figure out how to actually do it on command, lass," Lachlan says, making zero attempt to disguise his amusement at my finger-wiggling.

Suddenly, the dagger jerks in my hand, the runes glowing even more brightly. My jaw snaps shut and I get the prickling feeling that the inanimate object in my hands is trying to tell me something. Unfortunately, I speak neither inanimate object nor Futhark runic. But the weapon tugs again and I take a step forward, wobbly on my own feet.

"Lass," Lachlan says carefully, delicately, like I'm a bomb that might go off if he handles me too roughly.

"Oh fuck, it must be part of a pair," Theo says. "I'm sorry, Lachlan, I didn't know."

"Shut up," Lachlan tells Theo. "Lass, go where it wants you to go."

I don't bother wasting breath asking him what he means, because I know deep down in my bones exactly what he means. The dagger is taking me somewhere. It tugs again and I take another step as the metal grows hot against my skin—almost uncomfortably so. And another step. And another. Until there's nothing but a door in the way.

"Shit, it must be part of the new shipment I just got in. The North Pole Guardians were trying to get rid of some of their old pieces they've had locked up."

I want to ask more about the North Pole Guardians, but I don't have time to before the dagger jerks again, nearly pulling me straight into the door ahead of me.

"Hurry up and fucking open it!" Lachlan snarls at Theo.

My gaze is fixed on the rainbow-colored fluorescence of the opals under my skin and the glowing runes that seem to be writhing inside the metal itself, like they're alive. Before it can jerk again, Theo manages to get the backstock door open, and I find myself in a dim room—cramped, full of wooden crates and metal boxes and shelves of equipment that haven't been inventoried yet.

The dagger tugs me towards a closed chest, a huge and heavy-looking padlock closed in front of it.

"That's not a fucking North Pole Guardian's chest," Lachlan says, his voice low and dangerous. "What the fuck have you been up to, Theo?"

"Making ends meet," Theo says with a growl in his words. "You know how bad it's been without a fucking house keeping things. My line is sworn to an extinct house, just as yours is. Don't act the fucking choirboy with me, Lachlan."

"Can somebody please open the fucking chest?" I grit out, my hands shaking, both of them on the dagger's handle now, the runes on the sharp edge so bright they sting my retinas.

"Fuck," Lachlan says with a growl, and I watch in disbelief as he wrenches the padlock off with his bare hands.

"Ha ha," I laugh out loud. "Bear hands. What is happening?" I finally manage to say as the dagger quiets.

"It must be part of a pair," Theo growls.

I glance over my shoulder at him, now that the pull of the dagger has subsided. "It wants to be back with its mate. Can you explain what that means? You realize that I have no idea what that fucking means," I tell him.

I wince at the rudeness of my tone. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that. I'm just not used to being bossed around by magical objects."

"It means that I'm going to have to teach you how to use two daggers to defend yourself, because that's not just a spell ritual dagger you've decided to have a little bond with. No, those are powerful weapons in their own right."

Theo interrupts him, agreeing. "A bonded pair of daggers only could have been smithed by the dwarves that live under Everest."

"Under Everest?" I say, my voice cracking slightly.