Page 39 of A Matter of Dragons

Yes. That’s decided. Decided and decided and decided. I nodded briskly and stepped out into the street. A waiter with skin the color of rich soil was setting up tables outside the Master and Mistress, getting ready for the evening crowd. I’d decided to time my visit just before the dinner hour so it wouldn’t look like I was imposing, and we would both have a convenient excuse to avoid further conversation. It would also give me a convenient excuse to invite Rayne to join me for a meal, which was decidedly less likely but far more attractive.

The waiter glanced up as I approached. I hesitated. No one was sitting outside yet. I couldn’t make out anyone through the glass either. I’d hoped Rayne and her enormous male companion might be out in the open, just to make things slightly less awkward, but no luck.

“Looking for a table, sir?” the waiter asked.

“Uh, no,” I replied. I craned my head, trying to peer through the windows into the far corners of the Master and Mistresses’ dining room.

“Can I help you with something else?” he pushed.

Shit. Okay. Reputable inns like this usually didn’t gossip, but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to try.

“I’m actually looking for a person,” I said. “She’s a guest here, staying with her brother. A woman with long, red hair—”

“Oh, yes.” The dreamy smile on the waiter’s face told me he knew exactly who I was talking about. He snapped out of it and gave me another polite nod. “No, she’s not here anymore, sir.”

My gut dropped. “What?”

The waiter shook his head. “No, she and her brother, they’re off. Closed their accounts and took their horses and everything.”

“Wh— Where did they go?” I stammered.

The young man’s eyes narrowed as though he’d just realized he was spilling his guest’s information to a total stranger. I tried to pull myself together and project the casual superiority that came so easily to my mother.

“Yes, well, that is a shame,” I said as haughtily as I could manage. I rummaged in my pocket for a few coins, then placed one down on the tabletop between us. “Thank you ever so much for your help.”

With that, I turned to leave before the waiter could think any further about our encounter. My thoughts spun as I ducked back down the street. I couldn’t believe they’d left Cairncliff. Rayne hadn’t said anything about leaving at any point last night. Not that she’d said anything about what had brought her here either, beyond some vague mention of her scar.

That was the reason she’d given for entering my shop, yes, but it wasn’t what she’d wanted to talk about last night. In fact, the only thing she’d wanted to talk about last night, at least before we were too distracted to do much actual talking, was dragons.

Dragons. The same thing her male companion had wanted to talk about today after Vil brought the two of them to the Duck and Goose for what had to have been the single most awkward conversation of my entire long life. Dragons and Vil.

I cradled the back of my neck in my hand and dragged my gaze upward to the Knife’s Edge mountains. Sure, it was reasonable that a few tourists would have some questions about dragons after Mad Scarlett lit up the sky last night and scared the pants off a bunch of late-night revelers. But Rayne had been asking me about dragons before any of that had happened.

Unease crept up on me like a cold fog, slowly twining around my insides. A pair of wealthy tourists from Valgros, a land infamous for its distrust and mistreatment of anything non-human, show up in Cairncliff and start asking questions. About dragons. About who has the authority to launch an attack on a dragon.

And they weren’t just any tourists. I remembered the way Rayne had jumped to her feet after she’d seen Mad Scarlett’s fire, the way her eyes had tracked the threat as a dagger winked in her hand. She might have been wearing a lady’s dress, but she’d acted like a warrior. And that man she was with had moved the same way; careful, deliberate, his eyes assessing every corner of the room before he entered.

Shit. This could be bad. This could be very, very bad. My mind seized on the very reason I’d come to the Master and Mistress in the first place: Vil. He was the only other person in Cairncliff who seemed to have any association with Rayne and her faux-brother. And he was one slimy son of a bitch.

I had to find him. If anyone in this town would know where Rayne had gone, it would be Vil. And if I was going to find a slimy son of a bitch, I had to go to the slimiest part of town. I changed direction, turning toward the rowdy wharves and their nasty little pubs just as the sun dipped to kiss the horizon.

* * * * *

AS IT TURNED OUT, VIL was not particularly hard to find. The sun was still streaking the sky above Cairncliff in brilliant, unfurling banners of red and gold when I tracked him down. One little pub along the wharves appeared to be having a riotous party, with music and off-key singing and drunks spilling out into the street. I peered through the door to find Vil sitting on a table like a heavily inebriated king.

“What’s going on?” I asked the man swaying in the doorway. The last light of the setting sun gave his face an especially ruddy tone.

“Drinks on a’ house!” he answered gleefully.

“But, why?” I pushed.

He leaned forward and grabbed the lapels of my jacket. “On. A. House!” he insisted.

I tried to force a polite smile and pressed my way into the pub. It smelled like a long-time brewery that had been converted into barracks for an army platoon that was especially averse to bathing and, for the first time in a long time, the thought that humans really were inferior creatures flitted across my mind. I tried to shove it down.

Aiming for the most sober-looking person in the room, I pushed my way past the rag-tag bunch of musicians currently butchering The King and The Maiden and made my way to the far edge of the bar.

“What’s going on?” I asked a thin, mean-looking man with a face the color of clotted cream.