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“Relax,”came Mrak’s voice, which itself sounded tense and tight, and wholly opposite his suggestion for me.“You’re safe as long as I’m around.”
And I believed that. Being safe wasn’t the issue right now; being awkward as hell was.
Leif shook my hand, a pensive look suddenly on his face, and then made a show of taking a few steps to look at the blades I’d hung on one wall. I never would have assumed I’d be any good at weapons-making eleven years ago when I’d been kidnapped. By the look on his face, Leif also didn’t assume such great craftsmanship based on my appearance, either.
“This is incredible,” he said before turning back to me. “Truly. You come highly recommended.”
“Thank you,” I said a little too quickly. Was talking to people aside from Willa ever going to feel normal again? Talking with customers was always awkward. But I’d known Willa for years. “What is it that you’re looking to commission?”
Leif was dressed in dark jeans and a dark shirt over which he had on a black coat that hung just past his hips. His broad shoulders held the jacket in such a way over his frame that, on a less muscular man, I could have imagined it hid many weapons beneath the jacket.
As he approached, Leif pulled out a weathered, folded piece of paper that appeared to have been pulled out of a book on one end. I gestured for him to join me at a nearby counter and he laid the paper out on the surface, smoothing out the fold lines. “I was hoping for something like this.”
I glanced down at the yellowed, old page. Its ink had faded in places, making it look stained. In the center of the page, surrounded by text in a language I couldn’t read, was an image of a sword covered in runes.
I ran my fingertips over the image. Little ridges rose from the page around the sword, almost as if I could pull it from the paper. “What is this?”
Leif chuckled lightly. “I was hoping you’d know what a sword was, being a smith and all.” My brow furrowed, but before I could question the tone in his voice, he raised a hand and shook his head. “Bad joke, sorry.”
His laughter startled me. I wasn’t used to it. With Willa, things were different because I’d known her in the feeding community. And Mrak—well, we didn’t usually justtalk. Not for long, anyway, before he either stopped answering questions or began to tease me away from them with seductive caresses.
I tried to smile back, although I wasn’t totally feeling the humorous mood. I still had to finish that piece for Willa, and now I’d been interrupted twice. “No, it was good. I’m just not with it today. What I meant was, what’s this design? Where’d it come from?”
Leif’s smile faltered. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Both are great questions to which I don’t have answers. This book is ancient.”
“He’s lying,”Mrak suddenly hissed near my ear.“Get rid of him, Aisling. Do not let him commission this blade.”
I blinked and was quiet after Mrak’s warning for just a beat too long.
Leif dipped his head as if to level with me. “Are you okay?” He reached out, concern on his face, but I jumped back.
“Yes, yes I’m fine.” I swallowed hard.
“Get rid of him,”Mrak repeated.
Leif didn’t look convinced. I probably looked a bit crazy. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him for thinking so. “Okay, then. What do you think? Can you make it?”
“I can,” I said as I managed to make eye contact with Leif again. “I can’t do it today, though.”
“Aisling,”Mrak said.“I told you to get rid of him. He’s a danger to us.”
Disappointment flashed across Leif’s gaze for the briefest of moments. “No worries. Tomorrow? This week at least?”
I raised an eyebrow. “That eager? What’s so special about this blade?”
I’d meant it as a causal question. But Leif tensed before pulling in a shuddering breath that visibly relaxed his entire body. “It disperses shadows. Like…” He trailed off, looking at the walls of the shop before his eyes lit up. “Like a nightlight, basically. And I was kind of hoping you could create it out of nightsteel. I hear it is your specialty.”
“Right,” I said slowly. I’d never heard of runes imbuing that particular type of magic before. And nightsteel, well… “You know that material is pretty hard to come by, right?”
Leif nodded. “Yes. If you don’t have any, that is fine. But I’d pay double for it if you happened to have a stock of it back there.” He indicated the backroom which doubled as my studio apartment.
“Aisling. You know nightsteel is dangerous.”
Yeah, against demons. Not for humans.And this man clearly was human.
“Make him leave or I will.”
Mrak’s strained warning was the only alert I had before my muscles tightened and my chest seized—all for the briefest of moments. I’d only felt this once before, when Mrak had taken control of my body to help us escape Lazarus’s compound. After I’d started using the fire magic, Mrak had taken over to finish the job.
