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“Adragon.”
This time, her eyebrows flew upward instead of merelyarching.
I took out my phone, flipped to the pictures of the wreck, and handed it to her while I unwrapped thevial.
“A dragon did this? Is this what you’re hereabout?”
“No. As crazy as it seems, the dragon is the least of my problems this week.” I glanced upward, half-expecting to see him flying over the trees. “This vial may have held a potion that was dumped into my boss’s coffee or juice or something in her house. There’s a sigil on the bottom that appears when it’s heated up. I think it’s elven, and I’m hoping you can identifyit.”
She held the vial up to the sun, then shrugged off her pack, pulled out a lighter, and used the flame to heat thebottom.
“You’ve given up on flint and steel and embraced modern technology?” Iasked.
“I still practice making fires from scratch, but this is easier if you’re stuck out looking for someone. It gets dark fast in themountains.”
Loud snuffles came from Sudo’s car—Rocket had followed his nose back to it and had his feet up on the rear passenger window that Sindari had opened. Maggie, no doubt alarmed by the appearance of another predator, yowled acomplaint.
Mom held the vial up to thesky.
“Can you see the sigil?” Iasked.
“Yes.”
“Is itElvish?”
“No.”
“Are yousure?”
“Yes.” She lowered the vial and handed it back tome.
I looked at Dimitri. “Do you enjoy similarly monosyllabic conversations with my mother, or am Ispecial?”
“I just met you, but I think you might be.” He glanced to where Sindari had been before he disappeared back into hisrealm.
“Guess the therapist was right.” I stared down at the vial indisappointment.
Mom might be wrong—she wasn’t a scholar of the subject, just an obsessed and abandoned lover of an elf. But either way, it looked like I’d wasted my time coming all the way downhere.
“I’ve got some language books we can check,” Mom said. “Just to be sure. But if you’re trying to figure out more about that symbol, I might know someone who can help. If you don’t mind a short walk in thewoods.”
I almost answered immediately that I didn’t mind, but past experience made me give her a wary squint. “How short is short? Will we be crossing a state line on foot?” I waved at her dusty baretoes.
I hadn’t forgotten the summer vacation I’d spent hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with her. A rite of passage, she’d assured me, while speaking about how her parents had taken her on days-long hikes through the mountains. I mostly remembered being bored out of my gourd and trying to hide my face behind my hair to protect againstmosquitoes.
“Just a few miles,” she said. “Shoes areoptional.”
Maggie yowled in the car, reminding me that she needed attending. Or that she didn’t like the big yellow furry head sticking in thewindow.
“Is that a cat?” Momasked.
“Colonel Willard has assured me she is, though it’s possible she’s a demon or nefarious shapeshifter in disguise. Can you watch her for a while? Willard is… in the hospital. And her apartment building burneddown.”
“Burneddown?”
Rocket, having finished sniffing every part of the vehicle and ground that Sindari had touched, came over and nosed my hand in greeting before giving Dimitri a vigorous tail wag. He squatted down to pet thedog.
“I don’t know that for sure,” I admitted, “but the entire side of the building was heartily on fire when last I saw it. An elf threw a Molotov cocktail atit.”
“Anelf? Elves all left the world decadesago.”
“And dragons left centuries ago, and yet…” I pointed to my phone full of crashphotos.
“Huh. The world is getting interestingagain.”
Before I could debate what that meant, Mom added, “Get the cat, and let’s see what we canfind.”
