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“You are an honest mongrel,” Zav said, “I’ll grant youthat.”
“Thanks so much. You’re not usingme.”
“We’ll see.” The violet glow to his eyes brightened, and he smiled again, then turned and walked into the stonewall.
Once again, his aura vanished from my senses far more abruptly than it should have. My legs almost buckled at the cessation of power. Mom came over and gripped myarm.
I wanted to wave her away, to say I was fine, but my muscleswererubbery and unreliable. I took a few deep breaths, refusing to fall or pass out in front of a lava golem and her entire clan ofrefugees.
“So, uh, Greemaw.” I focused on her and tried to pretend nothing had happened, while hoping that Zav had taken off and I would never see him again. “I believe we were negotiating? For yourassistance?”
She gripped her broad chin with one massive hand. “Zavryd came to check on us when he learned you were heading here. I have crossed paths with his family before, in another realm, anothertime.”
“Are they all sodelightful?”
She chuckled, the sound like rocks grating together. “He is young for a dragon, with much to prove to his family. Believe it or not, he would be considered polite and reasonable for one of theirkind.”
“Reasonable! He wants to dangle me as bait until some villain succeeds in killing me.” I envisioned the black dragon version of Zav flying all over the West Coast with me tethered to one of his legs, hanging upside down thousands of feet in the air as wyverns and harpies and who knew what else flew at me withspears.
“Many dragons kill lesser beings—” Greemaw touched her own chest to include herself in the group, “—or keep them as slaves. Were I not too old for war, I would fight beside his family, to ensure they continue to hold majority power in the Dragon Ruling Council and JusticeCourt.”
I had a headache and couldn’t articulate how little I cared about dragon courts andcouncils.
“Even so,” Greemaw said, extending her hand, palm upward, “I will admit it tickles me to see someone stand up to a dragon. That audacity will get you killed, but for today, I will help you if I can. Show me thevial.”
My audacity had helped the situation? There was a first. I laid the vial on her palm, hoping she had a gentler touch than the size of her handsuggested.
“It takes heat to make the sigil visible,” Isaid.
Mom cleared her throat and held up her lighter inoffering.
“Not necessary.” Greemaw focused on her palm, and the gray stone took on the orange color of a hot charcoalember.
I could feel the heat from a couple of feet in front of her. Rather than trying to manipulate the vial with her large fingers, she used her power to levitate it into the air. It spun slowly, and she paused it to peer through the opening to the bottom. The elegant sigil was once againilluminated.
“I thought it might be elven, but my mother disagreed, and we didn’t find it in any of her languagebooks.”
“That is because—” Greemaw allowed the vial to lower to her palm and extended it to me, “—that is a symbol from the special alchemical language of the darkelves.”
“Dark elves? The ones that used to live underground and war with the light elves—or regular old elves, as we talk about them now—in Norsemythology?”
“They have warred with the sunlight elves for all of eternity and across many worlds,” Greemawsaid.
“Haven’t they been gone from Earth for centuries and centuries?” Momasked.
“As far asIknow, that’s the belief.” I pulled out my phone, intending to text Willard and ask if she’d heard differently, but the magic that kept this place hidden also blocked cell signals. “I’ll check with my boss later. If there are dark elves hanging out in Seattle, she would be the one toknow.”
But if she did know, wouldn’t she have mentioned it in passing at some point? And would such beings, considered evil by the surface elves, have been able to fly under the radar forcenturies?
Maybe it wasn’t dark elves at all but someone who’d gotten ahold of one of the race’s ancient alchemy books and learned to make a vial and a potion to get at Willard. That made more sense tome.
“Seattle,” Greemaw said the name slowly, as if it weren’t familiar. “What was that place called in pasttimes?”
“I’m not sure what it would have been called when the last volcano erupted, if that’s what you mean.” I waved toward Paulina Peak again. “The Duwamish were the natives that occupied the land where the city nowis.”
“Ah, yes. It is a newer city, by your definition of that. If dark elves live there, they would have come relatively recently. They cannot stand the sunlight, so they can only be someplace with tunnels orcaves.”
“Maybe they were hanging out over in Forks with the vampires.” I meant it as a joke, but Greemaw shook herhead.
“Even a rainforest would not be dark enough for them to come out in the daylight. The sun burns them quickly, but they grow ill even under cloud cover. They will come out on a cloudy night, but never when the moon is present in thesky.”
“Thank you for the information.” I doubted I was dealing with real dark elves, but at least I had a starting point now for researching potions that could have hurt Willard. I didn’t know any alchemists back in Seattle, but I was positive there had to be some in a city that big, and I would findthem.
