Page 82 of The Discount Damsel

“He found the parchment, Excelsior,” she said flatly.

“You need to be more specific, my dear. That library is full⁠—”

“The parchment. You know, the one that smells like licorice?”

For the first time since she entered his study, the sorcerer grew serious. “And?”

“Well his eyes aren’t black orbs in his head and his soul isn’t corrupted. Yet. Like I said, husband, you are a cruel man to test him so.”

“I’d be crueler to the world if I didn’t. And I’m not the villain you make me out to be. There are safeguards, for everyone. Believe me, my dear, I take no delight in this necessity.”

It was so necessary that Excelsior betrayed his own morals and spied on his apprentice. In fact, he’d been spying on Bradley Donmarin and little Lung Shang since the day he shut his charges up in that tower. Miss Penelope Shrewsbury, war hero and griffin rider extraordinaire, snooped and gave reports, but she wasn’t the spy his charges thought she was. The large mirror framed in abalone shell did that, and his apprentice had no idea of its two-way properties or how the eyes of all those hermit crabs transmitted what they saw directly to the twin mirror in his office.

Excelsior’s tone lightened. “Is that all? How’s our little luck dragon?”

“Lung Shang is doing well. He spooled up and maintained a tornado for the whole duration of my visit. It was very impressive, though Zora was disappointed he didn’t treat her to a sprinkle bath.”

“I’m delighted to hear it—the tornado, that is. His littermates can barely control the wind and he’s raising his own tornadoes? And to think the little chap thought he was defective because of his scales. Ha!”

Excelsior’s smile dimmed against the disappointed furrow in his wife’s brow. He offered her a gentle smile. “My dear, will you stop pouting and make exceedingly free use of the response you have invoked within me?” He lifted his arms invitingly. “Your seduction has been most thorough, even if I have not become putty to your will. But take heart, such tactics normally beguile me senseless.”

Penelope released a petulant huff, pushed off the desk, and sank down into a straddle across her husband’s lap. “I’m losing my touch.”

“I should think not!” Gripping her hips, he gave a thrust beneath her to disprove the ridiculous notion that he was not as randy as a youth who’d just seen his first pair of breasts.

“Just as I thought,” she sighed, though she smiled inwardly. “Your ardor for me has softened.”

“You wicked woman.” The sorcerer lifted his wife, set her down upon the edge of the desk, and attacked the buttons of her riding breeches. “You are not leaving this office to spread such lies to your girlfriends and thus besmirch my name across the whole of Bellafont and beyond. In fact, I will not allow you to leave, wife, until you are whole-heartedly convinced otherwise.”

He tossed her boots over his shoulders, where they collided with a floor globe and popped the upper hemisphere up and open to reveal a bourbon decanter and two glasses inside. Her breeches followed the boots over his shoulder, then her stockings, smothering the marble faces of the sorcerous busts because what was to happen next was solely between them.

As Excelsior kissed from her knee up along her inner thigh, Penelope pillowed her hands behind her head and grinned. “If you insist.”

CHAPTER 37

SANDSTORMS, SPITE, AND SWELTERING SWEAT

A few days after Miss Penelope’s visit, one of Ashburnum’s famous sandstorms hit. One didn’t need to be a weather sorcerer to interpret the signs of the impending siliceous assault, but that didn’t stop them from crowing about it in the Leightonian market squares along the Strip.

This one was expected to be a “Visibility is Dramatic Silhouette Only,” a step up from “The Horizon’s Looking Suspicious,” and considerably less troublesome than “Seriously Questioning My Ancestor’s Decision to Settle Here.” The villagers finished their business and receded like snails into their shells, locking the doors and shutters of their domiciles and plugging the holes with rags.

The would-be Heroes who had not made the crossing yet all diverted to the Mud Crab, the only subterranean tavern for leagues in any direction. Decades ago, folks had called Mistress Quiana mad for building her tavern beneath the ground and installing a two-door airlock, but in the heat of summer and during sandstorm season, her establishment was always cool and always open.

Bradley, who had weathered such storms before, wasn’t worried for the tower. The worst these storms could do was flood the balconies with sand. The environmental wards protected the workroom, and Dirk would corkscrew down the tower with a wake of wind that would whisk any sand that had found its way in through the porthole windows off the stairs.

But they had never had a ministry official camping outside before, and the tower residents couldn’t help but feel responsible for Sir Eustace’s welfare.

Millie pulled the edge of the shawl she was using as a face covering away from her mouth and leaned out the training room window. She held on to the shawl for dear life, lest the approaching winds snatch it from her, and Bradley held on to her belt so the same winds wouldn’t snatch her from the tower.

The princess had all the wobble of a perfectly baked crème caramel, that is to say, she could barely keep herself upright after the merciless training the apprentice had put her through that morning. She’d somehow survived—again—and had gotten him back with “Self-centered sorcerers slur sadly and sing stupid songs.” Sir Roger had berated them both: Bradley, for rendering his pupil almost physically useless, and Millie, for rising to the occasion.

“The one who loses her head in a fight is the one who loses more than her head, girl.” He’d punctuated his words with a thwack of his cane. “Lunge deeper!”

They’d called an end to Swashbuckling 101 when an unusually hot wind had surged through the training room windows, sand clinking against the hourglass. Within minutes, the sun had disappeared and the horizon had become a swirling wall of orange and ochre.

At present, Dirk used his magic to keep the worst of the wind and its stinging sand away from them, but he was only a baby luck dragon who hadn’t grown out his barbels yet.

“Hurry up,” he grunted.