Shana Abe - Queen of Dragons

"No," he said, on an exhale. "I sense nothing. Maricara?"

Her brow puckered. Her eyes took on a distant, glazed look; water dripped in a tiny stream from her chin. She curved a hand around the folds of the marble tunic. Her nails went bloodless; she pressed hard—too hard. The stone began to crackle.

Kim touched his fingers to hers. She blinked and came back to him, thick wet lashes, her hand dropping free.

"I don't know," she said, hesitant. "I thought there was something..."

"Sanf?" he asked instantly.

"No. A few notes, indistinct.almost eerie."

"Only that?" demanded Booke, also soaking behind his god. "We all hear songs, gel."

"This one I last heard when you handed me the kerchief of Honor Carlisle, Lord Chasen."

Kim nodded, turning back to the panes of a fogged skylight. He bent to wipe a hand across the beaded surface, glimpsing colors and shifting darkness inside.

"Then let's go in," he said.

It was her idea to steal the clothing. Although the baths themselves were curling with steam, the rest of the spa remained a bright, luxurious building, with tall, tall ceilings and Italian-looking frescoes, and Baroque gilded flourishes plastered along the walls. Exquisitely garbed dandies and gentlewomen were sauntering up and down its halls, carrying teacups or tiny glasses of port, their wigs slowly gumming in the humidity.

Nude people would be noticed, Mari pointed out. So would smoke. The antechamber beyond the main baths was lined with dressing booths, women on the left, men on the right. They could float in and walk out. It would be easy.

They stood debating it, the three of them, in the darkest, deepest part of the waters. There was a tiled dividing wall separating the ladies from the men; Mari didn't have to raise her voice to be heard across it, and neither did Kimber or the older man. They could whisper to each other and catch every word, although she was gathering some startled looks from a few of the other women bathers.

A pair of rouged matrons in voluminous black swimming costumes stared at her from across the pool. It seemed unlikely they'd noticed her materialize a few moments before; the chamber was vast and gloomy. But Maricara bent her knees a little more, so her bare shoulders would not show.

"You know, some people say it's wrong to steal," murmured the earl, with a very dry undertone to his voice.

"Hang that," muttered the other man. "We'll give it all back." "A bientot," Mari said, and ducked her head under the water.

It was nasty, really, stinking of sulfur and metal, and she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to bathe in it, much less imbibe it as they were in the other part of the spa. But all she had to do was Turn beneath the thick waters, smoke again, pushed up in her lighter state to the air, rising like the rest of the steam in lazy fat rolls.

She made it over to the booths, past the bored maids seated in chairs along the side, past the heavyset footmen sweating at the pillared entrance to the baths. Mari spread sheer, and slid over the nearest door.

She emerged wearing a stylish ensemble of pearl-gray silk and jet-beaded trim, her hair piled up precariously with the few pins she could find. The slippers were loose on her feet, and she hadn't taken the wig or any of the jewelry—a fob watch and a wedding ring, a silver brooch; there was a placard posted inside the booth declaring METALS IN THE WATERS WILL TARNISH FOULE—but this would do.

She hoped the woman who owned this dress enjoyed the fetor of sulfur very much.

Kimber was already waiting for her in the shadow of the portico just past the footmen, wearing a coat and breeches of black and faun, striped stockings and heels of red leather. He slanted her a look beneath his lashes that brought blood to her cheeks.

The gown was a size too small. She'd had to hold her breath to get the corset tight enough.

His gaze roamed her face, lowered with deliberation back down to her bosom. "I retract what I said before. We should steal more often."

She tugged at the bodice. "From larger people."

"Or ones of slightly better fashion." He smiled, gently cynical. "I'm far from an erudite judge of ladies' couture, but there's typically a scarf or a tucker draped across the neckline, is there not, Your Grace? Was it missing?"

"It itched," she said shortly.

From the shadows he was dragon and man, his voice dropping soft. "Lucky me."

A hot agitation stung her skin, embarrassment, the stink of the room becoming astringent. She angled her face away from his and lifted a hand to the nape of her neck, feeling it burn.

"We shouldn't dally here."

"I'm perfectly amenable to dally with you wherever you wish. Ah, Princess, such a killing look. If only you could see how fetching it—never mind. We lack only Sir Rufus—excellent, there you are. Don't we all look nicely legitimate. Shall we have a stroll?"

And they did.

The place was crowded. They decided to make their way to the pump room first; it held the most people. Kimber walked at her side, the man he called Rufus following behind. Try as she might, Mari couldn't sense Honor or those strange, hollow notes, but she knew what she'd heard. Something here was amiss.

The earl cupped her elbow with the lightest of grips. He looked quite at his ease in these lavish surroundings, ambling just as idly as all the rest of the polished, aristocratic throng. At times he nodded to the Others who greeted him by name, smiling, enigmatic. A few clearly desired to stop and talk—their eyes would light upon Mari and then her decolletage; she now regretted sharply leaving behind the scarf—but with his gilded charm Kimber simply pushed by them, hauling her slowly yet inexorably with him down the hallways, not granting anyone time actually to address her directly. No one was so brazen as to demand her name, at least not to the earl's face. They wondered aloud aplenty as they were left behind, though.

She should have realized how completely he would slip into this world. She should have realized how effortlessly he would become one of them.

She felt conspicuous in her borrowed gown. She noticed how the women they passed glanced at her tumbled hair, her clean cheeks. How the men were glancing lower than that. No doubt on its owner the gray silk was perfectly respectable. On Maricara it became something else, soft gleaming material that bit into her skin, that forced her into small, mincing steps and sent a barb into her ribs with every breath. She could not bend in any direction. She could not lift her arms above her breasts. She felt her hair threaten to topple all the way down her back every time her hips swayed.

"By God, if you keep doing that, I'm going to have to secure us a room," Kim muttered, staring straight ahead. They crossed into, and out of, an oval of flickering light.

"Doing what?"

"Holding your breath like that. It makes your chest swell magnificently. Kindly cease." "I can't cease. I can barely inhale."

"Then next time," he said sweetly, "steal a bigger gown or use the damn tucker."

They were at the entrance to the pump room. Instead of an actual pump, there was a fountain in the middle of the chamber shaped as a scalloped bowl, a bronze pipe sprouting from its center, burbling water. A string of adolescent maids in mobcaps and aprons stood in a circle around its base, ready to offer glasses of murky liquid to the men and women around the chamber who lifted hands for it.

The tables were adorned with lace and fresh flowers, nearly all occupied by laughing, chattering people. Waiters clipped back and forth with tea sets and wine and plates of warm food, their mouths pinched, their buttons and polished shoes reflecting the gleam of the brass chandeliers above. The floor was hardwood but every walkway was beautifully carpeted; a great many portions were spotted with water. The pungency of damp wool overlaid that of the iron and sulfur, noxious.

"There is a table over there," said Kimber's man, still behind them.

Mari shook her head. "I am not drinking that water."

"No," agreed Kimber. "Let's avoid poisoning ourselves if we can. But if we wish to remain inconspicuous, we can't remain standing here. At least seated we can get our bearings."

The maitre d'hotel was already coming toward them, bowing low, bidding them forward. Kimber drew her along with him again.

The table was close to the putrid fountain. One of the serving girls rushed over with three glasses as soon as they were seated. Kimber and his man nodded their thanks as she bobbed a curtsy. Maricara only pushed her glass away.

"We're inconspicuous," reminded the earl, with a pleasant smile. He pushed the glass back toward her. "You don't have to drink it. But try not to look as if you want to throw it at me. I know at least ten couples in this room, and they'd all give a guinea to have a savory bit of gossip to take with them back to London."

"I'd wager they've already got it," offered the other drakon, staring down at the glass he cupped between his palms.

"True. Most young ladies dining out with me for the evening don't look quite so murderous."

"We're wasting time here," Mari said. "We should be searching for the child."

"We are." Kimber draped an arm over the back of his chair, revealing a waistcoat of startling bright blue. "You're seated now near the center of the entire spa. If she's here in any direction, this will be the best spot to tell. Do you feel her?"

"I cannot feel anything but an impending headache. This place reeks and the noise—"

"My love," interrupted the earl, soft. "Beautiful dragon. Please try."

She closed her mouth with a snap. Her gaze flicked to the other man—still staring down at his glass, his cheeks and jowls growing flushed over the flowing ruffles of his borrowed jabot—and then back to Kimber. He waited, not moving, not even smiling now, only watching her with a calm and steady expectation.

Mari leaned back. She turned her eyes slowly around the bustling room, taking in all the faces, all the colors, lush textures and cascading voices, and then tried to let them sift into frequencies, letting them fall away one by one, until she heard only what she needed to hear, until she caught the echo of those notes, and they seemed suddenly very near—

"There he is! There, right there, by the fountain!"

The exclamation was extremely loud, louder even than the general commotion of the chamber; in her heightened state it jolted through her like a knife. The man who had made it was standing by the entrance, portly and quivering with emotion, dressed plainly in black breeches and a shirt that didn't quite fit, one arm lifted dramatically to point straight at Kimber.

No—at the other man. At Rufus.

"That blackguard stole my clothing!" The man glanced wildly at the two human males beside him, both well dressed, both clearly management. "What manner of establishment is this? I demand satisfaction! You there, sir! Ho, you! Where the bloody hell do you think you're going?"

The portly man began to trot toward them, followed by the other two. But Sir Rufus was already away from the table, moving with surprising speed toward the wall of folding glass doors that led to the outer courtyard.

"Blast." Kimber pushed back his chair, reaching for her.