The green wizard takes in a deep, bracing breath before he turns his flat black eyes to Shira. “Please just turn me back,” he pleads, exasperated. “I am at my wit’s end.”
“Do you promise never to return?”
“I’ll promise to be your personal court jester, if that’s what it takes.”
Shira wrinkles her nose. “No, thank you.” She beckons him inside. “Very well. Come along.”
Jaylie considers the whole jester affair to be a missed opportunity on Shira’s part, but she follows as Shira leads them into the library. Like a moth to a flame, Loren’s taste for theatrics has him falling into step behind the priestess, and the other members of the party are not far behind.
Shira’s library is unsurprisingly gorgeous. Glossy black shelves piled with books and artifacts stretch impossibly high toward a ceiling shrouded in light. Alora is curled into the corner of a plush purple couch, her slippered feet tucked under her.
“Another guest?” Alora calls. “My love, you’ve grown so popular.”
Shira’s lips twitch. “Not by choice,” she says dryly.
Alastair pauses in the center of one of the library’s many elegant rugs, tracing his gaze over the shelves. It’s difficult to read a frog’s features, but Jaylie can’t imagine that he’s looking upon Shira’s collection with anything other than naked hunger. Something catches his eye, and he freezes.
“Hells.” A note of reverence creeps into his tone. “Is that it?”
Shira plucks the orb-capped staff from its resting place against the shelf. “It most certainly is.”
Over breakfast the day before, they had all agreed that with the orb in hand, confronting Donati would be a walk in the park. All they needed to do was pin him in its beam, tie him up, and then flip a coin to see whether they would turn him in to the City Watch or chop his head off themselves.
What Jaylie’s companions had meant to be Shira’s downfall would work just as well on their employer.
Shira’s fingers curl over the spine of her spellbook, bound in a leather harness at her side, but she pauses. Her fingers wrap around the wood of the staff. “Would you like to see it at work?”
Alastair swallows. “Please.”
Jaylie and Loren exchange a glance. They shrug.Wizards.
Shira extends the orb toward Alastair, fixing him in its sights. “Glorvalk.”
Green and yellow tendrils of light swirl momentarily around Alastair’s froggy form, forming a twisting cyclone that swirls briefly upward. As it dissipates, Jaylie’s jaw drops to the ground.
He’s magnificent,she thinks, more than a little guiltily. But by the way Loren’s green eyes bug out, too, she guesses she’s not alone in her thoughts. She’d fully expected Alastair’s exterior to be a match for his terrible rudeness and poor attitude.
But with dark golden skin, piercing indigo eyes, a jaw cut from marble, and long jet-black hair that curls behind his slightly pointed half-elven ears, he paints a gorgeous picture. Somehow he manages to make the purple star-studded robes and hat appear more mysterious and artistic than adorable and cute. As he takes a spin, marveling at his unwebbed fingers, silver embroidery shimmers in his wake. Jaylie catches a whiff of dark, smoky cologne.
“I am in your debt, Shira.” Even as his full lips bend toward a scowl, his voice is a deep purr in his throat—nothing like his former croak.
Loren bends close to Jaylie’s ear. “He would have made a killer bard.”
Jaylie huffs. “Might have had better luck with it, too.”
Alastair casts his burning violet gaze to the ground. “I suppose that’s all, then,” he says, despairing and broody. “Thank you for your mercy. I will be on my way, to begin…” A long-suffering sigh. “Rebuilding.”
From where he leans next to Morgana on the far side of the room, Kain rolls his eyes heartily at the wizard’s dramatics. But with Alastair’s back to her, Alora slowly turns a wide set of doe eyes on Shira.
Shira purses her lips and shakes her head vehemently.
Somehow, Alora’s eyes only grow larger and dewier.
“Darkthorn.” Shira says his name through clenched teeth, resigned. “My wife has decided to take pity on you.”
He turns. “Oh?”
Shira plucks a seemingly random book from the shelf and strides forward. Stiffly, she thrusts it toward him. “After this, I never wish to see your face again. Understood?”
