A captured cauldron, p.20
A Captured Cauldron, page 20
“I’m trying to cover that for you!”
Ambrose ignored him, running both hands through his hair. “Do you know how much I was looking forward to this duty? How much counter-teasing I owe her from last year? If I miss this opportunity now—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Eli reached for him, already missing his warmth. “We’ll break you out at the Oasis and you’ll get to tease her about it every day.”
With a grumble, Ambrose reluctantly curled up next to Eli again, watching the stars in renewed silence. But Eli knew the man was holding a question on his tongue. He’d recognize that little frown anywhere.
“You know,” he ventured, “Dawn said that you had some sort of idea when she spoke to you. Wanna tell me more about it?”
He was on the right track—Ambrose’s frown line deepened before he responded.
“I…” He watched one more star go by. “I’m looking further into Tavi’s journals, and…” He took a breath. “Are you at all familiar with any dragon species in Aphos?”
The question threw Eli off entirely.
“Well, there’s the snub-nosed dragon, I guess,” he said. “And those rock pygmies that got reintroduced last year. Why do you ask?”
“It’s nothing,” Ambrose said. “At least—it’s possibly nothing. I’ll tell you once I know more.” He paused. “You will visit again, won’t you?”
Eli kissed his cheek. “Grim’ll have to pry this crown outta my cold, dead hands,” he said. “Unless Sherry asks nicely for it.”
Ambrose traced another shooting star with his gaze, then intertwined his fingers with Eli’s. “How is the rest of the street doing? Will you tell me about them?”
“They’re doing great. Viola’s torturing Xavion as best she can.”
“I knew I liked her for more than her baked goods.” Ambrose ran his fingers over Eli’s knuckles. “I just want to hear about something other than the rescue or potions. I spend most of my waking hours thinking about all of it.”
“And in the waking hours when you’re not?”
Ambrose bit back a smile. “I’m thinking of you.”
“Never knew you to be the corny sort.”
“Alas, the deep, dark dungeons have changed me.”
Eli ran a thumb under his jawline and kissed him, silently begging the dream to allow him a few more minutes of corniness. “The dungeons haven’t made you less handsome.”
“What a relief,” Ambrose said, his dry tone hitching at each of Eli’s traveling kisses. “You see, I’ve been trying to seduce the guards to break free, and it simply hasn’t been working.”
“It would work on me.” Eli circled his arms around Ambrose’s waist. “Wanna practice?”
Their lips met again, deep and earnest and pleading—then Ambrose smiled through the kiss, his breath brushing against Eli’s.
“I’d love nothing more.”
RULE 24:
DEEPEN YOUR RESEARCH
Ambrose
Ambrose spent his waking time brewing and his dreaming time being far more social than he had ever been in his previous life.
“We do miss you,” Sherry said, adding sugar to her tea. They sat in her kitchen in this particular dream. Buttery light streamed through the window, and a fresh pie sat on the sill. As far as illusions went, Ambrose thought, dreams allowed for particularly good ones. He could hear the murmur of morning passersby out on the street, and the chair cushion under him crinkled just as he remembered it.
It was a shame Aphos wanted their illusions in real life; a dreaming illusion potion would’ve shaved weeks off his work.
“We all miss you.” Sherry reached over the table to squeeze his hand. “I’ve been inviting the children—Dawn and Eli,” she corrected herself, “but it’s not quite the same without you.”
“I’m a terrible tea guest,” Ambrose said. “You always say I never talk enough.”
Sherry’s eyes twinkled. “But you always mean what you say.”
The walls of the kitchen briefly warped. The dream was slowly fading, and their teatime together was coming to an end.
Sherry stood and cleared their plates—a habit she clearly couldn’t shake, even when sleeping. “I wish I had more updates for you, but Banneker’s still working on the forged invitation. You’ll tell us when you have any news on your end?”
Ambrose hesitated. Eli had asked him a similar question, and in truth, he still didn’t know how to respond.
“I’ll tell you when I have something,” he finally said. “Something conclusive.”
But thus far, Tavi’s journals were anything but.
Once he began to look at the patterns of her doodles—to analyze what leaves were inked, which flower petals were filled in—much of her code became easy to unlock. She had indeed placed specific doodles on specific lines, to mark what letter to pluck from her otherwise nonsensical recipes. Once he had the letters properly assembled, they formed notes, certainly—but ones entirely unrelated to potions.
Right, down steps, 2 lefts, down tunnel was extracted from a fake note about alchemical bonds.
Dragon plasma was hidden deep in a nonsense recipe for mint flavoring.
And, most strangely, get him out came from an anti-headache recipe, followed by a list of nearby villages and half-formed thoughts on how to erode chains.
Ambrose had checked that last note over and over, ensuring he had decoded it correctly. It wasn’t get out, but get him out specifically. And that list of villages that went along with it—they were all far from Aphos, yes, but dangerously remote, nestled in heavy woods filled with beasts.
Tavi’s other clues weren’t much clearer. Her list of directions never stated where they went, and the mention of dragon plasma befuddled him, particularly after Eli’s response about the lack of dragons in the area. Plasma in useful, magically relevant quantities only came from large dragons—frightfully large dragons—and he had never seen anything of the sort anywhere near the Scar.
A fact he was usually quite thankful for.
Every day, he flipped further through the notes, scouring for more codes to crack—but at some point, Tavi must have shifted to a different code, cutting his knowledge short.
“Nat,” he called, “did Tavi ever repeat anything strange?”
“What?” She turned, her hand halfway to the bronze cat on the lucky shelf. “Oh—no, not really. Didn’t talk a whole lot. Just wrote and drew a bunch.”
“Helpful,” Ambrose muttered. He’d just have to keep working away with the code he had. “Do you mind swapping out the potions on display?”
“After I pet the cat.”
“Naturally.”
Nat pretended to tap the illusory statue on the head, then swapped out the faded fake potions for ones she had brewed herself: fizzy bottles that gave off a pleasant scent and were vibrant enough for an untrained eye to assume they did something magical. Once the bottles were swapped and cleaned, she hopped onto the stool next to Ambrose and pulled out her book.
“Okay,” she said authoritatively. “You get a sign, and I get a question.”
This was a growing habit of hers—constantly making new deals in order to pester Ambrose with questions about his life outside of Aphos. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d answer the questions without such a deal. She seemed to be having too much fun with them.
“Ah, I get a sign,” he mused. “What shall you be showing me today?”
She placed a flat hand near her lips, then swept it down and out. “Thank you.”
He repeated the sign back. She waved. “No, a flat hand. Yeah, there you go. Wait…” She checked the book. “Yeah. That’s it.”
“A masterful lesson indeed.”
“Mm-hm.” She slapped the book shut. “My turn. I get a question.”
“I am quaking in my robes.”
She wiggled on her stool. “Do other people help you brew stuff back on Rosalind Street?”
“Rosemond Street,” Ambrose corrected. “And no. Eli will sometimes keep me company, however.”
“Eli?”
“My boyfriend.”
Nat gasped. “You have a boyfriend?”
Ambrose stifled a laugh; a year ago, past Ambrose would have been just as shocked. “I do.”
The questions came rapid-fire after that.
“What’s he look like?” she asked. “What does he do? Does he make magic items, too?”
Ambrose held up a hand. “I thought I brought you on to answer questions, not ask them.”
Nat groaned and spun around in her stool—recently greased, so it made not a sound. “You’re so boring.”
“It’s quite easy to be boring when you’re not allowed to leave the room.”
Nat made a face. “No, I’m pretty sure you’re just boring.”
As she continued spinning, a spark from their conversation buried into his thoughts. He paused, staring into the distance to mentally walk back through his words, to sort out what was in them.
Ah, wait—leaving the room.
He flipped back to Tavi’s decoded notes. She had directions listed here, along with ingredients not available in the workroom and references to a mysterious man and chains. If she never left the workroom to even go to the markets, how had she come across her information?
“If a boring man may deign to ask one question?” he asked Nat loftily. She stopped spinning, which he took as a yes. “Did Octavia leave the room for anything other than demonstrations?”
“No, how could she?” Nat said. “She always had guards.”
He suspected as much. But for a talented potioneer, there were other ways…
“And what did her potions look like, toward the end?” he asked. “You mentioned they smelled terrible.”
“I mean, most of them did. But the last ones she made weren’t too bad. They were green with gold swirls.”
“And do you recall what they smelled like?”
“Kinda…” She scrunched her nose. “What’s that thing you put on lamb? Madam Mila eats it all the time.”
“Mint,” Ambrose answered without thinking. Green and gold, with the smell of mint. He knew precisely what that potion was—an astral projection brew, most certainly strong enough for Tavi to project herself out of the workroom and wherever she wanted.
Tavi was a madwoman.
“What’s that face?” Nat asked.
Ambrose roused himself from his thoughts. “What?”
“Your face. It’s your thinking face, but worse.”
Ambrose shot her a look. “I do not have a thinking face.”
“Then what are you not-thinking about?”
He hesitated, just as he had with Eli’s questions. Astral projection was risky—and it wasn’t just his life in the balance now; it was hers, too. Best not to broach the subject before it was necessary, nor expose her to damning information just yet. After all, he hadn’t even told her about the magic dreams.
“I’m thinking about your next potion lesson,” he lied.
Nat gestured at him. “See? Boring!”
He rolled his eyes and signed a flat Thank you.
As Nat laughed at him and made one more rotation on the stool, someone knocked pitifully on the door.
“Mr. Beake,” the archivist started, “I’m here to—”
Cassius pushed the door open for the archivist. “Gods, man, I don’t have all day. Copy the notes and let’s be off.”
Ambrose quickly flipped his notes to his fake brewing pages and stepped aside for the gnome to shuffle in. “Pages fifty-seven to sixty are new and complete.”
“Thank you, thank you.” The gnome slid on his gloves and carefully turned each page, waving a wand to copy the text onto fresh sheets of paper. While he worked, Cassius folded his arms and wandered about the workroom, glaring at everything he saw.
Nat sat very still, not daring to look at him. His gaze swept right over her—and landed on Tavi’s journals.
“What are you doing with these?” he asked. “You’ve far surpassed her progress.”
He plucked one from the table, handling it like a dirty rag. Ambrose stiffened and sorted carefully through his words. He wasn’t done with them yet—best to reaffirm Cassius’ opinion that they had little value.
“Merely checking them for anything I might have missed,” he responded. “Octavia was prolific in trying new recipes, even if none succeeded. Potioneers often come across half the right answer, only to stumble across the second half much later.” He turned to the bottles, rearranging them to look busy. “Unfortunately, I cannot yet confirm Tavi had any half-right answers.”
Cassius grunted and tossed the notebook back on the table—but his gaze lingered on them.
“You have three weeks left,” he said, then turned to the archivist and pointed to the notebooks. “Take that woman’s journals with you as well. Copy them and review them again.”
Ambrose’s hands went cold as the archivist gathered the books into his gray satchel. “No—” he started out of instinct.
Cassius’ eyes narrowed at him.
“No doubt you’ll find little of value,” he finished. “Like I did.”
Cassius gave him a sharp smile. “If there are any half-right answers in there, we’ll help you find them.”
Ambrose could do nothing but glare at the door as they left. He highly doubted that archivist was going to crack Tavi’s code—but he’d be damned if Aphos uncovered the meaning of the secret notes before he did. Whatever she had discovered had not only been worth writing for later reference but had also been coded. It had been priceless, at least to her.
It had to be a way out—or at least, a way to help them escape. Help them both escape.
He flipped to a new page in his journal. Yes, Tavi was a madwoman for astral projecting her way through a mazelike criminal hideout.
And he was going to follow in her footsteps.
RULE 25:
SIFT WELL
Dawn
“Anything in that cabinet?”
“No, nothing here. You?”
“Nah.” Rory pushed a drawer closed, the wood creaking under the weight of a dozen thick file folders. “Damn Post. You’d think they’d actually be good at archiving after how many years in the business…”
Dawn peered into the cabinet in front of her—nothing but old inkwells and a coat—and shut the door. The sound echoed in the office of the Scarrish Post, the cluttered maze of desks devoid of writers for the evening. To her relief, no one was staying late tonight, chugging coffee and writing furiously toward a harsh deadline. The empty silence allowed them to sneak about Rory’s workplace at their leisure, doing the only thing they could to help the mission: search for records of an old Aphosian invitation.
It had been Rory’s idea. If any of her predecessors on the magical crime beat had managed to secure evidence of Madam Mila’s past events, they may have done their due diligence and archived an invitation—something Banneker could mimic for his own work.
Across the room, Rory checked another drawer, grimaced, and shoved it closed with her hip. “If we weren’t doing this on the sly, I’d have a word with our archivist about this. I could have sworn they’d documented one before.”
She wandered over to Dawn, her gaze scanning the room—when she caught sight of a desk in the corner, she lit up. “You know, I might’ve grabbed it ages ago for my research. Mind checking my desk for me? It’d be in the drawer on the left.”
Dawn nearly agreed—then saw an opportunity and wrinkled her nose in disdain. “Another search? Hm, gonna have to pay a toll for that.”
Rory raised her eyebrows. “A toll?”
Dawn leaned forward and tapped her cheek. Rory laughed, cupped Dawn’s face, and planted a kiss on her lips.
“Toll paid?” she murmured.
Not in the slightest, Dawn wanted to say, but the office wasn’t going to stay empty forever.
“For now,” she said. “Toll might go up later. You never know.”
Rory winked. “I’ll take my chances.”
They parted once more, Rory to a cabinet, Dawn to the desk—but to her dismay, she could barely see the drawer Rory had mentioned. Piles of papers and journals spilled over the edge of the table, with an assortment of trinkets struggling to hold them in place. Half-dead plants, empty coffee mugs, and bronze desk puzzles had formed ranks to keep the avalanche of debris from falling. Atop the highest stack, a glass sphere filled with an ever-crashing wave presided over the inky, sparkling mess.
Dawn winced at the desk disaster but couldn’t bring herself to judge it—the area behind her own front counter didn’t look much better most days.
She carefully swapped the glass sphere for a little round planter, then held up the glass. It had a delightful heft to it, and the magical wave within shifted with the angle of her palm. “Where’d you get this from?”
Rory glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, that? That’s from my dad. Gave it to me before I moved back to the Scar. Can’t say the Deepriver is ever that clear or pretty, but it’s a nice reminder of home.”
Dawn frowned. “When did you live in the Scar?”
Rory buried herself halfway into a cabinet. “Just a few years when I was little,” she called back, her voice bouncing around the wood panels. “Hardly remember any of it, to be honest.”
Dawn set the sphere down and excavated the drawer, finding a hefty stack of papers organized by date. She flipped through what she could, searching for a magically copied invitation or—gods willing—an original.
But she found nothing—just lists of arrests, peacekeeper reports, and the odd grocery list here and there. When she called out as much, Rory cursed. “If my desk doesn’t have it…”
“I can keep looking,” Dawn offered. Dusty folders spilled out of the cabinet Rory was buried in.
“Son of a wood-eating dragon—” she started, then briefly pulled her head out. “Sounds good!”
Dawn checked the other drawers in as methodical of a fashion as she could manage, given the mess. The stacks all contained faded copies of past articles, many related to the Deadleaves and Harfoots, but mostly about Aphos: inner wars in the syndicate, new devices coming out of their underground markets…
