“Magic was here and left evidence of its presence.” The elevator doors opened for Zav, and he stepped in. “Come. It is stronger upstairs.”
Worried we would be attacked by more invisible enemies, I touched Sindari’s charm and summoned him. Even though I believed Zav could take care of just about anything, it wouldn’t hurt to have a second ally if we ended up battling enemies on multiple fronts.
Zav lifted his chin. “You summon the tiger because you do not believe I can sufficiently protect you?”
“I’m sure you can. I wanted his opinion on whether the rations stacked on that display shelf are originals or reproductions.” I pointed to crates of canned beef and pancake flour.
By now, Sindari had formed at my side, and he gazed at the display. Zav didn’t even bother looking. He was giving me an I-am-disappointed-by-your-lack-of-faith look.
Canned meat sounds loathsome, Sindari said. Lord Zavryd would agree.
“Depends how much sugar is in the sauce.” I smiled at Zav, hoping he would forget to feel affronted.
“Come.” He pointed at the elevator floor.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Your dragon seems grouchy this evening. Sindari walked at my side to the elevator. Is Lord Zavryd disappointed because there haven’t been any glorious battles lately?
He’s disappointed because there hasn’t been any glorious sex. I smiled again as we stepped inside and kissed Zav on the cheek.
I did not require that information, Sindari said.
Now you’ll know not to comment on Zav’s mood.
Indeed.
The elevator rose without anyone touching anything. Hopefully because Zav was using his magic, not because it was haunted. So far, I didn’t hear or see any signs of ghosts, but the hairs rose on the back of my neck as we ascended to the third floor. The doors opened, and the mystical fog lay thick before us.
“Hell,” I muttered. “You still think there’s just residue here?”
It is the same fog as before, Sindari said, not yet stepping out. Do you suspect the thief and the box are here?
It’s possible.
“The residue is more pronounced here. And as I said, it is possible that there is a magical artifact that is camouflaged to make it difficult to detect and pinpoint.” Zav didn’t hesitate to step out. Could a dragon be sucked into an interdimensional realm? “I will deal with it.”
He strode off down a wide hall. Before I’d taken more than two steps after him, a cold breeze whispered at my cheek, and a faint crying reached my ears.
“Maybe we’ll wait here while he deals with it,” I murmured.
Sindari’s tail swished. I did not enjoy the morning battle against enemies I couldn’t see.
“Tell me about it.”
Zav disappeared into an office at the end of the hall. A few seconds later, a scraping noise came from another office. It sounded like furniture being dragged across the floor.
“You guys hear that, right?” I called softly, not wanting to yell in case our thief was lurking nearby and also camouflaged. I eyed the walls for cameras, but there was no sign of a security system—pre-existing or recently installed—on this floor.
Zav didn’t answer me.
Sindari lifted his head and sniffed. Someone has been here within the hour.
“Do ghosts have scents?” I joked.
I do not believe so, he answered seriously.
“Someone may have worked late.”
I doubted it. What kind of museum required its employees to work this late? The hours listed on the door hadn’t been expansive.
Sindari padded halfway down the hall, turning into the office that the scraping noise had come from. The faint crying continued as I followed him.
The office smelled musty, and dusty drop cloths covered the furnishings. I was surprised the door had been open.
Fog curled around Sindari’s legs as he looked at something behind a covered desk. He picked it up with his teeth and backed toward me.
“A food wrapper? That’s what you smelled?”
Someone has been sleeping back there.
I accepted the wrapper and checked where he’d been looking. A couple of the furniture cloths had been made into a bed on the floor, with one of the fake bags of flour from downstairs leaned against the wall like a pillow.
The person I smelled slept here, Sindari said. It was a woman.
“A half-dwarf woman?”
I cannot determine that from scent. She smells like someone from this world.
“A cookie connoisseur apparently.” I held up the wrapper to Chopper’s glow. “Or maybe biscuits. This isn’t in English. Our thief must have imported her favorite snacks.”
Had she traveled all the way here to try to get my sword? Maybe she’d sensed it earlier in the month when the fae taint had turned it into a beacon detectable for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.
The scraping sound came again, from the other side of the desk.
I spun with Chopper raised, not sure whether to expect a mouse or a ghost. Sindari went to investigate first. I was too busy staring at a familiar purple glow that now filled the hallway outside. More hairs rose on the back of my neck.
“That wasn’t there before.” I raised my voice. “Zav?”
I do not smell or see what made that noise. Sindari eyed the ground beside the desk.
More worried about Zav, I returned to the hallway. The purple glow flowed out of the doorway to the office he’d gone in.
Moving shadows danced on the walls, and cold chills stroked my cheeks. I swatted Chopper at the air around me and ran toward the office, anticipating invisible grips would try to stop me.
A whoosh of magical power flared from inside of it. The purple glow disappeared abruptly.
I made it to the doorway without being grabbed and lunged inside, half-expecting to find Zav gone, sucked into another dimension and that box yawning open.
He stood in the corner, gripping his chin and gazing down at the exact box I’d seen earlier. The lid was open, but the glow had disappeared.
“Did it sense your mighty dragonly approach and short out?” I lowered my sword.
The fog was fading, along with the creepy chill drafts that had teased my cheeks. Only the woman’s crying remained, faint and far off. Maybe the old hotel truly was haunted, and the noises had nothing to do with the box or my thief.
“No. After removing the camouflaging spell to locate it, I turned it off.”
“You didn’t have to close the lid?”
Sindari joined me inside, curling a lip and showing a fang to the box.
“By using my power to depress the dragon sigil.” Zav gripped the box, tilting it so we could see the bottom. The profile of a dragon’s head was etched into the surface, and it glowed a faint purple.
“Dragon sigil? Is this a dragon artifact?” I’d assumed it was either dwarven or came from that haunted world.
“Yes. I recognize it. A Zhapahai. It is for trapping interdimensional creatures to study.”
“It almost trapped me this morning.”
“It can trap anything, but it was designed to work on the wild worlds that have creatures that can shift in and out of our dimension. There was a time when dragons wanted to master the skill of these creatures to use as a weapon against our enemies.”
“And that time is gone?”
“We have grown more adept and powerful with our magic over the generations, and few enemies exist who can challenge us openly. As far as I know, the studies ended, and the Zhapahai were all placed in museums.”