When she looked over to Eva, the haze of her smoke magic radiated out and around her. “You look nervous,” Jayna said.
“I just understand what kind of man Telluminder is.”
Jayna smiled to herself. “I didn’t get the feeling he was a man. Not human, at least.”
Eva shot her a look. “You would be making a mistake, then.”
“I’m not trying to upset you,” Jayna said, looking over to her friend. “I’m just commenting that—”
“I know what you’re commenting on.” Eva turned her attention to the door, and squeezed her hands. The power that flowed within her burst outward and washed away, a hint of smoke that trailed out from her, flowing into the door, then stopping. “For all of the things I’ve forgotten, there are still plenty of times when I’m not nearly as ignorant as you are.”
She pulled the door open and stepped inside.
Jayna followed, but not before glancing in either direction behind her, looking along the street. This part of the city was generally quiet, and it was now as well. There wasn’t any movement, though every so often, Jayna noticed the Toral ring starting to squeeze, constricting slightly around her finger, as if some dark magic was being used nearby. She saw no other evidence for it, but she needed to be careful. She recognized that not everything within the city was the way she’d believed it to be when she had first arrived.
The inside of Telluminder’s shop was brightly lit, the same way it had been when she had been here before. Rows of shelves all containing various items of power lined the walls, and the small, gray-haired man sat behind the counter, watching them as they came in.
A serious-looking, dark-haired woman pushed past them, leaving the shop right as they entered. She said nothing, though she watched them for a moment, her gaze heavy as it lingered.
Jayna was tempted to test the woman for sorcery, but if she was a sorcerer, she probably wouldn’t have been in Telluminder’s shop. Maybe she could be El’aras, though Eva’s comment about Matthew not being tall enough to be El’aras made it unlikely this woman would be. She was even shorter than Matthew.
“Eva Rekayth. Why am I not surprised to see you again?” Telluminder swung his gaze upon Jayna, leaving it leveled there for just a moment, a weight in his eyes that hovered. “And Jayna Aguelon. Ruiner of cities.”
“I didn’t ruin any city,” Jayna said. She paused in front of a strangely carved jar. It was an odd shape, tall and cylindrical, with lines that looped around it. It looked almost to be writing, but she recognized that as an enchantment. And given the amount of writing along its surface, it had to be an enchantment created with particular skill.
She glanced over to Eva, holding her gaze for a moment before looking back down at the enchantment.
“Go ahead,” she said to Eva.
“I thought you would want to do the questioning,” Eva said.
“Far be it from me to fear what I don’t understand, the depths of power involved,” she said to Eva.
Eva headed down to Telluminder, and she began to chat with him, her voice low.
Jayna realized it made more sense for Eva to do the initial questioning. She had a relationship with Telluminder, but she also had something that gave her an air of credibility that Jayna didn’t have. Eva was not viewed the same way Jayna was within the city, and given her experiences in Nelar so far, she figured that perhaps it was better for Eva to be the one.
This gave her an opportunity to peruse the shelves anyway.
She found a small sculpture on one of the bottom shelves. It had wings, a serpent-like body, and a long tail that wrapped up and around. As she held her hand above it, she felt a bit of warmth radiating from it. A sculpture next to it looked like a small man with large fangs. He had pointy ears, thick, spiky hair, and unlike the other sculpture, this one was cold. Both of them had been done with such detail that Jayna could only stare. They had to be enchantments.
She glanced over to Telluminder. He continued chatting with Eva, but every so often, he glanced in her direction, as if he knew she was exploring and wanted to keep her from touching something she shouldn’t.
Jayna moved on. A circular shield made of a beaten metal rested on a metal shelf. Drawings along the surface of the shield caught her eye, and she suspected that most of those drawings were meant to provide enchantments into the shield itself. As far as she could tell, the shield carried multiple different enchantments, multiple different layers of power.
She took the shield and held it, tracing her fingers around it. She could feel the energy within it, though she wasn’t able to determine anything else about it.
“Be careful with that,” Telluminder said. He hopped off his stool and tottered around the counter. Telluminder was short, barely coming up to her waist, and had flowing gray hair, a wide head, and an impossibly small body. He reached for the shield, plucked it from Jayna’s hand, and slipped it back onto the shelf. “Unless you know what you’re doing with it, I would advise you to leave it well enough alone.”
“I was just having a look.”
“You can have a look without touching.” He glanced over to Eva. “Is she like this wherever she goes?”
“Most of the time,” Eva said. She leaned on the counter and just watched Jayna, not helping.
“What is it?” Jayna asked.
“As I’m sure even you can determine, it is an enchantment.”
Jayna crouched down, leaning forward and looking at the shield. “It’s a different kind of enchantment than I’ve seen before. I haven’t seen too many with multiple layers of enchantment upon them.”
She wasn’t even sure that such a thing could have been done, but the detail on the shield was not nearly as exquisite as she would’ve expected from a sorcerer, who would’ve been the only one she thought capable of placing an enchantment like that. That suggested this had stemmed from a dular, but what dular could place that kind of power on a shield?
“Obviously, you haven’t the necessary experience for such things,” he snapped at her.
Jayna chuckled. “Obviously.”
“Are you mocking me now?” He looked over to Eva. “Is she mocking me?”
“Probably,” Eva said.
Jayna just shook her head. “I’m not mocking. I’m trying to understand your shield. Don’t you want others to know just what you have available at your shop?”
“I want others to leave my items alone unless they have the proper understanding of how to handle them.”
“But I know how to handle an enchantment,” Jayna said.
“You think you do,” he said, shaking his head. “That would be your first mistake, now wouldn’t it?”
Jayna started to laugh. She didn’t remember Telluminder being quite like this the last time she had been here. A little stubborn, maybe, but now he was expressing a clear irritability with her.
“Have I done anything to upset you?”
“Oh, no. The great Jayna Aguelon has done nothing.”
Jayna straightened and looked down at Telluminder. “We just came here to talk. I didn’t come here to cause trouble. And I certainly haven’t come to the city to cause trouble.”
“But trouble seems to follow you regardless of what you intend, doesn’t it?”