“I only saw these. May I see the rest?”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “It isn’t finished yet. The opening is three weeks away, and I’m behind schedule. I actually only popped out here to measure.” She lifted a tape-measure and waved it at me, then pointed toward the open central area of the gallery. “It’ll fill the entire space once it’s finished.”
I craned my neck up to take in the area she’d indicated. At the moment, a large, abstract mobile sculpture was suspended from the beams, casting moving shadows around the entire gallery.
“Will you show me anyway? I’d love a look at your studio. Do you have any sketches?” I probably sounded like an over-eager pup, but if the beautiful creations I was looking at were merely samples, I had to know what her plan was for a larger piece.
Her aura flared with warm, golden light, and she turned on her heel, heading back toward the rear of the gallery. With a smile over her shoulder, she beckoned. “Come on. But just be warned, if you step through that door, I’m putting you to work.”
I enjoyed the sway of her hips and the way her round, plump backside filled out her denim shorts for a moment longer before following, more certain than ever that there must be a fate hound in the vicinity. I didn’t even bother stopping at the threshold despite her warning. If I’d been led here by the forces of Fate, I absolutely wanted to find out if they were leading me to a match with her. At the very least, I wanted a chance to see how powerful she really was.
The acrid, dusty odor of metal and sand mixed with soot hit my nose long before I crossed the threshold into April’s lair. It smelled like a feral dragon’s den, tickling at my most primal instincts much the way her scent had plucked at my awareness of my waning power. She spun a few feet in and stretched out her arms to encompass the whole space.
“This is where the magic happens,” she said with a huge grin, leaving no doubt how much she loved what she did. I didn’t think she realized how true her words were though.
A slender brown-skinned woman and a tall, lanky man leaned facing each other against the counters of a small kitchen situated at the rear of the space. Their auras were intertwined enough that it was clear they were a couple, yet their attention shifted entirely to us when we entered. They gave me a wary look, tensing at first until they became aware of April’s excitement. They shared a glance, then came toward us, curious gazes shifting between April and me.
“We were wondering where you got to,” the woman said. “It doesn’t take that long to measure even if you really meant it. We thought you might’ve escaped down to the tavern to drown your sorrows.”
The woman’s voice took a teasing lilt, and April laughed. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it. But I found a better distraction.” She turned toward her friends, gesturing back at me. “Guys, meet Gray. He’s a—”
“You’re a dragon,” the man interjected.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. I take it you’re Bloodline too.” It was commonly understood that the Bloodline gravitated to each other so were often found in small groups. They also knew my kind on sight, but were typically too gun-shy to approach us. I guessed April’s familiarity had sufficiently broken the ice for these two.
“Oh. My. God.” They looked at each other, mouths open and eyes wide, their auras swelling and rippling with the energy of their curiosity, but they still didn’t let loose even though my senses made it clear they were brimming with questions.
“He’s an artist is what I was going to say.” April stepped back toward me and took my hand. “He wanted to check out our progress, see the sketches.” To me, she said, “These dorks are Renee and Josh. They’re my assistants. Don’t mind them, they’ll come around once they get over the shock.”
She led me past her stunned friends, away from the glass furnaces to the other side of the warehouse. We passed a huge table covered in various lengths of copper and steel pipes. Around the table were all the trappings of a blacksmith’s shop: an anvil, a forge, several vises, a drill press, and along the wall hung dozens of hammers, tongs, and other tools. I stopped short just past the table where the framework of April’s sculpture rested on the concrete floor.
She hadn’t described it to me at all, but the colorful smoky whorls of magic that drifted around the cage of metal allowed me to easily envision its intended shape.
“It’s a tree of life.”
She turned and looked at me in surprise, then stared up at the simple curved lines of the structure between us. “You can tell from this? It’s barely even a shape.”
“It isn’t the framework itself. It’s the magic. I know you figured out how to see my aura. If you try, I bet you can see this the way I do.”
She moved back to my side and took my hand. At my bemused expression, she shrugged, and her cheeks turned pink. “I feel more settled when we touch.”
So did I, but I wasn’t prepared to admit to it yet.
My gaze remained fixed on her face as she scrunched her eyebrows, focusing on the sculpture. With one blink, her irises flickered from slate gray to a more vivid, iridescent blue, and my heartbeat stuttered. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was a dragon, but the abundance of earth magic that permeated the air in this studio was more than enough to prove otherwise.
Her face practically burst into joyful wonder. “Holy shit. Did I make that?”
I laughed. “You will. Your intentions are as clear as they can be through the magic. With this kind of pre-planning and with the magic on your side, there’s no way you won’t complete it just as you’ve envisioned it here.”
She frowned and released my hand, crossing her arms. “Well, you wouldn’t know it based on our complete lack of progress the past few days. Everything wants to break.” She reached for a couple of the pipes laying on the table and held them up. The ends were sharp, jagged points, as if the pipe had turned brittle and snapped like a twig. Then she stomped over to a huge metal trash can and tilted the opening toward me, revealing a pile of broken glass.
That made no sense. I bent down and examined the broken metal pipe, touching the end, my stomach twisted into knots, and I recoiled. Chaos.
But my former boss was preoccupied with the Pandemonium casino and his new bride. What the hell would he want with a member of the Bloodline? Unless this was what Deva had been talking about when she said that Chaos was after the Bloodline just to stick it to Fate for some reason.
“What is it? You look like you just ate a lemon,” April said.
“Can I watch you work? I might be able to help figure out what’s wrong.” The sense of unease didn’t abate when I put the metal down, but I kept my voice steady to avoid alarming her.
She crowded closer, looking up into my eyes. “You know something, don’t you?” She asked in a low voice. “Are you thinking it’s something…magical…that caused this?”
“I don’t want to speculate just yet. Give me some time here to observe, and I’ll be able to say for certain.”
“Just observe? Because we can always use another set of hands.” She gave me a sly look but held my gaze intently until I cracked.
Laughing, I said, “Fine. My hands are yours to command, mistress.”