Page 38

Dylan shrugged. “I find lustful glances far more pleasant than looks of disgust or pity. Don’t you hate being so short?”

I chuckled at his directness. “I find most males like short women. I think it makes them feel more manly. It’s only other women who look at me like I’m defective. If I was as tall as my power, I’d be twenty feet tall. So no... my size doesn’t bother me often.”

Dylan laughed as we walked out of the study and back to the foyer. Henry was hanging out there directing movers who were busy carrying furniture into the house.

“Change into whatever form you like, thief, but I still know what you are,” Henry told Dylan in an ominous demon voice.

When Dylan sighed, I covered my mouth to hide my smile.

A full human woman carrying two lamps stopped walking across the foyer stopped to stare at Dylan who smiled at her and said hello.

Henry cleared his throat. “Keep it moving, Daisy. I’d like to finish the ground floor today,” he said.

The woman blushed and hurried on.

I smiled at my bossy caretaker. “I’m headed to work, Henry. Message me if ya need anything.”

Henry briefly nodded before Dylan and I walked out.

Chapter Thirteen

Dylan not finding his relic among the animal breeder’s things didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t expected his search to be successful but never realized why until just now. Watching him go through the troll’s things had me thinking back to the day we apprehended him. Mulan and I hadn’t gotten to check the tunnels leading to the other spaces in his lair.

“If the troll used it, he passed it off to someone else. Or perhaps he hid it. The latter is unlikely since trolls don’t know what it means to be subtle. Clubs are their preferred method of getting their point across.”

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” I said with a chuckle.

The troll could have run out that day to draw us away from some magickal hiding in some other room of his lair. If that had been his intention, he’d done a good job. It was my fault for not even thinking to search the rest of the place before we limped out of it. I couldn’t remember any of us going beyond the first room with the animals.

What if Hisser had been hiding back there? He could have sprung out and killed me while I was rolling around in pain on the lair’s floor.

What if the snake shifter who hated me had gone after Mulan after she got slammed against the wall?

Giant snakes, roaring trolls, and rescuing the animals had all distracted me. There was a time in my life when I was sharp enough never to allow any of that to happen. Had I gotten so old that I needed to make a list of what not to forget for every job?

I looked down at Dylan who’d changed back to his real self once we were inside the Shadow Breaker compound. In his natural form, the far darrig stood a couple of inches shorter than me but that difference seemed greater with his head hanging as low as it was at the moment.

“Cheer up, Dylan. I’ll give ya the coordinates for the animal breeder’s lair. Yer relic could have gotten overlooked when they packed up everything. Most of the staff here is new and inexperienced. Ya’ll want to keep a watch out for squatters when ya go there, though. That snake hydra might have been the creation of a snake shifter who’s hunting me. He’s dangerous so don’t take my warning lightly.”

He looked up at me and nodded. Dylan was discouraged but there was nothing I could do about it.

We walked into the space next door. Ben had created an area with holding cells for the animals his agents brought in. It had been built beside the storage spaces for the belongings of prisoners. Ben no doubt considered the animals as a prisoner’s personal property as well. Well, all except for the ones created by the animal breeder that Ben had scheduled to be killed.

There were a few regular dogs in cages. One held a parrot that squawked and complained in some language I didn’t recognize. Bo had retrieved all the existing tiger cats because I didn’t see any left but I wasn’t looking for them, anyway. I was looking for the strangest creature the breeder had caged. It would remain here until some Shadow Breaker scientist came over from Dublin to look at it.

I finally found the creature in the last cell at the end of the row. I guess the person in charge of animal care had moved it as far away from the barking dogs as possible. The fox creature was curled up on a dog bed in one corner. It blinked sad eyes at us through the bars.

Dylan whistled softly. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. What it’s supposed to be?”

“A fox—I think.”

Dylan grunted. “It looks more like a corgi with fox ears and a fluffy tail. Its eyes look nearly human, which is highly creepy if you ask me.”

The far darrig was smart. I nodded as I studied the fox creature. “I’ve been wondering if it might be a transformed human. Maybe someone used yer relic on it, Dylan. What do ya think?”

The far darrig chuckled. “I think you lead a very strange life to be asking those sorts of questions, Aran.”

I laughed at his reply. “Since we don’t know what yer relic does, who knows what a true magickal could do with it?”