Page 39

Thirty-Eight

“So that’s why you’re here?”

Sass had listened to Lira’s story before speaking, and even now, her tone wasn’t accusatory. She sounded more curious than anything.

“That’s why I’m here.” Lira gave her a weak grin. “I know I should have told you sooner, but I—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Sass said. “You didn’t know me. I didn’t know you. But I don’t understand why it was such a secret. So, you hid a book a bunch of years ago? Is there a demand for recipe books that I don’t know about?”

Sass’s perspective gave her pause. “Well, it’s a very fancy recipe book with a moonstone embedded in the cover. Now I know that the book contains more than just recipes and the stone must have some kind of powers. Why else would it be on the cover of a spell book?”

Sass’s eyes flared wide, and she threw up her hands. “Whoa there, what do you mean spell book?”

“I was getting to that part.”

Sass stepped closer and glanced over her shoulder, even though they weren’t within shouting distance of another building, and the windows of the tavern were closed. “Spell books don’t exist anymore. At least, they aren’t supposed to. They vanished with the magical guilds and academies.”

Lira nodded. She knew all of this. “Magic itself isn’t outlawed, and there’s no law that says you can’t possess a spell book.”

“There doesn’t have to be, because they’re all gone,” Sass whispered. “You can’t outlaw magic, or you’d have to outlaw all kinds of folks.” She let her gaze wander to Lira’s pointed ears. “Like elves.”

Lira’s face burned as the familiar heat of shame flooded her. “I don’t have to worry about that. I’m only half, and I’ve never exhibited even a hint of magical abilities.”

“Oh.” Sass sounded disappointed.

“You’re not the only one to wish I had powers. I think my gran was always waiting for me to do something incredible.”

Sass folded her arms over her chest. “Who says you haven’t?”

“Something magical ,” Lira corrected.

“I’d take you over any of the elves I’ve met, so don’t think they’re better than you just because they can conjure light or hear things others can’t.”

Most elves possessed more powers than that, but Lira didn’t want to correct Sass. Not when the dwarf was so firmly on her side. Somehow, hearing her new friend defend her lack of magic did make her feel better. “Thanks, Sass.”

“You said your gran was human, right? What kind of human would want someone to be more elvish?”

Lira fought not to smile at the dwarf’s clear distaste for elves. How many unpleasant elves had Sass encountered? Or was this just about the historic tension between the elves and dwarves?

“My gran wasn’t any old human. According to Iris, whom I have no reason to believe is lying, my gran was a mage.”

Sass let out a low whistle. “No kidding. An honest-to-gods mage? And you didn’t know? She didn’t teach you?”

Lira shook her head. “That would have been illegal. Besides, Iris says she stopped all that long before I came to her. Before she even had my mother.”

Sass tapped a short finger on her chin. “So Iris knew?”

Lira really had left out a lot when she’d explained why she’d returned to Wayside. To her credit, she’d only recently learned a great deal of it. “They were best friends before they ended up here, and they became friends by crewing together when they were young. Back then, Iris was a rogue.”

Sass eyed her and nodded, as if it all made sense. “Is that why you became a rogue?”

“She trained me. It’s not like my gran could have trained me to be a mage. That would have been too risky.”

Lira thought back to growing up outside of Wayside in the little cottage with chickens that meandered around the backyard. “I think she thought that the middle of nowhere was a safe place for us. We weren’t near any cities. The laird who presides over Grayhelm Castle was already old when I was a child. Now, I hear he’s at death’s door and barely cares about fortifying his walls, much less sniffing out magic, which is why he has that wyvern working for him.”

“I suppose it would be hard to find a safer place, unless she raised you among the halflings in Elmshire.”

“Yes, a human and a half-elf wouldn’t have stood out there at all,” Lira drawled sarcastically.

Sass shot her a look, the corners of her mouth quirking. “I take your point. So, your gran must have settled here when she decided to lay low. Not a bad plan, if I’m being honest.”

Lira thought back to her gran’s soft eyes that sharpened when she was thinking. “She was smarter than I knew.” A pang of nostalgia tightened her throat. “I wish I could talk to her now that I know more about who she was. I spent too many years thinking I knew everything about her, and that there wasn’t much more to know.”

“I think we’ve all been guilty of that.” Sass shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her gaze dropping. “Suddenly, everything my mum told me that I brushed off makes a whole lot of sense.” She snapped her head up. “But don’t you ever tell her I said that.”

“Never,” Lira promised, holding up a palm as if making a solemn vow.

They both laughed.

“So why did you finally tell me all this?” Sass asked.

“I realized that I don’t like keeping secrets from you. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but you’ve become—”

“I feel the same way about you,” Sass said gruffly before Lira could finish. “In spite of the bubbly personality I show our patrons, I don’t make friends easily. I supposed it’s because dwarves aren’t trusting.”

“Especially of elves?” Lira teased.

Sass’s grin was wide. “Especially.”

“So much of being a rogue is keeping secrets and being a bit of a loner, even on a crew, that I got used to solitude. Too used to it. Then I left my crew and almost forgot what it was like to have friends.” She gestured to the village. “Or community.”

Lira’s heart squeezed as she looked at the road leading into the heart of the village, the stream meandering past the mill, the open-air blacksmith and wheelwright workshops perched on the other side of the stone bridge. Then she turned back to Sass.

“There’s one other reason I told you why I came back,” Lira said. “The book isn’t the only thing I buried. There’s some gold with it, and that why Rygor keeps sniffing around here.”

Sass’s mouth gaped. “So, he isn’t wrong about knowing there’s gold here?”

“He’s not wrong but he doesn’t know where it is. At least, I hope he doesn’t. I need you to help me get it before the wyvern, or someone else, gets to it first.”

Sass’s expression hardened with determination. “I’ve never been on a heist crew before. Count me in.”