Page 40

Thirty-Nine

Lira took long steps to keep up with Sass, even though she should have easily outpaced the dwarf. “Slow down, will you?”

“Not on your life.” Sass shot her a worried look as they hurried through the village. “Not after what you told me.”

Both women waved absently as they passed Pip’s bakery and Fenni’s cheese shop, even though Lira’s stomach protested that they weren’t stopping. She was more surprised that Sass didn’t want to stop.

“If you’re right about more mortar being loosened, then that means someone aside from you or me knows what’s behind the wall.”

“I’ve only told you and Iris.”

“That’s it? You’re sure?” Sass paused with her hand on the door to the apothecary shop.

That question didn’t take long thought. “Positive. The only thing I can think is that Rygor is behind the attempt.”

Sass frowned. “I would have noticed him in the tavern and so would you. He smells of brimstone.”

The dwarf had a point. Rygor was imposing, but he was not easy to miss.

Sass sniffed. “Maybe you don’t think you told anyone else, but I’m here to tell you that you talk in your sleep.”

Lira’s jaw dropped, and it took her a beat to follow Sass as she entered the dimly lit shop. She talked in her sleep? Why had no one ever mentioned this before?

By the time they were inside and wrapped in the myriad exotic scents of oils and potions, she’d regained her ability to speak without stammering. “Does that mean you heard me talking about hiding the book or the gold?”

Sass waited until the door glided shut behind them both and the jingling bell stopped. “No, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t.”

Before Lira could stumble too far down the rabbit hole of who might have heard her talking in her sleep, Iris's head poked from between the velvet, brown curtains leading to the back. Her face relaxed into a smile when she saw who it was.

“Come on back, girls.” She waved a beckoning hand and then vanished behind the fabric wall.

Sass parted the curtains and held them open for Lira. The bookwyrms were fluttering inside the closed cage, and Cali sat in an overstuffed chair with an open book in one hand and one leg crossed over the other at the knee.

Sass stopped short and glanced at Lira, her expression questioning. She was clearly letting the rogue decide how much to tell and to whom.

The Tabaxi grinned over the top of the leather-bound book. “This is a nice surprise. ”

“I’m the one who’s surprised.” Lira shouldn’t have been though. Cali had always loved books, and there was no one in Wayside who had as many as Iris.

“I found a pirate romance your friend hadn’t read,” Iris said with notable glee.

Sass shifted from one foot to the other, her impatience hard to miss.

Iris's expression clouded in an instant. “Everything okay, love?”

Lira took a breath and jumped in. “You haven’t been back to the cellar, have you?”

Iris frowned. “The cellar in the Tusk & Tail? Of course not. I assumed we’d take care of our project down there together.”

Lira had suspected as much. She flicked her gaze to Cali. “Have you been to the tavern’s cellar?”

The Tabaxi blinked in obvious surprise. “Why would I go into the cellar of the tavern?”

Lira held her golden eyes for a several breaths. She’d known the archer long enough to know she wasn’t lying. Cali had never been a good liar, anyway.

Iris closed the distance between them and took Lira’s hands. “You’re scaring me, love. What’s going on?”

“She’s been betrayed, that’s what’s going on,” Sass said with an angry flutter of her hands.

Iris gaped, and Cali stood quickly, dropping the book into the chair.

“We don’t know it’s betrayal,” Lira said, her calm tone in sharp contrast to Sass’s heated one. “But someone has been to the cellar and tried to loosen the rocks in the corner.”

Iris sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re sure?”

Lira gave the woman a curt nod. “Mortar doesn’t scrape itself onto the ground.”

Cali looked between the three women. “Would you mind filling me in? ”

Lira did, compressing the information into as few sentences as possible and avoiding her friend’s gaze. When she’d outlined everything from stashing the recipe book and gold in the tavern to coming back and finding it walled over to discovering that the book was much more than a recipe book, including the revelation that her gran had been a mage and Iris a rogue, Lira finally looked up. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Cali’s tail quivered behind her as she stared at Lira for entirely too long. “That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with having things you keep only for yourself, even if that thing is a spell book the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a century.”

Lira’s vision swam for a moment as she nodded at her friend. “Thanks, Cali.”

“Now that we all know,” Sass said, “what are we going to do? Someone who isn’t one of us must know about the book.”

“Did you tell anyone else?” Cali asked.

“No, just us three, but she talks in her sleep,” Sass answered for her.

The archer’s whiskers twitched, and Lira wasn’t sure if it was from amusement or surprise, or a bit of both. “Does that open the field of candidates much wider?”

Lira narrowed her eyes. “You know it doesn’t, but our crew did sleep rough together.”

Cali shook her head. “Rog snored too loud to ever hear one of us talking in our sleep, and Vaskel…?”

Lira understood the questioning tone as her words drifted off. Despite Vaskel being a Tiefling and the reputation of the devilish creatures, she had never believed him to be dishonest. In fact, he was scrupulously direct. When you were that devilishly attractive, you could be.

Iris sighed, as she twirled a strand of dark hair around one finger. “Rygor already suspects gold is somewhere in the tavern. We did leave the mortar I scraped on the ground.”

Lira could have kicked herself. She was too good a rogue to be that sloppy, but it hadn’t occurred to her that anyone else, including the wyvern, would brave the dank darkness of the cellar. “We can’t be sure Rygor tried to loosen the wall, but we do know that someone did.”

Iris glanced at the group. “Which means we need get the book and gold ourselves—and soon.”