Chapter Eighty-Nine Daje #2
While the inns we have stayed at thus far have all been fairly similar in their layouts, immediately upon entering, I can tell that this place isn’t going to be in line with the others.
Where a quiet reception area with a desk had been the status quo before, here, we walk directly into a lounge of sorts.
People are draped across the furniture as if they’ve been there all day, too content or perhaps too drunk to move.
The air is thick with smoke and just a hint of magic, and a quick whiff of it makes me think it’s some kind of tobacco, except that it smells too sweet.
“Come on.” With a jerk of my head, I lead Elora through the lounge, drawing more heavily lidded gazes in our direction as we pass.
My skin crawls with the attention, and by the time we reach the desk to request our rooms, my anxiousness has manifested into a twitch of my right eye.
The man behind the desk observes us as we near, his gaze moving over me in an assessing manner.
His focus then goes to the pack that’s slung over one shoulder before it lands on Elora.
And stays there. “We need three rooms,” I tell him, reaching into my pocket for the small stash of money.
“Are you travelers?” he asks, a hand coming up to massage his long blond beard.
“Just passing through on our way home.”
He lifts a brow, eyes still pinned to Elora who shifts her weight. “And where is home?”
“Brago,” she answers before I can, earning the man’s smile.
Brago is the kingdom’s northernmost city and a place where a high number of mages have gone missing.
Sadryn had been planning a trip to visit the city before the events after the Autumnal Ball.
It’s not a place I want to visit, but in this case, Elora isn’t lying.
Tomorrow, we’ll hit Brago, and soon after, if we’re lucky, we’ll find ourselves on the dangerous side of the Spell.
“Seems more and more people are leaving Brago, not returning to it.”
I shrug, hoping my face conveys the same nonchalance. “We have family there.”
He grunts before opening one of the desk drawers and pulling out three keys.
“Can we have supper brought to our rooms?”
“No,” he answers, his expression pained as he tosses the keys onto the counter just as Cass walks up.
“Dinner is available in the dining room, through that hallway over there.” He gestures with his chin across the lounge, where I can barely make out an arched hallway through the smoky haze.
“We don’t allow food in the rooms. It draws the rats upstairs.
But I can have your bags brought up while you eat.
” Before I can decline his offer, the man calls out to someone, his voice booming.
“Perhaps we should skip eating and just go to bed,” I whisper to Cass and Elora.
“Tomorrow’s journey will be longer than today’s by a few hours. It wouldn’t hurt to try and get a good meal in now,” Cass says, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Well, maybe not a good one, given the rats comment, but a warm one hopefully.”
I open my mouth to protest, ready to argue that getting sick from the food sounds like the last thing that we need, but Elora nods her head in agreement. “He’s right. Let them bring our things upstairs so that we don’t draw unwanted attention.”
Stuck between their gazes, I begrudgingly slide my pack off.
A lanky man, his hair the same shade of blond as the one behind the desk, comes to stand at our side, his hands already reaching for our belongings.
“You will be in rooms twenty-one through twenty-three, near the back.” He points to a different hallway at our left.
“Thank you, good sir,” Cass says, swiping the keys from the desktop.
Elora gives a small wave, making the man’s eyes glitter lasciviously before we turn and reenter the vapors in the lounge.
“Don’t breathe too much of this stuff in.
Even just getting exposed to it like this can make you susceptible to some of the effects. ”
“What is it?” Elora asks, side stepping a couple who are far too comfortable with exploring each other’s mouths in a public setting.
“Dimania.”
Elora gasps at Cass’s answer, her eyes widening.
“What? What is that?”
“Dimania is a flower that grows in the richest soil at the base of our northern mountains. It’s crushed into a powder and mixed in with smoking tobacco and is known for its aphrodisiac effects.”
Gods above. I take another cursory glance around the room as we near the other side, noting that while there still are quite a large number of people simply laying wherever, a few are engaged in activities of a more sensitive nature.
Mostly at the edges of the space, where the shadows can hide their movements. But certainly not all.
“You look so horrified right now,” Cass teases as he claps my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I don’t think we were exposed to much. And even if we were, we are all sleeping in separate rooms anyway.” And thank the gods for that.
We finally reach the dining room, the space small and filled with only a handful of tables and a mismatched collection of chairs.
The three of us take a seat in the farthest corner and order food.
It’s predictably a stew but one that’s at least full of recognizable vegetables and void of any questionable meat.
“Do you think we should reach out to Nox? Let him know where we are?” Elora asks once we finish eating.
“I told him that we’d limit communication to only what is necessary,” Cass says from where he’s reclined in his chair, his arms folded over his chest. “Let’s wait until we have good news to report.”
I try to ignore the way my anxious thoughts swirl inside of me, my stomach queasy.
It isn’t that I don’t believe we might find dragon glass.
It’s that I can’t be sure we’ll find it without being spotted by a fae or, worse, a dragon.
I had never seen one of the beasts beyond a description on a page, but that alone was enough to spook me into believing that this trip was just a single stroke of bad luck away from becoming a suicide mission.
“Well, my reading hasn’t revealed anything yet on how to actually repair the Mirror once we acquire the dragon glass. I’m hoping that Nox’s magic will be fixed by the time we get back because if it isn’t…” She shakes her head, tossing her braid over her shoulder.
“It will,” Cass says confidently.
“If he’s even there when we get back,” I add, stacking my arms on the table.
The quiet that stretches between us is charged with thoughts of Nox and Rhea, the latter the type that shows up in my quiet moments when I am alone.
Everything had happened so quickly the night she was taken; one moment, I was talking with her, her panic evident on her face, and the next, I was waking up alone in a small pool of my own blood.
Her jewelry broken on the stone pathway next to me.
Realizing that she was gone—that I would then have to tell Nox—was one of the worst moments of my life.
“He’ll get her back,” Elora says softly, her eyes lifting from where her hands flex nervously on the table.
“He will,” Cass agrees. “And if we have to wait until—”
I don’t hear his words as pain, bright and hot, bursts to life at my shoulder.
“Daje!” Elora screams at my side, her face draining of color as she tentatively reaches a hand towards me. I follow her line of sight, my breath choking off in my throat before reaching my lungs, as I look down and see the dagger sticking out of the front of my shoulder.