said. “What do you know?”
“I—”
“It wasn’t the dragon princesses,” said Sunil. All three of us turned in his direction, Rochak looking relieved by his brother’s decision to speak up. “There were some men here about a week ago. Human men. Piyusha waited on their table; she said they were very dismissive of her service, called her a ‘servitor.’ At the time, we thought it was just general unpleasantness. I told her to pay it no heed. People have been casually nasty ever since we moved here.”
“From India?” asked Dominic.
Sunil looked at him like he was an idiot. “From San Jose. Do we sound like we’re from India?”
Dominic glanced in my direction, clearly startled. Apparently, the idea of cryptids being natural-born citizens of a country their species didn’t originate in had never crossed his mind. “I see,” he said.
I kept my attention focused on Sunil. “What did these men look like? And if they were just men, why so worried?”
“Like businessmen. They were middle-aged, they wore suits. They ordered gingerbread, but didn’t eat it. As for my concern … they were here. They knew to come here, and we had no idea that we should be stopping them.” He frowned slowly. “They were servitors?”
“No. But I think they may be controlling the servitors.” If the men knew enough about cryptids to be trying to wake a dragon, they’d probably know how to identify the more common humanoid species. You can tell a Madhura by the sweet smell they use to mark their territory … or, if they’re confusing their territory markers by working in a dessert café, by the taste of their baking. Relief washed over me. “They scouted out your sister a long time before Dominic and I showed up here.”
“Wait.” Sunil raised a hand. “This is the man from the Covenant?”
“She brought him with her, and vouched for his behavior,” said Rochak.
“No harm will come from my hand to anyone in this house.” Dominic’s statement was as abrupt as it was unexpected. I jerked my head around, openly gaping at him. He met my eyes without flinching. “I have made no reports of your existence to the Covenant, and no such reports will be made. I am truly, deeply sorry for your loss. Your sister was a lovely woman. She deserved better.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. “So, uh,” I said, trying to get my equilibrium back. “I’ll go back down and try to get your sister’s body from the servitors just as soon as I can. Please don’t try to recover her on your own. It’s not safe.”
Just when I thought Dominic couldn’t surprise me further, he managed it. “I’ll bring her back here,” he said. Now all three of us were staring at him. Looking faintly abashed, he said, “It is the least I can do for all the trouble that we have caused you.”
Sunil was the first to recover. “That’s very kind,” he said. “Please don’t feel the need to put yourself out on our account. Your offer is very generous, but my family’s means are small. We can’t afford to pay our debt to you.”
“You misunderstand,” said Dominic gravely. “This is my attempt to begin paying the Covenant’s debt to you.”
There wasn’t anything to say after that. We just stared.
Sunil and Rochak escorted us from the café with a speed that would have been insulting, if they hadn’t just lost a sibling and if I weren’t traveling in the company of a man from the Covenant. They pressed sacks of fresh-baked gingerbread into our hands before closing the door behind us. The characteristic snap of the deadbolt clicking home made it plain that we weren’t going to be invited back inside any time soon.
I shifted my gingerbread to my left hand and grabbed Dominic’s elbow with my right, tugging him down the sidewalk to the alleyway behind the Chinese deli where I’d first caught Piyusha’s scent. It wasn’t a pleasant place to have a conversation, but that was sort of the point; it was disgusting enough to verge on private. There hadn’t even been any homeless people there before, probably because they had a better class of alleys to hang around in.
Perhaps sensing my intent, Dominic allowed himself to be pulled along, shifting his own gingerbread to his off hand in order to make it easier for me. Once we were halfway down the alleyway—far enough from the street on either side that we weren’t likely to be stumbled over—I let go and turned to face him, saying, “Pardon my French, but what the hell was that?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What the hell was what, exactly? There’s been a great deal of ‘that’ today for you to be asking about, and it would be easier to explain if I knew which specific part you meant.”
“The part where you just offered to help a cryptid family.” And promised them, in so many words, that he wouldn’t tell the Covenant about them. That was the part that was really giving me a headache.
“Is it so difficult to believe that I might have had a change of heart?” he asked quietly.
“After all that training you’ve been bragging about since you snared me? Yeah, it sort of is. It’s like watching a classical ballroom dancer start clogging. You can see it, but that doesn’t mean you can actually
“I … I’m sorry.” The expression in his dark eyes made him look like the world’s biggest, most heavily-armed puppy. “It’s true that my training has been focused primarily on the more dangerous aspects of the cryptid world —”
“Exactly my point.”
“—and I doubt I’ll ever share your passion for preserving them without question or restraint, but Verity, I’m not
I blinked, twice, before doing something I’d expected never to do again. Stepping forward, I leaned up onto the toes of my sneakers, and kissed him. Dominic slipped his arm around my waist, providing the stability he needed to lean into me without toppling over. The alley around us smelled terrible. Rats rustled in the garbage lining the walls, and the scum on the pavement made the sewers look like a pleasant vacation spot. It was still one of the best kisses of my life, and when Dominic pulled away, it left me gasping.
“What was that for?” he asked, taking his arm from around my waist.
I smiled a little. “Having a learning curve.”
“Your family still betrayed our sacred order.”
“I can live with that.”
“The servitors are still horrific perversions of nature.”
“I can live with that, too. We’ll have to agree to disagree on the dragon, but hey. Maybe the two of you will get along.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” said Dominic slowly.
“I guess we’ll find out.” I looked up, gauging the time by the narrow strip of sky visible between the buildings. “We’re going to need to do our body recovery fast, or I’m going to be late for work.”
“Your place of employment, is it … I mean, is that where you…” He gestured vaguely in the air, indicating either an impractically short skirt or the sudden uncontrollable need to make jazz hands.
“Yeah, that’s where I got the uniform I was wearing the night you caught me.” I shrugged. “It’s a strip club —and no,” I added, seeing his semi-stricken expression, “I don’t strip. I’m generally a no-nudity zone.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Really.”
“Unless the mice have a ritual that demands I get naked, really.” His smile vanished, replaced by almost comic uncertainty. Even given the gravity of our overall situation, I had to laugh. “God, Dominic, I was kidding. The mice don’t dictate my state of undress. The uniform is how all the cocktail waitresses have to dress. It helps us keep our tips up, and you’d be amazed by how many weapons I can fit under that skimpy little outfit.”
“I look forward to performing a census, but you needn’t worry about timeliness. I can retrieve Piyusha on my own.”
I blinked. “Are you sure? There were a lot more servitors down there with her.”
“I’m sure. You go and do what must be done. I’ll return Piyusha to her family, and then—where should I meet
