The Treasure Keeper

from the shire?'

Zoe took a step toward him, nearly as tall, certainly more deadly, at least in these slow-ticking seconds. She felt the fury of a tempest whirling through her; she felt she could destroy him with a single focused thought. From the corner of her eye, the shadow loomed larger and larger, a rising darkness just at her hand.

'I'm going to ask you a question, Sandu. Consider your answer to me with extreme care. What have you done with the yellow-haired drakon who came to Paris last May? The one with the whiskers and the cravat.' Her voice began to shake. 'What have you done with Hayden James?'

The boy raised pointed brows. 'Done with him? Why, nothing,mademoiselle. I left him back at the maison, not an hour past. He said he had a letter to write.'

And just then the sun came out, a beam of luminous light that splashed all across them, and lit his hair to midnight blue and the pale crystal of his eyes to summer gold.

He smiled at her, and it was breathtaking.

* * *

The maison was modest by Sandu's standards. He hailed from a castle, after all, the finest castle upon earth, and there would never be a human structure to compare to it.

But the Parisian house they had rented was located in a safely residential section of the city, which he knew was important. Artisans and merchants and the better sort of tradesmen had bought their homes here, solid and skinny tall brick homes with shared stables and narrow long yards, one after another after another, street after street. The same families walking about. The same screeching children playing in the lanes. The same public fountains with women gathered about them, filling pails, gossip. The same wine shops and taverns and fruit markets. Nothing in this part of St. Antoine stood out in any way, which was good.

He had memorized the way there and back to their own place, of course. He knew a score of different routes for it, and varied them day by day, just in case.

Today he took one of the longer routes, although he could not say exactly why. Perhaps it had to do with the drakon woman walking silently beside him.

She was spectacular. Zoe, she'd said her name was, her accent giving the syllables that frank English twist he was gradually becoming used to. Zo-eey Lane. And because Sandu recognized that name, because there could really be no question that she was at least what she said she was, he was taking her home.

The long way. Down the back streets. The mare clip-clopped at his other side; he would not ride while a lady was forced to walk. Although the mare had proved her patience with him until today, it was clear she would not abide this particular lady to ride.

So they walked. And it was slow. And yes, Zoe Lane was dazzling to look upon. It was no terrible inconvenience to be forced to spend more time surreptitiously studying her. Sandu would guess he was a good ten years younger than she, but that didn't mean he couldn't let loose his imagination to some slight degree. She had, after all, all that amazing silvery-white hair, more or less half-coiled and half-loose down her back, just as the Frenchwomen styled it. It was the kind of hair he imagined he could slip his fingers through, and it would feel like—like ermine. He was certain of it. And she had those lips—lips so full and rosy soft, like she'd just been kissed, like she was made to be kissed. She probably tasted like something wonderful too. Apples, or sweet cider, or lilacs.

She glanced aside and caught him staring. Sandu faced forward again quickly, pulling the mare along, feeling his cheeks begin to color.

From somewhere behind him, he could have sworn he heard a huff, like someone releasing a breath too close to his neck.

And that brought him abruptly back to the real reason he was guiding them so slowly back to the maison: he could not quite rid himself of the feeling that they were being followed.

He'd checked and checked, and never saw the same face twice behind them for more than a few streets in a row. If they were being followed, it was by someone better at tracking than he, and that really wasn't possible.

Still. He wished the skin between his shoulder blades would cease to crawl.

Finally they reached the painted brick house. He took her around the back way so he could stable the horse—Zoe Lane lingered at a distance, which he thought was a good idea—then led her step by serpentine step to the stairs of the rear entrance, not bothering to point out the hidden wires they'd strung around the perimeter of the garden, the bells that would ring when tripped, the diamonds buried in the sod that would cry out with the pressure of a foot. The red jasper they'd wedged into the wood of the doorjambs and windowsills that would rumble and hum should anyone pass through.

She was a dragon. She would smell the wires and the bells. She would hear the soft murmurs of the diamonds, the resonance of the jasper anyway.

Sandu found his key, unlocked the back door, and like the gentleman he was, allowed her to enter first.

Chapter Thirteen

 The house was wreathed in the aftermath of his cologne.

She noticed it right off, that essence of sandalwood Hayden preferred, understated but always a trifle sharp for her taste—right now the most amazing perfume in the world.

She stood in a small back room, with cocked hats on pegs and wooden clogs lined up neatly beside the door. Aredingote a la levite hung in heavy folds from a coat stand in the corner—she knew it, every bit of it. She'd seen that coat countless times, the enameled steel buttons and wide, fashionable lapels, the slate-blue oilskin she herself had picked out because it looked so good with his hair. It was the riding coat she herself had made for him, for this journey, hours and hours of stitching by lamplight, all for the reward of his smile and a kiss.

Zoe stroked her fingers over the fabric as she walked by, taking in everything around her. Wainscoted walls painted eggshell white, chipped edges. Pale apricot plastered ceiling. The long planks of the hallway ahead of her, showing a corridor unlit, and doors open to cast rectangles of daylight all along the southern side. A runner of royal blue and rust and cream, stretching all the way to the front door.

She entered the hall. The dragon-boy remained behind her, his steps slowed to match her own. It was narrow enough so that he could not pass her without either crowding her to a wall or darting around her at the next open doorway; perhaps that mattered to him. In any case, he did not pass.

The ghost of Rhys had no such qualms. He floated beside her, then ahead, bristling with danger.

'. can't believe you're just blindly walking into this,' he was saying, a shadow so dark and thick now he became almost black. Smoke coiled all the way up to the ceiling. 'Anything could be lurking here, Zoe. Any manner of men. They could be using him, using what you know of him to mask their presence—'

'No,' she murmured. 'It's not a mask.'

The dragon-boy bobbed closer to her heels. 'Pardon, mademoiselle?' 'Nothing.'

She didn't need to say more. She did not need to explain. Because she'd reached the front parlor, the place where Hayden's scent lingered strongest, and there he was.

There he was.

He'd swiveled in his chair to face the door, a quill still gripped between his fingers, his eyes wide, his brows lifted. His wig was powdered and tied. His banyan was forest green. There was a davenport behind him of burr walnut, and a window draped in celery-pale brocade, and a small oil portrait of a man in a turban hung upon the wall.

She watched Hayden's jaw grow slack. She felt as dazed and sluggish as he seemed to be, as if she'd suddenly fallen down a hidden slope and plunged into a dream: a fairy-tale dream, and here was the prince she'd set out to find so long ago, the prince she'd vanquished dragons for, and mortal enemies, merely conjured from thin air. She stood unmoving at the entrance to the parlor, unable to quite slide her foot over the threshold.

'Well, hell,' said Rhys succinctly, smoking at her side.