'Of course they weren't! They were trying to stop us… What do you mean by that? The shop was full of wares.'
'That wasn't an antiquary's shop,' Nestrix said.
Tennora was so startled by the assertion, she stared at Nestrix for a few breaths, waiting for her to amend it. When she didn't, Tennora burst out, 'Of course it was! What else would it be?'
Nestrix gave her a look, as if Tennora were being willfully ignorant. 'What antiquary trying to sell things fills the part of the shop people see with worthless junk and hides the valuables in the back? That was a lot of rubbish in those cases-polished-up rubbish, but rubbish still. The gold's nothing but brass, the silver's shiny tin, the gems were all chipped quartz and painted glass. The only genuine thing there was that ugly little pin with the spinel on it.' She shook her head. 'No one with the sense to collect the treasures in the back room would try and convince others that garbage was worth buying. They're trying to keep customers away.'
Tennora stared, wondering why a dragon would know so much about shopkeepers. 'Did you memorize everything in that shop?'
'Most of it. I'm not a white, after all,' Nestrix said with a sneer. 'It was the saddest little hoard I've seen in a while. It might very well be a white's.'
'Hoard?'
'That was a seed hoard, make no mistake. You have a dragon in your midst, and he's aggressive. And sloppy.'
'Dragons can't just show up in Waterdeep,' Tennora said. 'The dragonward-'
'The dragonward is fallible. Look at me.'
Tennora sighed, exasperated. 'You hardly count.' Dragonfear rippled over Tennora, but she shook it off. 'Stop doing that.'
'Whether I count or not,' Nestrix said in a low voice, 'another dragon, a taaldarax, is behind that shop. Mark my words.'
'That doesn't excuse you just killing those men!'
'Are you mad? You should be thanking me for killing his minions and lovac. Without them, his plans will have to slow down. Don't you know anything?'
'I know killing is against the law.'
'So is stealing,' Nestrix said. 'And if you play, it's against the rules to move without your agents-so we slowed him down. If you're lucky, when I'm returned to my true form, I'll help you deal with the taaldarax.' She smoothed her skirt down and gave Tennora a smug look. 'Won't you be happy when I can return your favors?'
'I don't want you to return any favors by killing someone!' Tennora said. 'Godsdamnit, Nestrix, there's a difference between pilfering someone's valuables and killing their servants!'
The fear rolled over her like a tidal wave as Nestrix surged to her feet. 'You ungrateful little dokaal! I saved your life by killing that man-did you even think of that?'
She hadn't, and that was on purpose. The memory of being pinned by the axe blade, of the man drawing his knife and coming toward her, would not sit comfortably in her mind no matter which way she turned it. She had nearly been killed-the thought made her stomach drop.
However, the memory of Nestrix bludgeoning a man to death with a broken axe haft was never going to find a comfortable place either. The hollow cracking sound would haunt her thoughts forever. And the man writhing on the floor with a dagger stuck in his chest. The soft pop of his neck breaking…
'My life wouldn't have needed saving if we hadn't been robbing them,' she said, desperate to tie the events together in her mind. The antiquary was the victim. Not her, not Nestrix.
'They are lovacs,' Nestrix snapped. 'And their taaldarax plays lightly with the rules. If they are here in your city, your life would have needed saving soon enough.' She stood and drew herself up. 'You don't even care what I did for you.'
'Not when you're acting like a monster.'
'If you're going to treat me like a monster, then I'm free to act like one,' Nestrix said, her eyes briefly flaring blue. 'And if you're going to act like an ungrateful, law-bound-'
'Get out,' Tennora said.
Nestrix drew back. 'What?'
'Get out. Get out of my home.' She pulled the eggshell in its pouch from her neck and held it out. Tennora felt her hands shaking, even harder than they had when the man with the dagger in his chest had died at her feet. But her gut and her wits screamed the same thing. 'I am through helping you.'
She expected the dragonfear that flowed over her, but strangely it was weak and almost halfhearted. Nestrix's cheeks flushed, and her eyes had taken on their characteristic glow.
'How dare you speak-'
'I don't care,' Tennora said. 'I don't care what you think you've done for me, I can't do this any longer. I wish you luck. Get out.' Nestrix's mouth snapped shut.
'Fine,' she said. 'Fine. As you say.' She snatched the pouch from Tennora, turned, and stalked toward the door. 'You would have made a terrible lovac. It's better that I don't take your help.'
She slammed the door so fiercely that a jagged strip, damaged by Tennora's carvestars, fell out of the wood.
Tennora ran to the door and threw the bolt. Stepping back into her sitting area, she eyed the back of the door for a few breaths, expecting Nestrix to return, angry and pounding on the door, full of curses and threats and violence. Her hands itched to grab the dagger, to be ready for the inevitability of the blue dragon turning on her word. To show Nestrix how serious she was.
But Nestrix didn't return.
The quiet unknotted the careful hold Tennora had kept on herself since the night began. Sapped of everything she'd held in reserve, she sank down onto her rug and wept until she fell asleep.
'Pardon me,' Veron said to the sailors clustered beside the street vendor selling fishcakes. He held up one of the leaflets printed with Clytemorrenestrix's portrait and information. 'Have you seen this woman?'
Like all the people he'd approached that day, they squinted at the paper and shook their heads.
'Wouldn't mind seein' her though,' one of the men said. The woman beside him gave him a shove.
'Idiot,' she said. 'They don't make sheets like that for dancing girls. That's for high crimes. Murderers and robbers and such.'
'Indeed,' Veron said. 'She's wanted for both. If you see her, let me know.' He gave them the name of the inn he was staying at, for all the good it would do him. No one on the streets had seen Clytemorrnestrix. No one but the young woman from the statue.
The young woman he couldn't seem to find alone and in a public place. Two days in a row, he had waited in the street, just out of sight. She'd come out twice the first day: once for just for a moment, too quick for him to reach her, before slipping back inside; and once again, but a young man had stepped up to talk to her, and Veron had fallen back.
If anything were out of place, he'd scare off his quarry and possibly end up discussing things with the Watch besides.
Tennora, the hearth house owner had called her. He'd waited in the hearth house that night, though she hadn't come, and when he'd taken his place the following day, the owner had chased him off, shouting that he didn't want to see him around anymore.
After the man's previous cheer, Veron was sure Tennora knew he was watching for her.
'Pardon me,' Veron said, approaching a well-dressed man carrying a ledger off a large sailing ship. 'Do you accept passengers on your vessel?
The man looked him up and down with naked surprise, his gaze lingering half a moment on Veron's protruding teeth. 'On occasion,' he said, 'but-'
Veron held out the leaflet. 'Not for me. I'm looking for a criminal. She's in the city, but I have suspicions she may flee. Would you keep an eye out for her?' 'Oh… Of course,' the man said, taking the paper. He tucked it into his ledger then looked Veron over again. 'You speak very good Common,' the man said.
Veron pursed his mouth. 'Yes, well, it is my first language.'
'Oh,' the man said, looking faintly embarrassed. 'Raised by your mother then? Good of her.'
