Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (detective books to read txt) 📕

“Hmmm, what can you do me for?” Leah mused. “Well, you could do me for breakfast, or you could do me to warm up your bed, or you could do me just because you felt like it.”

I grinned. “All of those options come across as equally logically sound and filled with merit, but tonight I think I’m going to have to tend to my wounds.”

Leah clapped her hands and giggled delightedly. “Oh gracious me, but Igor will not be living that one down for a while. Firing a shot into the ass of the first Creation Mage to show his head in however many years! Even for a Chaosbane, that’s fairly loose behavior. Still, at least you walked away with the same amount of holes as you started with, pumpkin-cakes.”

I laughed. “There is that, of course,” I conceded.

“Okay, well, you run along now and get some shut-eye and heal up that cute little backside of yours. And I shall come and collect you in the morning.”

“Collect me?” I asked. “Collect me for what?”

Leah blinked. She reached up and started twisting a lock of pink hair absentmindedly around one finger. “I didn’t tell you?” she asked.

“Tell me what?” I asked.

“We didn’t talk about it?” Leah said.

“Talk about what?” I asked patiently.

“Hm, I must have had that entire conversation with you in my head,” Leah mused, letting go of the lock of hair that she had been twirling around her finger so that it sprang back as a perfect curl. “How strange. Still, it doesn't matter.”

“What’re you talking about, woman?” I asked, laughing in exasperation.

“Nothing, nothing, it makes no difference. You’re at my host’s mercy anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, bewildered. I knew Leah had some scheme or adventure in mind. When a Chaosbane started getting those kinds of notions into their head, insurance companies began to sweat.

“Oh, I just thought that I’d take you out for an airing tomorrow, you know,” Leah said airily.

“An airing? An outing, you mean?” I asked. “Where?”

Leah’s eyes shone. “To the big smoke!” she said. “I’ve been having a little natter with my dear cousin, Reginald, and he tells me that you need to get into Manafell—into the Castle of Ascendance no less—to see a particular Inscriber.”

This was true. My father had mentioned that there was an Inscriber, working inside the very heart of Queen Hagatha’s bastion of strength, who had been sympathetic to my parents’ cause. He had told me that this Inscriber would be able to help me unlock some new slots in my spellbook, so that I could get back to the pressing, and very fun, business of becoming a more powerful, more rounded, and more dangerous Creation Mage.

“The Headmaster knows a lot,” I said.

“Of course Reggie does,” Leah said, waving an unimpressed hand. “He’s got his fingers, toes, and clever little nose in so many pies and other assorted baked goods that he knows things before they happen. He is a powerful, powerful mage, obviously. But not all that power comes from his spell-casting, syrup-butt. Much of it comes from knowing lots. Knowing secrets.”

“So he knows about the Inscriber?” I asked. “Does he know the name of this person? It was one thing my old man seemed unsure about. I got the impression that this person probably kept a pretty low profile, used different names. Clandestine shit like that.”

“Reggie did mention a name, yes,” Leah said, tiptoeing across the boards of the front porch, being careful not to stand on the crack between the planks. She lay a hand on my chest and leaned in, filling my head with the smell of cloves and orange blossoms.

“Gertrude,” she whispered. “That’s who we’re looking for. Good old Gertrude. So, you and I shall go on a nice little excursion into the capital, see the sights, and slip with the grace and poise of two shadows into the Castle of Ascendance.”

“Slip like shadows?” I asked. “Can’t we just ask for her under some pretext?”

“Oh, sure,” Leah said, shrugging her gangly catwalk model shoulders. “Whatever you like, sweet-cheeks. I’ll play it however you like.”

“So, you’ll be playing tour guide tomorrow?”

“Looks that way. Would you like me to wear a uniform?”

“I don’t care what you do, but I have to say that Aunt Ruth has really set the bar as far as tours go,” I said with a sly smile.

Leah kissed me on the cheek and walked back into the house, the sway of her hips and ass drawing my gaze like a couple of ball bearings to a magnet.

“Justin Mauler,” she said over her shoulder, flashing her dark eyes at me, “you’ve seen nothing yet.”

* * *

While the Chaosbane’s ranch adjoined Queen Hagatha’s estate on one side, it was not quite as simple to gain access to the Castle of Ascendance as simply hopping the fence and walking over the lawn to knock at the back door.

“We had an aunt in the family a few years back,” Leah told me as we walked across the lawns the following morning, nursing mugs of steaming coffee and heading toward one of the large barns. “Her name was Wonky Chaosbane—after the accident, I mean. Originally it had been Palmera. I think Wonky was a bit more fun, all things considered.”

“Accident?” I asked. It was another fine day, perhaps the nicest weather we had seen since we left Nevermoor. The snow-filled clouds overhead were slightly less thick this morning, and wide blue cracks of sky showed through them.

“Yes,” Leah said, quite casually. “We had always strictly observed the warnings that the rulers of Avalonia gave their direct neighbors. These amounted, essentially, to warnings that if any of us trespassed one foot over the fenced borders, we would meet with an accident.”

“The Chaosbanes heeded a warning like that?” I