Night Bird by Alex Fox

Author:Alex Fox [Alex Fox]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“I have to admit, you were the last person I expected to run into here,” Valoria told Gael in Latin as they settled in comfortable leather chairs near the forge in her workshop. Gael had worked with her during the design of the godkiller dagger he’d commissioned from her father at his forge in Mt. Vesuvius, though the meetings had always been brief and to the point. “The Curia isn’t the kind of market I’d expect a Vampire Master of your position to frequent.”

“J’en revenais pas, comme toi!” Gael exclaimed, admiring the space. Come to find out, the Edifice was actually ingenuously designed building. Outwardly, it appeared as a single structure, but inside, the rooms shifted and moved similarly to a Rubik’s Cube, expanding and shrinking as needed. Valoria’s workshop was a large warehouse with a forge and heavy equipment on one side and a spartan but luxurious living area on the other, separated by a magnificent, hand-painted screen depicting a landscape with skies that appeared to drift in smooth whorls.

“Although I rarely frequent the Curia, I always find it to be a fascinating experience,” Gael admitted. “Running into you here was a most pleasing surprise, Madame Valoria.”

“Please, call me Léonie—that is my given name,” she answered. “Valoria is what my father renamed me when I apprenticed for him as a smith.”

“I assumed you were born into it—an enduring metalsmithing tradition.”

Léonie laughed, shaking her head. “Believe it or not, I’m actually half-witch—the product of a love affair between Vulcan and my mother back in the 1970s.”

“Fascinating. Why did you choose to become a smith, then?”

She opened a bottle of whiskey and poured them both a dram. “When it became clear my castings had to be infused through metal to work, it made more sense to develop that skillset,” she explained. “That’s when I went to live and work with my father.”

Gael considered her. “Pardon my outrageous intrusiveness, but how on earth did you end up in the Curia?”

“I’ll make you a bargain.” Léonie watched him hawkishly over the rim of her glass. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing here if you explain why your aura is glowing with gold.”

“That’s what you see when you look at me?” Gael asked, genuinely surprised.

“I can see the bindings of the spell on your ring.” She pointed at his hand resting on the arm of his chair. “It’s attempting to cloak your aura, but it’s working like thin cloud cover—bits and pieces are coming through,” she explained. “Besides, your aura before was black as night, like smoke. For a piece like that to be effective for the amount of power you’re attempting to disguise, the magic must be forged into the metal before the design reinforces the casting. Is that why you’re seeking a metallurgist?” Léonie asked, taking a sip of her whiskey.

“It wasn’t, but apparently, it’s becoming a necessity,” Gael admitted. This was the first time he’d been clocked by another supernatural, and he’d been disguising himself using Dorothea’s ring for months.

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