The next morning in my room, Ferius and I argued over how to deal with Dexan while Seneira tried to keep the peace. It didn’t go well.
‘Kid, we can’t just run in there with fists flying! We’ve got to think this through. Wait until we—’
‘There isn’t time!’ I shouted, which was a bad idea since I was in the middle of refilling the pouches I use to hold the powders for my spell – not a task you want to get sloppy with. ‘Dexan said he’d be leaving tonight, so we have to get him now before he figures out that we’re on to his scheme and makes a run for it.’
‘How will you even find him?’ Seneira asked.
‘Yeah, kid,’ Ferius said. ‘This town’s big enough to—’
I held out the palm of my right hand. Even now I could feel the charm he’d managed to force into my skin pulling at me. ‘He wanted me to be his partner, remember? This will lead us right to him.’
‘And then what?’ Ferius asked, gesturing towards my pouches. ‘You going to out-magic him? He’s been at this a lot longer than you, Kellen.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve got a surprise for him.’ I turned to Seneira. ‘Do you have any gloves that might fit my hands?’ I asked. ‘Maybe your father has some or …’
She nodded and left the room.
‘What’s going on, kid?’ Ferius asked.
By way of reply, I went over to the velvet pouch where Reichis kept his stolen treasures.
‘Hey!’ the squirrel cat said, somewhat in disbelief that I’d rifle through his things.
‘Just need this,’ I said, and pulled out the small jar of weakweed he’d stolen from Rosie. ‘I don’t plan to let Dexan cast any spells.’
Once it got dark, Ferius, Reichis and I followed the tug of the charm embedded under the skin of my palm. It led us on a winding route through the city into an area with almost no oil lanterns or other sources of light on the street. There, in what looked from the outside to be an abandoned building, we found Dexan getting ready to leave town.
‘You lied to me,’ I said when we confronted him.
‘Yeah? About what, kid?’
‘About everything.’
Without giving him any warning, I punched him in the face. Generally I don’t favour punching, since it’s not good for the hands and I kind of rely on them for somatic shapes, but I was pretty angry and, besides, I’d taken precautions.
Dexan rubbed at his face. ‘Really, kid? Resorting to fisticuffs like some backwoods hick?’
‘Guess the Seven Sands are rubbing off on me. Speaking of which, you’ll want to rub that stuff off your face at some point.’
He reached up a hand to his cheek, and then his eyes went to the gloves on my hands. ‘Damn, kid, clocking a fellow spellslinger with gloves you’ve covered in weakweed? That’s cold.’
I took off the gloves and let my hands drift to the pouches at my side. ‘You’re going to reverse whatever it was you did to Seneira and the others, Dexan.’
‘I’d love to, kid, but my clients wouldn’t take kindly to that.’
‘And who might they be?’ Ferius asked.
Dexan shook his head. ‘Sorry, can’t tell you.’
‘I think you can,’ I said, pulling a pinch of powder in each hand, ‘because otherwise you’re going to feel just what Revian did before he exploded in a ball of flame.’
Dexan put up his hands. ‘Okay, kid. You win.’ Then a smile took over his face. ‘Oh, wait, you don’t.’ He made a slight gesture with the first two fingers of each hand and spoke a three-syllable incantation I recognised as a more powerful form of the breath spell I use. The next thing I knew, Ferius, Reichis and I were all flying back through the air, slamming into the back wall of the building and falling to the ground.
‘Don’t feel bad, kid,’ Dexan said. ‘You put together a pretty good plan, all things considered. That weakweed you put on your knuckles before you punched me in the face was particularly inspired.’ He reached up a hand and wiped his face. Not only did the greenish marks from the weakweed come off, so too did an almost clear waxy substance.
‘You covered your face with mesdet paste to protect you from the weed … but how could you know th—’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say, I can be clever too.’
I got back to my feet and Reichis hopped up on my shoulder. Suddenly he was sniffing at the air. ‘Something’s wrong here, Kellen. This skinbag’s not alone.’
Dexan smiled. ‘He can smell it, can’t he? Clever little thing. Must come in handy when you get yourself in a jam. Of course, I have a friend of my own too.’
He touched the onyx bracelet at his wrist, and suddenly from the deep shadows at the other end of the room a creature with scaly hide and long, powerful jaws came shambling towards us. It took me a second to figure out what it was since I’d never seen one outside of pictures in books. Of course, in the books they never looked quite this big.
‘Ah, heck,’ Ferius said, getting to her feet and pulling out her deck of steel cards. ‘This guy’s got a crocodile?’