Page 13 of Dragon Kissed

“Oh god,” she said. “Did — did you see it? Margaret tell you about that? It wasn’t — I wasn’t trying to —”

“You are not in trouble, Nica.” He loved the way her name felt on his tongue.

“Are you sure? Because I wasn’t — I know the lot is technically still in active cataloging and I shouldn’t have —”

“I’m not asking about WMS policy. I’m asking about the post.”

She looked at her hands. “I do these little videos sometimes. Of things I love. Just — for me, mostly. For the people who follow my account, and there aren’t very many — fewer than a hundred, mostly history professors and students. I read passages of old Russian things now and then, because hardly anyone teaches the pre-reform letters anymore and I — I just like keeping them in my mouth, I guess.” She laughed, embarrassed. “It’s a very nerdy hobby. I didn’t expect anyone to watch. That video had twenty-three thousand views by this morning, which is a lot, for me. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

He watched her face the whole time she spoke. Watched for the lie, for guilt or calculation. He didn’t see it. He didn’t see anything but a flushed, embarrassed, faintly proud woman who had posted a video of herself reading something she loved and had no idea what she’d set in motion.

She does not know, the dragon said.Demetri. She does not know what she has done.

He didn’t let himself answer. He asked one more question. “The collector. Mr.Crowe. Did you know him?”

“No.He died before WMS took the lot. Margaret says he was a recluse — a real one. Lived in Presidio Heights more than forty years, and his housekeeper never met another soul going in or out. Left everything to a relative who didn’t want to deal with it and hired us.” She frowned. “Did you know him?”

“I knew of him.”

“Was he —” She hesitated. “Mr.Vasiliev, I have to ask. Was he a criminal? A mob boss, something like that? Because some of the things in his estate are very strange. Strange in a way that suggests he had access to networks ordinary collectors don’t. I’ve catalogued estates for years. I’ve never seen a collection like this one.”

The dragon went very still. Demetri let half a second pass. “He had access to networks,” he said quietly, “that ordinary collectors do not. Yes.” He did not add that Elias Crowe had been a cold-blooded killer.

She nodded. She didn’t press. She accepted the answer the way an intelligent person accepts a partial one when the whole truth might be dangerous. “Then I’m glad you’re the one acquiring it. I have to be honest — some of this material should not be sold at public auction. I’ve been preparing the catalog notes assuming it would be, and I haven’t been comfortable. About the book, especially. There are things in it that —” She trailed off. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

“You’re trying to say,” he said gently, “that you believe the book is dangerous.”

She looked at him, her pale blue eyes — an unusual pale blue, rimmed in a darker shade — holding his until he felt as though he were drowning, and did not much mind the drowning. “I think the bookcouldbe dangerous. Which is a strange thing to say about a manuscript. But I’ve been sitting with it for six weeks, and I’ve noticed— well, it’s silly, really?—”

“Tell me.”

She cleared her throat. “Very well. Every time I read from it, my voice gets sort of.. well.. deeper? It’s a strange thing to say. It feels like—it’s as if the book is... warning me? I mean it’s a warning.” She gave a self-conscious laugh. “Somehow.”

The dragon froze. Demetri stopped breathing. For one suspended instant, somewhere in the deep place where his magic lived, he felt something he had not expected — a small recognition, an answering pulse, the faint resonance of a sigil registering a reader who had been entrusted with its magic. Had she sensed the elven magic? Or had the book chosen her? The book was bonded to the Drakovich line, keyed at its forging to recognize a Drakovich descendant. It should not, by any rationalaccounting of the world, have responded to a human cataloger from San Francisco named Veronica Sokolov. And yet, over six weeks of quiet handling, it had given her a small instinctive understanding of its nature.

Demetri.The dragon’s voice was very quiet now.She has knowledge and yet knows nothing. She understands everything and nothing at the same time. I sense she is human. Fully. The book should not respond to her,

He set his hands flat on the table and kept his face blank. He looked at the woman beside him — flushed, bright-eyed, holding her hands carefully clear of a page of the Drakovich family’s most guarded secrets, smiling at him, uncertain and hopeful, an expert who for once had been truly listened to — and he understood three things in the cold clarity a crisis always brought him.

The first: he had been an absolute idiot to ever imagine he could hurt her.

The second: he was not going to let anyone else kill her, either.

The third: he could not — could not — leave her in this building one more night.

He turned in his chair. “Ms.Lin.”

Margaret stepped forward from the head of the mezzanine, silent and professional, every instinct she’d built over thirty years on quiet alert. “Mr.Vasiliev.”

“I’d like to make you an offer in two parts.”

“Of course.”

“The first is the one we discussed downstairs. I’m acquiring the entire Crowe lot at the premium I quoted, and I’ll require the inventory moved to a private facility on my estate immediately — by tomorrow morning, if your logistics allow. I’ll cover every expense: overtime, insurance riders, any cost you incur on the expediency.”

Margaret’s professional face didn’t move, though her eyes were calculating. “That can be arranged.”

“The second part is more delicate.” He laid a hand near the book, not touching it. “I’d like to retain Ms.Sokolov as a private consultant to complete the cataloging on-site, at my estate. The materials are unusually specialized, and her language skills make her uniquely qualified. I’d expect the engagement to run six to nine months. I’ll reimburse Whitfield, Marsh and Sampson for her time at twice her current salary, paid directly to the firm, and I’ll compensate her personally, separately, on a bonus structure we’d negotiate in private — once she’s had the chance to consider whether the assignment interests her.”