Page 57 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones
Erindil peered down his long nose, his lips pursing when hespotted his lute player perilously perched on a stool by the hearth and strumming with abandon. “And it appears my musician is about to tumble onto the floor.”
Thrain’s belly laugh was deep and loud. “This is just what I need.”
When Rosie spotted their group, she threw up a wave with the hand that held the brandy. She scooted around a table with a tray of scones held high over her head with the other hand.
“This crowd might just spill right into dinner,” Lira said with an amused shake of her head. “I’d better get in the kitchen and start cooking. I’m surprised the scones I made lasted this long.”
“And I’ll lend Rog a hand,” Vaskel said, as he and Thrain both headed for the bar.
Sass followed Lira to the kitchen, still stunned by the goings-on in the great room. But that was nothing compared to what greeted them in the kitchen.
Instead of a chaotic mess of baking gone awry, the scone-making was humming along courtesy of Crumpet. The flutterstoat was in the middle of the large wooden worktable, dancing along the rolling pin to flatten the dough. He glanced up and chittered something that sounded slightly like scolding.
Sass made a sound that was akin to a squeak before she found her voice again. “What in Grognick’s beard is going on in here?”
More chittering from Crumpet, but this time some of it was directed at the raccoon who’d popped his head through the window and rolled two pears onto the counter.
Sass’s knees wobbled, so she found the stool before she sank to the floor. “Don’t tell me that one flies too?”
Crumpet gave her a withering look and returned to his work.
“Sorry it took so long, Crump,” Lira said as she watched the enchanted creature roll the dough into a perfect circle by skipping on the wooden pin as if he was in a log roll competition, “but it looks like you’ve got things well in hand.”
“Well in hand?” Sass rubbed a hand across her forehead. “The kitchen is overrun with wee beasties.”
“I’d hardly call one flutterstoat and a raccoon being overrun.” Lira patted Sass’ arm as she passed her to join Crumpet at the wooden table. “Besides, he’s only rolling out the dough I left. Anyone could do that.”
Sass wasn’t so sure that was true.
“I don’t know which is most alarming,” Sass muttered. “Discovering that Florin put a controlling spell on the amulet, or seeing Crumpet and crew running our kitchen.”
Lira took over the rolling from Crumpet, who flew to her shoulder and sagged against her as if worn out. “I assumed full elves would have more powers than me, but I had no idea he could perform spells.”
The rules placed on magic did not apply to the elvish island kingdom of Lananore or to elves in general, since their powers were innate and not artificially created. Sass remembered the powers Lira had displayed to save their friends, and she thought that her friend gravely underestimated elf magic.
She was just relieved that they now knew the amulet’s power, although that didn’t mean she was any closer to ridding herself of the dwarf who’d given it to her. That thought made her pulse jangle.
“I’m going to pop upstairs since it looks like things down here are under control,” Sass told Lira, who was already cutting out a new batch of scones.
Tenuous control, she thought, as she left the kitchen and trudged up the stairs to her room. She gladly divested herself of the amulet, shoving it under her mattress once more. But instead of sinking onto the bed, she climbed out the window and onto the thatched roof.
On the roof, she could only hear snatches of the lute music, which had now returned to its previous repertoire of soft, ethereal melodies. On the roof, the air was crisp and clean with only thefaintest whiff of peat smoke drifting to her from the chimney. On the roof, she could be alone and think.
Sass wrapped her arms around her bent knees and settled herself on the prickly thatch. Her mind still raced from what she’d learned. Erindil’s revelation that the amulet carried a controlling enchantment should have shocked her, but considering that Florin was the gift-giver, it hadn't.
Now everything made sense. Florin had given her the amulet precisely because she wanted to control Sass. Sass’s gut roiled at the thought of what Florin might have made her do and the even more undeniable fact that no one would have known a Trollbane was behind it. It also explained why Florin was so eager to retrieve the powerful amulet and why she insisted on Sass wearing it one more time. What did Florin intend for her to do then? Most crucially, what was Sass going to do now that she knew?
Sass’s friends had been full of ideas on the walk back from the apothecary. Cali was in favor of an ambush of the dwarf campground, and Rog had been a full-throated supporter of the archer’s plan. Lira had suggested they confront Florin with the news and use what they knew to force her to leave. Unsurprisingly, Vaskel’s suggestion had been the most diabolical, as he wanted to sneak into the dwarf camp and slip the amulet around Florin’s neck.
But it was down to Sass to decide what to do, and her thoughts were as much of a chaotic buzz as the crowd downstairs. Not for the first time since she’d left home, she wished she could access her mum’s dwarf wisdom.
“You would know the answer,” she whispered. “You would know what to do.”
As she blew out a breath and tried to summon some mining wisdom that might apply, the thatch crackled behind her.
“I thought I might find you out here.”
Forty-Four
