The elevator’s gears ground as it lurched its way upward. Rowan waited until Sophea and Mrs. P’s feet disappeared from sight before turning back to the clerk. He slid a twenty euro note across. “My mistake. What will it cost me to get a room here? Preferably one near my… friends.”
Hansel looked at the twenty euros and replaced his eye patch, an inscrutable look in the visible eye as the twenty euros slowly disappeared off the edge of the desk. “My mistake. You are listed. There are only two rooms per floor, and the other on the second floor is taken.”
“Do the rooms have balconies?” Rowan asked, a dashing picture forming in his mind of himself being very James Bond by climbing down to the balcony below his and slipping into Sophea’s room while she was sleeping.
“Yours doesn’t. Mrs. Papadopolous’s does.”
Rowan instantly replaced the James Bond vision with one of him handily picking a lock and slipping into the darkened room that way. He ignored the fact that he wouldn’t recognize a lock pick if it bit him on the ass. “I’ll take it.”
Ten minutes later he was seated on a black-and-white-checked chair in a tiny room furnished with equally eclectic furniture, none of which matched, all of which had the air of being cast off from a previous century. He glanced at his watch, not particularly because he wanted to know the time, but because he had propped up his phone and was engaged in a video conversation with his sister Bee. “It’s almost six, and I’ve been awake for more than twenty-four hours. Do you think I could get a little sleep before you have me committing felonies?”
Bee’s lips thinned in irritation. “I can’t believe you’re whining about a little lack of sleep when the world is facing a massive catastrophe. No, not massive—world-breaking. Don’t you understand? Bael is trying to collect three tools that he’ll use to rule not just the Otherworld, but all those millions of innocent mortals out there. Do you want that, Rowan? Do you want the mortals killed and maimed because you were sleepy and wanted a nap? Because I’ll tell you right here and now that we don’t.”
A head came into view behind that of Bee. It was a man with shoulder-length brownish-blond hair who Rowan assumed was the dragon to whom Bee had bound herself. “Is this the Dragon Breaker?” the man asked.
Rowan flinched at the title. It had been a long time since he’d heard it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
“He doesn’t resemble you at all.” Bee’s dragon looked suspicious.
“That’s because I look like my mom, and Rowan is kind of a mix of Mom and Dad. Rowan, this is Constantine.” Bee smiled over her shoulder at the blond-haired man, and seemed to be distracted for a few seconds until Rowan cleared his throat.
“Is the Dragon Breaker refusing to help us?” Constantine asked Bee, frowning at the camera in Bee’s laptop. “He is obligated to do so. Every dragon knows that—the First Dragon himself said he had to assist dragonkin without protest until his debt had been paid.”
“My name is Rowan, and I’m here, aren’t I?” Rowan said somewhat acidly. “And you don’t need to go into old history. We all know who I am.”
“You are the Dragon Breaker,” Constantine insisted. “You killed four dragons with your magic.”
“I’m an alchemist—I break magic, I don’t make it. And I didn’t kill those dragons—they interfered during the process of breaking down a catalyst, and were destroyed because of it.” Rowan felt as if he’d been on the earth at least three hundred years. Had that horrible night really been twenty years ago? He shook his head to himself. If only he’d had the wisdom to stop the process before it had gone too far, before the dragons, in their lust for gold, had interfered… and paid the ultimate price for that interference.
“The First Dragon wouldn’t have bound danegeld on you if you weren’t at fault,” Constantine replied with irritating complacence.
“Look, I am not guilty—”
“Enough, Rowan. You too, Constantine. This is not the time or place to debate what’s happened in the past. Let’s have bygones be bygones, and focus on what’s important. Rowan said he’d get Bael’s ring—”
“I said I’d try to get the ring, but I’m not a thief or James Bond. My window doesn’t even have a balcony.”
Bee’s forehead wrinkled. “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”