The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

wall panel that only the owner could key. The power engulfing Jack was enough that her thoughts flowed easily back into his mind without a conscious probe on his part.
    Jack had yet to meet a lock or secret panel that refused his mental touch. He’d find the lace. If it was big enough, it might suffice as a patch for Shayla. Then he could leave this insufferable city and the sly, unreadable factory owner without delay.
    He’d also have to leave Katrina. He was fairly certain she would not follow him to Shayla’s lair.
    You may not have it! Katrina’s mind screamed at him.
    How could she know he planned to steal it? In opening himself to her thoughts, he must have allowed her free access to his own.
    “I know nothing of Tattia Kaantille’s work. All of her designs were left at the palace, along with her pillow and bobbins, when she was dismissed by King Simeon,” Brunix replied to the magician. His aura shot high white bolts of lightning filled with lies.
    The glare from those lies left spots before Jack’s physical eyes. He closed off that portion of his magic sight.
    “Perhaps you should ask the ghost of Tattia Kaantille. She was a suicide and haunts her daughter here in this workroom,” the owner continued.
    The magician blanched and searched the shadowy corners for signs of a hovering spirit. His gaze slid over Jack and Katrina as if they weren’t there.
    “Th . . . there is no ghost here.” He shrugged his shoulders as if dismissing his instinctive fear along with the ghost. “When King Simeon gave the girl to you, your duty was to pry her secrets from her. Three years have passed, and the lace is still missing.”
    “Nothing was said of secrets at the time. I was told to humiliate and frighten her so that she would be ripe for the coven’s rituals. You are a member of the king’s coven. You must know why he has not had the girl murdered so that her secrets die with her.”
    “He thought the lace lost with the body of Tattia Kaantille. But the girl wore it not a moon ago, at Princess Jaranda’s birthday celebration. He saw it then. I saw it and so did our leader. We won’t take action against Katrina Kaantille until the lace is turned over to Simeon or he sees it destroyed.”
    “If I were married to the girl, she would have the protection of my tribe. The king would not risk the wrath of the Rovers, I think.”
    “A knife across the throat would kill you as surely as the girl. This factory would then be forfeit and His Majesty could search for the lace at his leisure.”
    “My premature death would bring Rovers into the city bent on revenge more surely than the death of the girl. No. The king will send his thieves in the dead of night searching for the lace.”
    “ Where is the shawl?”
    “Only the ghost of Tattia Kaantille knows for sure.”
    “I . . . I sense no ghost. She isn’t here. But she must be here. A suicide always haunts blood kin for five generations.” The magician crossed his wrists and flapped in the ancient gesture of warding. Then, against royal policy, he invoked the cross of the Stargods. “With my head and heart and the strength of my shoulders I renounce the evil carried by this ghost.” He scuttled out of the room and down the stairs like a beetle frightened by a predatory jackdaw.
    Katrina hung her head. One of her tears touched Jack’s wrist.
    He sent his magic sight all over the room, followed by every sense he could summon. There are no ghosts here.
    Katrina reared her head back so violently she almost shredded the spell of invisibility. M’ma must haunt me. She threw herself into the river. Her spirit cannot pass into a new plane of existence until . . .
    I’d know if she were here. There is no trace of a ghost now or the recent past. Perhaps your mother did not suicide.
    Katrina was silent a moment while Brunix followed the magician at a more dignified pace. Jack kept her within the private circle of his arms and his spell, marveling at the telepathic rapport he had found with the lacemaker. The intimacy of the moment was deeper and more profound than the lusty satisfaction Rejiia had once offered him.
    Perhaps my mother was thrown from the bridge by an agent of her enemy, King Simeon. The spy who dies tonight from torture suspected murder. M’ma was wearing the shawl that night. It was retrieved from the river by the City Watch. I washed the shawl and hid it lest P’pa burn it. It was all I had left of her. M’ma’s body was never recovered.
    If