The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

finish this.
    She looked at him with wide anxious eyes. “Up there.” Her head gestured slightly toward the apartment that covered the entire top story of the building.
    One more flight of stairs, broken in places but passable, if one avoided the splintered railing. Surely he could manage one more. To free Shayla he had to endure one more flight of stairs. “I’ll get it. Meet me in the workroom.”
    Lift one foot, put it down. Lift the other a little higher, put it down. He kept one hand against the wall, the other outstretched for balance. The world narrowed to the staircase and the pain in his side.
    Two steps. Then three more. He collapsed, nearly blind with dizziness. A broken rib had moved and pierced his lung. He could hardly breathe.
    “No, Jack. I’ll get the shawl. Wait for me in the workroom.” Katrina dashed up to the landing and disappeared into the flat. Her rival lacemaker took the steps more cautiously behind her.
    Jack lay still a moment gathering breath and the will to move. The well of magic was behind him. Nurtured by Song, the blue lines were firmly anchored in the Kardia. He had to return to them.
    Like a bay crawler he edged backward on all fours. When his feet touched the landing, he braced himself against the wall and heaved his body upright. The effort almost knocked him unconscious. “Ley lines. I need the ley lines.” Just thinking about the restorative power of the latent magic spurred him into the chaos of the workroom.
    Oblivious to his presence, the lacemakers fled in groups of two and three. By the time he reached the window, the room was empty.
    The magic filled him at first touch. He drank greedily from the well. Strength and stability first. Then he pushed his ribs back into place and repaired the tiny hole in his lung.
    His body demanded more. He dared not take it. This little puddle of magic had to transport Katrina and the lace to safety. He dared not drain it to help himself.
     
    “The factory doors are blocked.” Rejiia stared at the pile of rubble as if it were responsible for all of her problems instead of just one of them.
    “We must enter by magic.” Simeon announced.
    “The spell will cost me too dearly,” Rejiia warned, as she glared at him. He had learned the secret of the transport spell at the same time as she. He also had the dragon to give him extra magic. “You must work the spell of flight. The power within me is not enough,” she ordered.
    Another earthquake set the rubble trembling. Simeon jumped back from the danger pouting. Panicked gibberish leaked from his mind.
    “If you told me what the real shawl looked like, I could grab it with magic and use my remaining reserves of power to escape this cursed city,” Rejiia shouted at him. He didn’t appear to hear. His hands fluttered over his heart as he anxiously searched a multitude of shadows for his enemies.
    “The Kardia itself rebels against me. Why has Simurgh deserted me?” he wailed.
    Rejiia repeated her question rather than screech her frustration. Simurgh was only a means to an end, not the all-knowing deity the coven believed. She had realized that the moment her father and aunt had fallen to Darville, a believer in the Stargods.
    “I can’t tell you! Only I must know the shawl’s secrets,” Simeon said around tight lips. His eyes rolled away from her direct gaze.
    He wouldn’t release the information even under coercion. She had to try the spell. Carefully she replayed the magician boy’s rambling instructions.
    Three slow breaths brought her close to a trance. Three more and the void beckoned. Carefully she visualized the place she must take herself and Simeon. The office on the ground floor. She’d been there before with a bribe to Brunix for making the silver lace she preferred on her black gowns.
    A quick grab at the power of the void and a quicker release. Visualization of their bodies three heartbeats before the beginning of the spell, but inside the building.
    The air around them shifted and shimmered. Blackness, cold, no sense of body or self. Five heartbeats she endured the sensory deprivation. Then the image of the neat, white painted office wrapped around her and Simeon. She landed heavily, body and head spinning. Her passenger began searching the office before she had fully recovered.
     
    Katrina didn’t waste time sorting and choosing lace. Making a basket of her skirt she gathered the shawl and as much of the Tambrin lace as she could carry. Her pillow, the