No Quest For The Wicked

Chapter One

I’d reached the part of my mission where stealth was most essential. One wrong footstep, one breath that was a little too loud, and the game would be up. The door ahead of me was ever so slightly ajar. It looked as though anyone could walk right through, but the door wasn’t what kept out intruders. Anyone who tried to pass through that doorway would wake up in a body-shaped dent on the opposite wall.

Anyone, that is, who didn’t have my particular qualities. For me, that slightly ajar door was the most challenging obstacle. I’d need to open it wider to get through, but there was the risk that would make enough noise to give me away. I slid my toe into the gap, shivering as I crossed the powerful wards. Moving my foot slowly forward, I eased the door open, bit by bit, then I paused and held my breath, listening carefully. The scratch of a pen confirmed my fear that the room was occupied.

At this time in the morning? How early did I have to get up?

At any rate, it was time to make my move. I slid my body into the gap in the doorway, edging sideways into the chamber. I’d made it all the way into the room when a crunching sound made me freeze. I glanced down and saw that I’d stepped on a wadded-up piece of paper. After holding my breath a few seconds without noticing any reaction from the room’s occupant, I kept going, watching more carefully where I stepped.

I’d almost made it to the paper-and-book-strewn table in the middle of the room when the occupant said, without looking up from his work, “Katie, what are you doing here?”

I let out the breath I’d been holding in a disappointed sigh. “I was hoping to beat you here and surprise you with breakfast. But since you were already here, I thought I’d surprise you with breakfast. Now, I guess I’ve just brought you breakfast, hold the surprise.”

“I’m surprised, really,” Owen Palmer insisted, sitting up straight and stretching his back. “Mostly because I thought it was lunchtime.”

I moved behind him to rub his shoulders. “It’s seven in the morning. Have you been here all night?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

I came around the table to get a good look at him. “Well, you’ve changed clothes and shaved, so I might believe you this time. How early did you get here?”

He took off the cotton gloves he wore for handling rare books and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. I did go home yesterday, and I got some sleep, but then I got up early and thought I might as well get to work.”

“If you think it’s lunchtime at seven, how early is ‘early’ to you?”

He blushed sheepishly, then changed the subject. “Did you bring coffee?”

“Coffee and cinnamon rolls.”

“I think I can manage a break,” he said with a grin. He shoved his chair back and stood, then hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you.”

We went from the sterile workroom that housed the fragile, old, and incredibly dangerous magical manuscript Owen was working on to the outer office that served as break room, where I’d set out the breakfast I’d brought. After serving him and myself coffee and rolls, I asked, “How’s it going?”

“A lot faster now that I’ve got the idiosyncrasies of the language figured out. I got a couple of pages translated yesterday, some really interesting stuff about the Eye of the Moon—this incredibly powerful magical jewel that’s been lost for ages. I think I found the directions for locating it.”

“Really?” My spirits rose. “Does that mean a quest?”

“Not anytime soon. The directions are pretty cryptic, and I suspect they apply to situations and locations that nobody would recognize today. It goes back to Merlin’s time.”

Perhaps I should explain that Owen was a wizard. Or had been a wizard. I wasn’t sure what his status was currently, since he’d lost his powers a few months earlier in a big magical battle. He still had all his training and knowledge as a wizard and probably knew more about magic than any wizard alive other than Merlin himself, but he was as lacking in magical power as I was, which meant he was so utterly lacking in magic that magic didn’t affect him.

Although I was pretty sure he was still unhappy about that, he was taking advantage of the opportunity to study a rare manuscript that was so dangerous that no one with any magical power or susceptibility to magic was allowed to go near it.

“Too bad. A quest would have been kind of fun,” I said. Certainly more fun than spending another day at my desk.

“The Eye is the sort of thing that should probably stay lost. I wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.” He gave a little shudder as he took a sip of coffee.