Tevra chuckled, though his eyes were briefly filled with sadness. "A pity I cannot yet understand you. Well, hopefully after this mess is over, I'll have time for those lessons and that will change. Shall we, then?" He headed off, threading with impressive ease through the palace and out behind it to the enormous stables that were nearly an entity unto themselves.
A stable hand came running up to them and darted off again almost immediately to fetch Tevra's horse as requested. Several minutes later they were off, with Tevra on his horse, Barkus in his wolf form, and Najlah taking the lead, alert for even the slightest hint of suspicious scent or sound or movement.
They made it into the city without issue, but really, getting there was the easy part. As they had no idea what they were facing, they had no idea what to be braced for. An attack could come from any direction and take any form. Their unknown assailants had already used weapons and magic to achieve their ends, so they had an impressive skillset.
Not impressive enough, but not to be dismissed either.
Najlah growled as they made their way through the streets, falling back to let Barkus, who had shifted back to human, take the lead. All around them people stared and pointed and whispered. He'd come into town before, in dragon and human-like form, but there was always the gawking. Whispers of demon in that tone he hated, like they really did believe he was some stupid myth and not just a being from a drastically different environment.
He ignored them, as nothing he said or did would change their minds, and he was working anyway. A distracted hunter was a dead hunter.
We say it, 'the rabbit that stops paying attention becomes dinner.'
"Stop here," Tevra said abruptly, as they came up to a building that had one of those signs indicating it was a sleep-over. No, that wasn't the word they used here. What was it?
"Inn," Barkus said.
Najlah rumbled in thanks and entered the inn first. There were the usual startled noises at his appearance, but he ignored them, focused entirely on smelling.
There. That stardust smell again. Faint, very faint, not coming from the dining room or someone currently smoking.
Growling, barely noticing the way people nearby scattered, he prowled up the stairs, following the weak scent. He could hear Tevra and Barkus behind him. From his thoughts, Barkus was expecting trouble. Najlah hadn't smelled or heard anything out of the ordinary, but he trusted Barkus's instincts.
As they drew closer to the source, which seemed to be the last door on the right at the end of the hall, Najlah could smell magic as well. Faint, but sharp and acrid, not magic he'd ever smelled before. He growled, and Barkus said, "Najlah says he can smell magic, and something about it is strange."
"I can feel it," Tevra said. "Only barely. It's masked, so we don't know it's there. I think someone has set a trap, but I've no idea if it was laid by Verin, the dead agent who was staying here, or by someone who came after they killed her. Allow me."
Najlah growled and blocked the door.
"Lord Najlah, I can disarm the spell. My tattoos are not for show, I promise. Your job is to protect me, I respect that, but I know magic like you know fire. It's literally been carved into my flesh."
That, Najlah couldn't really argue with, especially with the way some of the tattoos had started to glow, as though they were backed by lamplight, save that he'd never seen lamplight come in so many colors. He wanted to taste them.
Barkus laughed, and Najlah shot him a glare before putting his attention fully back on the matter at hand.
Tevra's right arm shimmered and glowed with a rainbow of colors as various marks across it lit up, sometimes just one, sometimes in pairs or threes, then several of them all at once as he rested his hand on the door. "Nothing on the door," he said as the glowing faded away. "Whatever it is, it's elsewhere in the room."
Najlah growled and shoved him out of the way, then swung and slammed his tail into the door, shattering it. Knocking away some of the pieces, he stepped over the rest as he prowled into the room, spikes coming out, the tips gleaming with venom.
The room was empty but smelled of recent occupation—and stardust.
"High— Tevra, did the woman who resided here smoke stardust?"
"No," Tevra said. "Stardust can warp the senses. It's not something Verin would use, even in her off hours. Too risky, given all the secrets she knows, all the deadly skills she's mastered."
"Then someone else was here before us, and they do smoke stardust. We found a used cigarette in the field behind the palace."
"It's a common practice in Gormestia, though the wealthier use pipes more often than cigarettes." Tevra ventured further into the room, more of his marks glowing softly. Najlah wanted to know how they worked but refrained for the moment. Curiosity could be sated when the hunt was finished.
Tevra walked the perimeter of the room slowly, fingers of his right hand following the wall but not quite touching it, his left at his side as though poised to attack. There was a look of concentration on his face that said he would be oblivious to anything else that happened, at least until too late.
Well, good thing he had a dragon and a wolf with him.
Barkus chuckled, amusement and fondness and a smug knowing rolling through the bond.
Najlah hissed at him but didn't argue.
Tevra stirred briefly from his work to cast them a confused look but went back to it when Barkus gave a slight shake of his head. Muttering to himself in what Najlah assumed was Gormestian, he moved to the center of the room and knelt. Frown deepening, he rose and threw his right hand back so the flat of his palm was parallel with the ceiling. Some of his sigils glowed yellow, then pink, then red. On the ceiling, a large, intricate looking sigil glowed the same shade of red. Tevra let out a smug, "Got you."
"What, precisely, do you have?" Barkus asked.
"The spell Najlah smelled and that I sensed. Once I found and negated the masking spell, there it was. Better still, it's an alert spell."
Najlah growled and thwacked the floor.
Tevra smiled at him. "An alert spell lets the caster known when someone in a different location has stepped into the room, unlocked a box… whatever they set it for. It has a limited range, though, approximately a quarter mile or so. It's used frequently by thieves and the sort. My people would not use something like this—too risky if there's a competent enough mage involved."
"I assume you're competent enough?" Barkus asked with one of his amused snorts.
"I'm far better than that," Tevra replied. "We'll need to move quickly once my spell is cast, though. There's nothing I can do to prevent them from knowing it's tripped, and they'll likely either make a run for it or come at us braced to kill. Either way, we must be ready."
Najlah growled. Finally some fun. He jerked his head, baring his teeth briefly.
"Here we go, then," Tevra replied, and once more lifted his hand to the ceiling. This time his sigils glowed green, then blue, then purple—and with a flash of purple light, the sigil vanished from the ceiling, the light coalescing into an orb. "Now!" Tevra said, as the orb shot from the room, giving chase immediately.
Najlah bolted after him, Barkus right on his heels.
People swore and screamed and shouted as they tore through the inn, barely dodging out of the way in time, calling threats and colorful crudities after them.