The Draykon Series (1-3)

Lokant: Chapter Seventeen

Eva arrived home to an empty house. Her footsteps rang sharply on her tiled hall floor, echoing in the silence. Nobody waited to greet her. Nobody except Rikbeek, that is, and he didn't count. Being bitten did not qualify as social interaction. Not when the biter was a gwaystrel, anyway.

Even Milyn had the evening off and had gone out. In her current mood, Eva would have welcomed the sight of Tren sitting at her desk, deep in a book, or even Vale ensconced in the rocking chair in the conservatory. A pang of loneliness hit her, sharp and cutting. It's as I deserve, she couldn't help thinking. She had brought it on herself.

True, the day she had had didn't help. She may not be an official member of the Council anymore, but Vale had been right: she'd been summoned to the meetings anyway. It had taken up most of her time for days as the Council and assorted experts, consultants and otherwise interested parties debated the draykon issue with far greater fervour than they ever had before. But to little effect. She had no new information to offer and it was patently obvious that the Council was at a loss. The best they had been able to do in the end was form yet another research team, led by Professor Mayn of the city's university. Eva knew they would meet with little success.

The sight of a large box resting atop her parlour table drew a flicker of interest despite her depressed spirits. The label was stamped with the name Lawch & Son. Excellent: the light-globe manufacturers only sent her unsolicited shipments when they had something wholly new to share with her. And having given them a considerable investment for development a few moons ago, she had hopes that their newest products would be magnificent indeed.

Eva opened the box. Contained within many layers of packaging was a large light-globe, larger than any she'd seen before. It rested inside a patterned metal cage, and as she lifted it out it was already glowing.

Glowing pink. The shade was startlingly similar to the pink glow that had suffused Ana's abominable daefly garden in the Lowers.

A letter was tied to the cage with string. She released the globe, letting it drift upwards to hover over her head, and quickly read the letter.

...your representative, Mr Pitren Warvel, encouraged us to offer you this advance sample of our new product...

Eva blinked. Tren? What did Tren have to do with Lawch & Son?

She checked the date on the letter. Four days ago... So Tren had been in Westrarc this week.

For a moment she couldn't think how he could possibly have known about Lawch & Son. It wasn't something she was likely to have mentioned to him in conversation. But then she recalled the words of his message to her. Any urgent correspondence may be left with Mrs Geslin in the meantime.

So he had been able to guess where the Geslin family's stroke of good fortune had come from. Eva hoped he wouldn't despise her for it. Why had he put his name to the globe? Was it to tell her that he knew about her actions, and if so was it a gesture of approval? She felt a brief and wholly unfamiliar flicker of nerves at the possibility that he might not approve.

These doubts were so uncharacteristic that, for a moment, she hardly recognised herself. She quickly squashed them and turned back to the globe. The matter of Tren's personal opinions could wait: the globe represented a more pressing question. Why had Tren sent this to her? The design was unusual, but besides that there was nothing about the globe that seemed-

It changed colour.

She blinked as the pink faded away and was replaced by a soothing blue glow. She had seen globes that changed colour autonomously, but those operated via mechanics and tinted glass and they required gas and chemicals to function. This was definitely a sorcerer's globe. And it had - presumably - been packed in the box for four days without interference. How could a sorc globe hold a fluctuating enchantment for that long?