Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

26. The Iron Dragon

30th of Uirra

It'll be easy, he said. Walk into the Iron Dragon and start a row in the foyer, he said.

NaVarre would slip behind the registration desk in the distraction that followed and steal the booking ledger. Then he would keep going through the back room and out the window into the alley behind the Inn while we apologized to everyone and left by the front door.

In, out.

Yes. Right.

"I don't know why you think I can start a convincing fight in public," I muttered as I stepped down from the horseless and into the ankle-deep slush on the road. The familiar smells of Lordstown's lower district slammed into me – compression engine exhaust, old oil, wet wool, mud, brine, and animal feces. Ah, loveliness.

I caught sight of my reflection in the window of the hothouse across the street and let out the breath I was holding. Before the fire, I had a traveling outfit very much like the one I was wearing: midnight-blue taffeta skirt and embroidered bodice, with a matching wool half-cloak. With my hair in a twist beneath that elegant little hat, it was like looking at a ghost with my face. I ground my teeth and glanced away, refusing to let myself think about the girl in the glass. I was already queasy enough.

An overloaded oil lorry went rumbling by and Arramy paused at the curb to let it pass, then placed a hand at my elbow, urging me forward into the early morning traffic that bumped and jostled along St. Camyrre Street. We dodged a line of man-drawn carts, a woolens barrow, a pile of steaming horse droppings, and a large flatbed dray before reaching the pedestrian access to the boardwalk in front of the Iron Dragon's front entrance.

Arramy glanced down at me as he reached for the door pull and must have seen the attack of stage-fright looming in my eyes. "You've survived worse," he pointed out. Then, helpful soul, he opened the door and held it for me as I stepped past him into the entryway.

I didn't respond. My stomach was in knots. Performance class had always been the bane of my school career. I used to rehearse for weeks before every seasonal production, and even then, I would get sick before going on stage. Now, nearly two years later, that same old hint of bile was still crawling up the back of my throat.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my nerves as Arramy came in and closed the door behind us.

The inside of the Iron Dragon was just as respectable as the outside, if a little scuffed and worn along the edges. The entryway opened into a broad lobby with a bar down one side, and a small sitting area in front of a stone round-hearth in the far corner. It hadn't been redecorated since the Pre-War era: blue-washed walls, black woodwork, lots of now-faded gold brocade and tassels and braided-cane furniture. It was pleasantly warm, though, and the scent of the hardwood fire in the grate was reassuring.

Our target was the clerk standing behind a counter at the back of the lobby, under a sign that read Rooms and Registration. He glanced up when the bell rang as we came in, and his gaze followed us to the bar.

As planned, Arramy took up a strategic position that would require the clerk to come all the way across the room to ask us to leave. If this worked.

I looked around. There was a middle-aged couple sitting a little way down from Arramy and I, and the woman was giving us a thorough study, clearly fascinated.

Belatedly, I realized what sort of impression we must have given: a man old enough to have been married for several years coming into an inn with a girl a little too young to be his wife, but much too old to be his daughter.

My ears went warm under the weight of that woman's stare. I swallowed. Embarrassment wasn't doing a anything to ease the frantic throb of my pulse.