Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) by Meghan Ciana Doidge Read Free Book Online Page A

She glared at me. “I’ll take the knife now.”
    “Come and take it from me,” I said, slowly rising to my feet. I felt Gran and Scarlett do the same behind me.
    The teen’s eyes flicked to take in all three of us. Then she turned, scanning the room, and for a brief moment I thought she was just going to walk away. Then with a nasty smile, she stepped to the side, reached down, and stirred her hand among broken stools, tables, and glass to retrieve the dragonskin map.
    Ah, dammit. It must have fallen out of my satchel.
    With a snap of her wrist she unrolled the map and gazed at it. I held my breath, worrying that she was going to tear it to pieces.
    “Ah, I thought I recognized you,” she murmured, speaking to the map as if it were an actual person. Then she tilted her head toward me. “Let’s trade.”
    “Let’s not.”
    The shadow leeches rippled around us again, which made me realize they were responding to the teen’s anger. It was as if they were connected on an emotional level. That was creepy, with an extra serving of creepy on the side.
    “No,” I said, raising my knife. “You might have caught us unaware the first time. But look around at the magic in this room, crazy koala. You won’t make it out of here with your pets if you stand against us now.”
    I was bluffing, and trying not to freak out about the map she was clenching in her hand. I had no idea what she was capable of with all the magic of the necklace in her, though maybe she’d used all that up with her transformation. I hadn’t even known it was possible for a person to absorb magic like that. Even Sienna had needed an innate binding ability, blood, and sacrificial magic to steal and keep the magic of another Adept. But that was different, and attempting to hold all that power had driven my foster sister crazy — bat-shit, blood-frenzied crazy.
    Here, the child had charged herself like a freaking battery, then used that power to unlock whatever had held her full dragon form in check. Partially, at least.
    The teen raised her chin and straightened her back like a haughty princess. “I … I …” she faltered, as if unable to remember her own name. Then, with a smile full of satisfaction, she remembered. “I, Shailaja, daughter of the treasure keeper, one of the guardian nine, demand your aid.”
    “Shailaja, eh?” I said mockingly, instantly recognizing the name. “Now where have I read that before … oh, right. Pulou’s journal. Something about you being a bad, bad dragon.”
    Shailaja curled her lip at me. “I should have known a half-blood wouldn’t be powerful enough to fully awaken a dragon. But even talentless and feeble, you are an alchemist, so you must have other objects of power. Or access to objects of power.”
    “No.”
    “No?” This answer confused her. Now that she was a teenager, any residual sympathy I’d had for her was long gone. Odd how a sneering teen could do that in a single pouty, demanding second.
    “You don’t say no to me,” Shailaja said. “You don’t stand against a true dragon. You don’t —”
    “Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “Wrong era, baby koala. We do what we want around here.”
    The teen lunged for me.
    Gran’s spell — some wicked blue lightning that imprinted itself on my eyeballs — met Shailaja halfway, hitting her neck-to-torso. She flew off her feet, ending up pinned to the far wall. She hung there, suspended, shrieking and writhing underneath Gran’s lightning spell. The shadow leeches swarmed around her as I stalked forward.
    I felt Gran stumble behind me, Scarlett’s magic rising up to anchor her. The power dancing and streaking around me was exhilarating — all the hair on my body was electrified with it — and I wanted to laugh and twirl around in the intoxicating energy.
    Instead, I reached into the seething mass of shadow leeches obscuring my sight of Shailaja and came up empty-handed.
    Then the shadow leeches also disappeared.
    Gran released the