Mistweavers 01 - Enchanted No More by Robin D. Owens Read Free Book Online

couldn’t afford fear. Sending adrenaline energy and a touch of fire magic to her wrist and her ankle, she let the marks fade away, scanned her body for any dark poison and found nothing except a small weakness in her magic.
    It had not been a strong attack. Too many mortals around for that—since she sensed he’d wanted to gut her and feast on her blood and magic. His voice had lost the illusion of beauty, too, crackling and breaking and screeching. He might have been beautiful in all ways once, but evil magic worked on a being.
    But he was a great Dark one and she was a halfling. Nothing could change that. She would need the Lightfolk to fight him. So much for the vague idea of saving her brother and refusing to consider the rest of the mission, though breaking her word could kill her and her brother just as dead.
    She was truly trapped, and she’d better think smart.
    Her pocket computer chimed. Half an hour before her appointment…she’d left very early. She could spare a few minutes to gather herself, sink into a little meditative trance. She had to push the attack aside or the Lightfolk would easily manipulate her at their meeting—she’d have no control over the quest to save Rothly.
    So she centered herself and breathed and felt magic surrounding her. Significantly more magic in down-town Denver than there had been six months ago. Good, concentrate on that.
    She left the bank and walked, stretched all her senses, let loose the extra one that gauged magic, tasted it, and knew magic rippled like minor waves from a central point.
    All the stray molecules in the atmosphere of magic were being pulled to one source, then emanated from it, like a recycling pump…her nose and tongue and skin and scalp told her that the new magic emanating from that point was just a little richer than it had been.
    Walking close to a concrete wall, she trailed her fingers. As she’d suspected, the building was soaking up magic. It was penetrating into the electrical system. Fascinating.
    After skirting a winter-dry fountain, she crossed to the doors of one of the tallest buildings in Denver, hesitated as she put her hand on the door pull, which sparked energy against her palm. She suppressed fear that sparked with the magic—fear for her brother, for facing great Lightfolk who assigned missions that only caused her hideous loss.
    But she had to save her brother and the Lightfolk had information and the quest was the price.
    With one last deep breath, she entered the building and approached the security desk. There she showed her human ID that stated her birth date was fifty years later than it had been. She would be twenty-five for a while yet.
    As the guard scanned her ID against the computer’s appointment list, Jenni studied the directory. Eight Corp was the only business on the thirty-second floor. The guard murmured “Good afternoon,” and indicated the correct elevator, not that she could have missed the bay. The magic was much stronger there.
    During the elevator ride, she breathed in a calming rhythm, checked that her natural fire was banked. Losing control in these negotiations would be disastrous.
    The door opened and Jenni stepped out onto moss. To humans it might look like a dark green sculpted rug, but it was true moss. Her toes wiggled in her shoes.
    She faced a gray-blue marble wall that framed a large granite desk with a top-of-the-line computer system. Fountains bubbled somewhere near.
    The female dwarf receptionist—dwarves traditionally guarded entrances—didn’t stand when Jenni swished in, the layers of her filmy, multicolored skirt rustling. But the receptionist gave her outfit a glance and frowned at the bright gold blouse Jenni wore, easily seen since her red leather trench coat was open.
    The dwarfem’s wide nostrils flared, “Djinn and elf,” she stated, then, “half-breed human.”
    Dwarves responded well to rudeness. Jenni showed her pointy incisors. She could be ill-mannered, too. She scanned