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

reason.
    “She’s a teenager now,” I said, filling the awkward space that had suddenly wedged between us. “She pulled all the magic from my necklace. She was holding the leeches over Scarlett and Gran, and she pretty much forced me to somehow help her absorb it. Or use it to counter whatever was containing her magic.”
    “A teenager,” Warner muttered. I was getting the idea I wasn’t the only one in shock now. And something about Warner’s shock was putting me on edge … well, further out along the edge I was already perched on.
    “She said something about needing more magic, but then Gran kicked her ass.”
    Warner hadn’t taken his gaze from me, but he’d been looking more through me than at me since I’d mentioned the crazed koala’s name. Though he did look momentarily impressed by Gran’s magical prowess, so he was listening.
    “Shailaja was the former treasure keeper’s daughter,” he finally said.
    “I know.”
    He nodded, not bothering to question where I’d come by this knowledge.
    “You knew her, then?” I asked.
    “I did,” Warner answered. “Guardians do not often have children after they have ascended. The former treasure keeper and my mother had been guardians for at least five or six hundred years before they chose to procreate. In contrast, you are the only child of a guardian in your generation. It was unusual that there were two of us when I was … younger.”
    “So you ‘knew her’ knew her?”
    Warner’s reaction was awkward and stilted enough that I had to get the big question out of the way, and out of my mind.
    “I don’t understand the significance of the repetition. We met when I began training at fourteen. She was a few years older.”
    “You were together?”
    “We were no more than … children of guardians.”
    “Sounds to me like something to bond over.” I narrowed my eyes to let him know I was serious.
    “Indeed,” he answered. Then he curled his lip in a smirk. “I gather your jealousy indicates that things are not as dire here as they appear.”
    “I’m not jealous of that crazy … b … witch.” Warner raised an eyebrow at me, then crossed his arms and settled his hip back against the counter as if he was waiting for some confession.
    “You haven’t kissed me yet!” I cried. Hell, if I was going to be irrational, I was going to go all the way.
    Warner had his arms around me before I’d even spoken the last word. The taste of his black-forest-cake magic — all creamy dark chocolate and sweet cherry — enveloped me as he ran his hands up my arms to grasp my shoulders, then captured my lips with his.
    I sighed, opening my mouth to him and pressing my body fully against his. Everything about Warner was broad, and all that broadness made me feel deliciously petite. I loved feeling petite.
    “Don’t be angry with me,” he murmured against my lips. “Shailaja broke with the guardians. That was … unprecedented. And when she disappeared altogether …”
    I wrapped my arms around his neck and lightly rubbed my cheek against his rough jaw. “When she disappeared?” I prompted.
    “I thought … that the warrior —”
    “Yazi? My dad?”
    “The former warrior,” Warner clarified. “It is the warrior’s task to execute any sentence.”
    I pulled slightly away from Warner so I could see his face. He looked grim. The sentinel never withheld information from me, but some days I wouldn’t mind that information coming with a bit of candy coating.
    “My father is the executioner of the dragons?”
    “If necessary. The sword delivers a clean death. But any sentence that doesn’t fall to the warrior becomes the treasure keeper’s responsibility.”
    “Because Pulou keeps more than just treasure.” Yep, that was a new tidbit. There was a dragon prison somewhere. I shuddered to think what it contained.
    “Yes.”
    “So the instruments of assassination aren’t the only weapons capable of killing a guardian.”
    “The warrior’s