Breath (Scales 'n' Spells 2)

“Okay, that’s really cute,” Tori admitted.

Cassie placed her phone on the table and waved both her hands excitedly at Tori. “See! We drive from Kaunas to Wroclaw and arrive in the evening. Get a hotel. The next day we can do a walking tour and have a contest to see who can find the most dwarves. Then we catch an early morning train from Wroclaw to Sonthofen. Just three days away from home and we get to have a little fun along the way and see if we found a way to thwart the Jaeggi. I call that a win.”

She did actually make a pretty compelling case. While Tori did want to get to Burkhard Castle and meet other mages and dragons, his anxiety was rising the closer they got. Why rush it? A little side trip to Wroclaw sounded nice, and a walking tour with Baldewin could be a lot of fun, particularly if it was a place he hadn’t seen before. They’d both be experiencing it for the first time together. Just like Riga.

Of course, they did still have the Jaeggi to contend with.

Baldewin placed his hand on the back of Tori’s head, and Tori twisted around to look at him. “What do you think?” Baldewin inquired lightly. “Would you like to make a stopover in Wroclaw? It means taking an extra day to reach the castle.”

Tori shrugged, not sure what to tell Baldewin. He didn’t know what the right answer was. Would Baldewin be happier to drop him off at the castle faster?

“I don’t know. The longer we’re on the road, the more danger there is for you, Warin, and Sasha. I don’t want you to be hurt trying to keep me safe.”

Fingertips brushed gently across his jaw as Baldewin shook his head. “Don’t worry about the Jaeggi. That’s my job. Do you think you could tolerate being in a car with Cassie for eight hours just to see some dwarves?”

“Hey!” Cassie shouted in outrage. “They’re really cute dwarves!”

Tori couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his lips. “Are you sure?”

“If I had any doubts about our ability to protect you and Cassie, this wouldn’t even be a discussion,” Baldewin said firmly. The gold ring around his irises seemed to widen for a moment, as if the dragon inside of Baldewin was agreeing. “It would be good to test this masking spell. We need to know what will and won’t work against the Jaeggi.”

Turning his head a little to the side, Tori brushed his lips across Baldewin’s fingertips. “Then yes, I would very much like to take a walking tour of Wroclaw to see these dwarves.”

Cassie thrust both her fists into the air. “Whoo-hoo! We’re going to Wroclaw!”

Cassie Burkhard might be utterly insane, but Tori had to admit that she was right about one thing—Wroclaw was a very cool town.

The drive from Kaunas was completely uneventful, which was taken as a sign that the amulets might actually be deterring the Jaeggi. Baldewin and Warin rotated driving duties in the new vehicle they’d picked up to accommodate them, while Tori sat in the backseat with Sasha and Cassie, who told stories pretty much nonstop about growing up with a twin brother, college, their very interesting grandmother, and finally her time at Burkhard Castle. It was clear that nothing slowed the woman down when she set her mind to something.

He and Cassie also took the time to research Wroclaw and determine what sights they were going to try to sneak in during their dwarf hunt.

When they finally reached Wroclaw in the early evening, they checked into the hotel. Baldewin had arranged for another suite that allowed the dragons to remain close to the two mages at all times.

After breakfast, they set out for Swidnicka Street. The sky was bright blue and clear overhead, promising to be a positively gorgeous day for a walking tour of the old Polish town. They had little trouble locating the first dwarf that had been put in place to commemorate the anti-communist movement so many decades ago.

They picked up a couple of dwarf maps and broke up into two groups, Warin heading off in one direction with Cassie and Sasha, while Baldewin and Tori went in the opposite direction. The excuse was that Tori was the more experienced mage and could handle any confrontation with the Jaeggi with only Baldewin. Cassie would need more help, hence the second dragon.

Tori wasn’t so sure he bought that excuse, but if it got him some time alone with Baldewin, he wasn’t complaining.

It didn’t hurt that he was pretty sure he got the better partner when it came to the competition. The moment they separated, Baldewin directed them to a café for coffee and a chance to study the map so they could come up with a strong plan of attack to see as much of the city as possible while locating the most dwarf statues. Baldewin was a born strategist, making it clear why he was the head of the king’s guard.