Smoke and Mirrors Read Online Free PDF Page A

The last thing she wanted to do was alienate Cormac before she even had a chance to ask for his help, but much to her relief, he chuckled instead of taking offense.
    “I suppose I deserved that,” he said once the laughter tapered off. His tone went wry. “Well, just Kimberly, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you’re doing to my merchandise?”
    She looked down at the bundle of sage crumpled in her fist, and gasped in horror. He cocked his head and leaned forward as she frantically pawed through the twine and broken bits of twigs in her hands.
    “What are you looking for?”
    “The price tag. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—I’ll pay—”
     
    * * *
     
    Cormac found himself amused with this young woman though he wasn’t sure yet what it was about her that made him so tolerant toward her snippiness or manhandling of his stock. Maybe how she’d been so noticeably attracted to him from the moment she set eyes on him. He had tried to stay neutral but a very male part of him preened under that admiration in her gaze. Not to mention how she was so flustered in his presence that he couldn’t quite bring himself to be angry with her.
    At her stricken look and obvious panic, his smile faded. Her reaction was disproportionate considering it was a common, cheap spell component, but upon closer observation he noted the frayed edges of her shirt sleeves peeking out from under her school jacket. That, and the wear on her far too sensible, low-heeled shoes.
    Though he would normally have demanded immediate payment for the damaged goods, a pang of sympathy and an uncharacteristic desire to set her at ease made him hold his tongue. Instead, he held out his hand.
    “Nonsense. Give it here. I’ll find a use for it.”
    “You don’t have to do that. I’ll pay for it.”
    His eyes narrowed, lips pressing into a thin white slash. When she didn’t back down, he took a sterner tone. “Unless you’re practicing hedgewitchery in addition to the finer arts, you have no need of it. I’ll take it.”
    “No,” she said, to his utter bafflement, tilting her chin up and meeting his gaze with a fierce look of her own. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had denied him, let alone been so bold when facing his... well, if not wrath, his irritation, at the very least. “I can find a use for it, too. And I broke it, so I’ll buy it.”
    “Very well, Kimberly. Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you came in search of aside from some crushed sage.”
    Spots of color appeared on her cheeks, but she didn’t back down. “My professor told me that this was the place to come if I wanted to find a dragon. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”
    He burst out in laughter again, though when she flinched, he coughed into his hand to cover it. Then cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders to rid himself of the unwanted tightness building in his chest at the sight of her drooping shoulders. The way she bit her lip and avoided his gaze made it clear that mirth was not the reaction she’d been expecting from him.
    Eleanor hadn’t specified why this student simply had to speak to him. The sheer, ludicrous gall of this request explained why his old friend had hedged about the details. The old bat must have thought sending this desperate mageling to him was a pretty good jest, but the hurt in the girl’s eyes cut right through his mirth.
    “I may have many fine items in my catalogue, my lady, but I’m afraid I have no dragons to sell you.”
    He wiped the smirk off his face and beat back the urge to offer an apology in response to the moisture building in those hollow, vacant eyes that would no longer meet his gaze. That tightness in his chest returned when she withdrew. Subtly, maybe, but his keen eyes didn’t miss the way her shoulders hunched or the way her fingers knotted in the hem of her shirt until her knuckles went white.
    “Fine,” she said, voice gone thick. “But maybe you can tell me where I can