“I don’t have a choice, Dad,” Val grumbled.
“Of course you do. You need help, that’s all,” Frode told her. “You know what you should do?”
Val leaned her head against her seat, longing to close her eyes. She scanned the street instead. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“You should assemble a team,” Frode declared.
Val snorted. “What, like the Avengers?”
“The who?” Frode asked.
Val laughed. “I’ll explain later.”
A good night’s sleep left Val feeling like a new person.
She strode into the smithy, and the tension left her shoulders when she smelled the scent of the forge and saw the gleam of its magically maintained light on her tools. The empty drawing board beckoned, reminding her that she was up to date on orders. Blair and Yuka were working from home that day on marketing and accounting, so the day was all hers.
Spending the day in front of the TV was tempting, but the smithy called to her.
Val put the phone on do not disturb, set it on the workbench, and prepared to make some small but useful items. She didn’t work to music. The sound of a hammer on iron and the roar of the forge were the only music she needed. Her heart was calm, and her hands were steady as she worked on small iron pieces, squinting through a loupe as she used her smallest tools.
In a few hours, her handiwork was spread across royal-blue jewelers’ velvet in front of her. She touched each piece gently, familiar with every line, curve, and gleaming stone. The two amulets, which were set with emeralds, gave the wearer faster reaction times and a clearer mind.
She’d also made matching magnetic armbands that enhanced earth magic using the same alloy she’d made a few days ago.
The final item was a pair of earrings: large emeralds hanging from delicate steel chains. She’d inscribed tiny runes on the chains. Val lifted the earrings in her cupped hands and bowed her head, calling on her iron power.
The amulet responded, and a surge of magic crackled through her as scarlet fog filled her vision. Val felt every atom of iron and hint of magic trapped within the particles, strengthening it.
The ward blossomed around the earrings, and they grew heavier in her hands. When she unfurled her fingers, the chains glowed a faint blue.
She laid the earrings on the workbench about four inches apart, drew her dagger, and stabbed down hard. The dagger rebounded with a clang, almost wrenching itself from her hands.
“Okay.” Val laughed breathlessly. “That works.”
She held up her dagger and winced at the tiny notch near the tip. I really need to come up with a different way to test wards. After scooping the jewelry into a velvet bag for the dwarves, Val took the dagger to the whetstone and honed the edge.
The dagger was Damascus steel, a birthday present from her dad when she was young. Its hilt was as familiar as a loved one’s touch. Her gaze wandered as she turned the old-fashioned stone with one hand and gently pressed the blade against it with the other. Her eye caught the katana hanging on the wall.
Phantom pain panged in her abdomen. She’d felt the bite of a blade exactly like it, but her hands itched to wrap around its elegant hilt. During the fight with the fae assassin—the one Tetra had hired to kill Sinatria—she’d stolen this katana. Its balance had been peerless when they’d fought.
Val sheathed the sharpened dagger and strode to the wall where the katana hung. She lifted it, blew the dust off the blade, and swung it in a series of guards and strikes. It was weightless in her hand. Val wiped the blade with a silk cloth and held it to the forge’s light, admiring the reflection of the yellow glow on the perfect steel.
Not steel, technically. Tamahagane had been perfected by the Japanese, with a little magical help from the dragons who secretly lived among them. Val had never forged tamahagane, and she doubted that Frode had. Making the starting steel took three days of monitoring, and that was before it was hammered and folded time and time again, then melded into a single blade, then coated, then polished. The process took months.
The result was a weapon of beauty and absolute deadliness.
Val returned the katana to its rack. It was magnificent and lethal, but it wasn’t hers, not the way her dagger was. However, her dagger had been of little use against bullets and tasers.
She didn’t have months to forge an upgrade, but she could make an addition.
Val returned to her workbench and opened a drawer to pull out the heavy cast-iron pendant she’d been working on for weeks. The carvings surrounding the smooth disc flowed from the curves of the Iron Hills to the city skyline’s sharp edges. Genevieve rampaged across the middle.
“Something’s still missing,” Val whispered.
She ran her thumb over the carvings. Gemstones? Her amulet throbbed, heat permeating her shirt. Rubies? Val wondered. Or were the carvings incomplete? The amulet’s throb couldn’t tell her.
Giving up, Val dropped the pendant back into the drawer and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment.
“Something that works for bullets,” she murmured.
The amulet pulsed like a galloping heartbeat, and inspiration flooded Val’s mind. She sketched furiously. Val’s wrist got stiff, then her neck, but she didn’t slow down. The idea flowed from her as easily as breathing.
When she stopped, panting, the amulet almost burned her skin. The design made her grin. Outlined in pencil on richly colored parchment was a broad leather armband featuring a round disc almost as wide as Val’s wrist.
The drawing beside it showed metal scales sliding out of the armband. An arrow pointed at the final drawing—a round shield two feet across that unfolded from the armband.
Val held the parchment up and grinned. She had a new project to work on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Music and cheering pulsed from the basement of the squat building in Queens. Cars lined the street, everything from tired old beaters to souped-up sports cars, and Val squeezed Genevieve into a spot behind an aged but polished VW Golf.
The Golf’s owner had parked like an ass. Val rolled her eyes as she stepped out of Genevieve and slung the duffle bag over her shoulder.
Her phone buzzed as she marched toward the back door. Liam.
