Chương 176: Chapter 172. Tea Time

The bells above the door chimed a cheerful cascade as Adom stepped inside, and for the first time in what felt like an hour the noise of the street fell away behind him.

"Welcome to the Weird Stuff Stor—oh, hello there, Mage."

"Good day, Thessarian. How are you doing?" She looked up from her clipboard, blonde hair falling across one shoulder.

"Fine, thanks." She took him in a beat longer than usual, and her pencil paused.

"You look like you've been through a hedge backwards. This anything to do with whatever's got half the city guard charging up toward the Magisterium quarter? Heard there's a whole street cordoned off."

"... More or less."

"Huh." She didn't pry, which was one of the better things about her.

"Is Biggins here?"

"Making tea in the back." She returned to her inventory, pencil tapping against the clipboard.

"We got a shipment of those singing teacups yesterday. Half of them only hum, and three won't stop screaming. It's been a day."

"Thank you. You're looking good today."

"Thanks." A slight smile played at the corner of her mouth.

"Working here is much less stressful than what I did before. No one tries to kill me for existing, and the worst thing that happens is a candy cane tries to bite a customer." Adom managed a smile of his own at that, though it cost him a little more than it should have. The shop bustled with organized chaos around them. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, packed with a large variety of items.

Thessarian moved between the displays, checking items off her list and occasionally redirecting a wandering toy back to its proper place while a mechanical bird tried to steal her pencil, and she shooed it away without looking up.

"Inventory day?" Adom asked.

"Every day is inventory day here. Things have a habit of rearranging themselves when no one's looking." And to prove her point, she gestured toward a shelf where books were reshuffling their own order. Adom chuckled and made his way past the counter, threading between displays that seemed to shift slightly as he passed. He stopped at a door marked "Private" in letters that glowed faintly blue and knocked twice. The door swung open by itself, revealing a cozy room beyond. Adom stepped inside.

Biggins stood at a marble counter, pouring steaming liquid from an ornate silver teapot into delicate porcelain cups. His movements were almost ceremonial. Steam curled upward in perfect spirals, carrying the scent of something floral and complex.

"Hello, Mr. Biggins." The old man looked up, his eyes brightening with pleasure.

"Oh, young Adom! Just in time for tea. Perfect timing, really." He gestured toward the cups with obvious pride.

"I've been working on a new blend. Moonflower petals from the Southern Reaches, a touch of crystallized starfruit essence, and just a hint of silverleaf for clarity. I had a feeling you'd appreciate the subtlety."

"I'm sure I will."

"You know," he continued, arranging the cups on a tray, "I believe young Thessarian is attempting to seduce me. It's quite awkward, really. She keeps finding excuses to lean over the counter when she talks to me, and yesterday she brought me cookies shaped like hearts." He paused, looking genuinely perplexed.

"Could you perhaps mention to her later that I'm not attracted to humans? I don't wish to hurt her feelings, but the situation is becoming rather uncomfortable." Adom nearly choked on air.

"Wait, what? Are you sure?"

"Oh yes, quite certain. The signs are unmistakable."

"Does she know what you are?" Biggins's eyes sparkled with amusement.

"She's been trying to figure it out for years now. It's been quite entertaining, actually. Last week she asked me how old I was, and when I said 'older than the city,' she spent three days researching the founding of Arkhos." He chuckled.

"Yesterday she brought up dragon mythology during casual conversation. Subtle as a brick through a window, that one, but I admire her persistence."

"And you're just... letting her?"

"It's harmless fun. She's clever, determined, and it keeps her mind occupied during the slow hours." Biggins's expression grew fond.

"Though I do wish she'd stop with the heart-shaped baked goods. It's becoming awkward." Only then did he take a proper look at Adom's face, and whatever he found there made the warmth in his own go quiet.

"Problem?"" Big problem. Thanks." Adom accepted the offered cup, feeling the warmth seep through the porcelain. Biggins waved his hand, and a cushion materialized out of what appeared to be solidified cloud. It bobbed gently in the air before settling near a low table.

"Please, sit. But first, taste the tea. I'm quite eager for your assessment." Adom settled onto the cloud cushion, which was surprisingly supportive despite feeling like sitting on weather. He raised the cup and took a careful sip. Almost instantly, the tension in his shoulders melted away. The knot between his shoulder blades that he hadn't even realized was there simply... disappeared. His jaw unclenched. Even his breathing deepened without conscious effort.

"Hmm," he said, taking another sip.

"What did you say was in this?"

"An alchemical blend of my own devising. Quite recent, actually." Biggins beamed with satisfaction.

"Excellent for relaxation, as you can tell. The modern world is so terribly stressful, don't you think? All that rushing about, all that tension. People forget to breathe properly." He produced a plate of small cakes from somewhere, each one a miniature work of art. Tiny flowers made of spun sugar decorated their tops, and they smelled like honey and summer rain, somehow. Which was strange for cakes.

"Try these as well. The chocolate ones are particularly good." Adom hadn't realized how wound up he'd been until the relief hit him. It had all been sitting on his chest like a stone. Now he could think clearly again, for the first time since the fight. He selected one of the chocolate cakes and bit into it. Rich, complex flavors bloomed across his tongue, with layers of sweetness that revealed themselves slowly.

"This is incredible." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Thank you. I do try." Biggins settled into his own chair, which appeared to be made of crystallized amber. His expression grew serious, the theatrical warmth fading almost instantly.

"Now. You didn't come here for my tea, pleasant as it is. Tell me." So Adom told him. The signing, the fog of it, the crowd a hundred deep. The sudden pull of mana through all that noise, and the short ugly seconds that followed. The barriers. The jump. The two of them going into the chimney stack harder than he'd entirely meant.

"They're alive," he said.

"The guard and a pair of healers had them when I left; both critical." He turned the cup in his hands.

"The whole of Tinker's Row is shut down behind me. Hundreds of witnesses. It's going to be a mess for days."

"It usually is," Biggins murmured.

"Go on. There's more, or you'd have left it to the guard."

"There was a mark. On the back of one hand." Adom met the old dragon's eyes.

"A staff crossed with a quill, inside a ring of stars." The amusement drained out of the ancient face, and it went very still.

"You know it," Adom said.

"I ought to. It's mine, after a fashion." Biggins set his cup down with great care.

"It's the Order's mark. Your Order's." He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again the warmth had gone out of his voice entirely.

"I know all of the Order. Well, most of them. And there are branches of it I take great pains to avoid, and greater pains to keep from ever reaching you. They are not meant to know you exist at all. That was the entire point of me." His fingers drummed once against the arm of his chair.

"Some of those branches have been corrupted a long while now, and I have spent no small effort keeping them ignorant of your training, your growth, your very name."

"Corrupted how?"

"They serve interests that were never the Order's. Gold does that to people. So does fear. So do certain... political pressures." His expression darkened.

"If two of them found you standing in an open street, then it means one thing plainly enough. A branch of the Order knows you're here now. At least, enough to come looking." He did not seem especially troubled by it.

"Which, I'll grant you, is hardly the great shock it might once have been." Biggins went on.

"You've made rather a lot of noise these past few years, young Adom. The Ghost of this, the youngest magus of that, your face on broadsheets from here to the coast. A man cannot shine that brightly and expect the dark to keep on overlooking him. The wonder is that it took them this long."

"So what now?"

"Now I find out which branch, and how much they truly know." His eyes lifted to Adom's.

"The two of them are still breathing, you said, and a healer's ward is no difficult thing for me to walk into. I'll go and see the man and the woman myself, once they're settled. Have a proper look. Ask the right questions of whoever will answer them." A small nod.

"And I'll keep you posted as I learn it. Give me a little time."

"... All right." And Adom found that he did trust it. If anyone alive could draw a name out of the Order's rot, it was the creature across the table.

"Thank you." He leaned back against the cloud cushion, mind working through it regardless. If a branch had sent killers, it meant one of two things. Either they believed him an impostor reaching for the Architect's mantle; or they'd grown corrupt enough that the real Architect, emerging, was a problem they wanted ended early. The first seemed unlikely. Why send a killer after a fake? One exposes a fake. One does not murder him. The second was worse.

It meant they knew who he was, or suspected enough to want him gone now, before he grew into the thing he was meant to become.

"It'd have to be one of the foreign branches, though, wouldn't it," he said aloud.

"The eastern ones, maybe. They're the furthest gone, from everything you've told me. The furthest out of your reach."

"Mm. Perhaps." Biggins did not sound convinced.

"Though I would be careful, were I you, of assuming the rot only ever grows where it's comfortable to picture it. In my long experience, the enemy tends to sit a great deal closer than one would ever like to think." A small pause ensued.

"Nearer the hearth than the door, more often than not." There was a chill under the words, for all their mildness, and it settled over the little room a moment. Then Biggins waved a great hand through it, as if clearing smoke.

"Bah. No matter. I'll have it out of them soon enough." He laughed a rich and rolling hohoho and the chill went as quickly as it had come.

"And in any case," he added, settling back into the amber chair, "you're ready now."

"Ready for what?"

"When Law built the Order, he knew it would be corrupted in time." Biggins began.

"How he knew, I've never understood. Prophetic vision, perhaps. Or simply a clear eye for what people are. But everything he foresaw has come to pass, in its turn." He gestured vaguely toward the door, the street, the city beyond it.

"Because he knew the rot was coming, he salted every branch with false trails. Deliberate misdirection, laid down to keep them away from you until you could fend for yourself."

"And it worked, you think?"

"Obviously. They can send people now; and the people will likely fail, as these two did." His smile sharpened at the edges.

"With your movements, and that fame of yours, this was only ever a matter of time." Adom finished his cake and let the last of the tea's warmth settle into him.

"And if I had managed to bring you one in one piece, what would you even have done with him?"

"Oh, well." Biggins waved a hand airily.

"Us dragons always have a spare dungeon for princesses and people we don't like." Adom laughed out loud.

"Is that actually true?"

"What is actually true?" Biggins's eyes twinkled with mischief.

"The dungeon part? Certainly. The princess part? Well, that's more complicated. You see, the whole dragons-kidnapping-princesses business is terribly overblown. Most of the time, the princesses came to us voluntarily. Palace life is dreadfully boring, apparently, and we're excellent conversationalists."

"And the rest of the time?"

"The rest of the time it was usually the other way around. Princesses kidnapping dragon eggs. Quite aggressive, some of those royal bloodlines." He paused thoughtfully.

"Though I wasn't around when my kind was still flying the skies regularly, I'd say the whole narrative was a conspiracy perpetrated by demons. For nefarious reasons, no doubt." He raised an eyebrow.

"Demons you'll also meet eventually, I'm afraid."

"Care to elaborate?" Biggins's expression grew more serious, though he maintained that theatrical air.

"At the origin of all this mess, I know there are demons involved. They're one of the primordial races, older than dragons, and most things that walk or crawl or fly. What they want..." He shrugged elegantly.

"I honestly don't know. But I fought one of them once. The Witch of the Fae Realm, Seraphine. Young Cyrel's mother." Adom paused, studying Biggins's face. The old dragon had always been evasive about his past, deflecting questions with jokes or changing the subject entirely. But now, with talk of ancient demons and a fresh mark from the Order, those gaps in knowledge felt more significant.

"You've never told me anything about your life before." Biggins laughed.

"I am not particularly proud of my early life, you see. I was impudent, arrogant, and could be impulsive and… cruel, at times. Not the sort of stories one tells over tea and cakes." His expression brightened.

"But I would gladly tell you about Law. He was one of my rare friends, and that period of my life is one I'm actually proud of." Adom remained seated, sensing there was more coming. Biggins leaned forward conspiratorially.

"You'll have to go to the witch to ask her about the other demons. She's not part of their cabal, but she knows about them. It would make everything so much easier if we could finally put faces to our enemies." He sighed dramatically.

"I'd love to accompany you, but I'm rather banned from the Fae Realm. Permanently, I'm afraid. Something about property damage and unseemly behavior during a visit."

"I opened a guild for the Fae Realm dungeons. I can go there soon, I think." Adom shifted his weight, thinking it through.

"The last time I met the witch, when we made our deal, I asked for safe passage to her domain. So maybe I could talk to her." Biggins got to his feet as well, moving to an ornate wooden drawer that definitely hadn't been there a moment before.

"Bring Cyrel with you. It will make the witch easier to talk to if her daughter is there."

"Got it." Adom nodded, then set his empty cup down.

"I should get going, then. I've a few things to see to before the day's out."

"Young Adom!" He turned back just in time to catch a small cloth package that Biggins tossed his way. It was warm and smelled like the tea they'd just shared.

"What's this?"

"More of the blend we just had." Biggins's expression grew unusually serious.

"You were quite tense today, so keep it with you."

"Thanks."

"Of course. This world has a way of piling weight on your shoulders when you least expect it. When you find yourself wound so tight you can't think straight, and the stress feels like it's crushing your chest and you can't remember the last time you took a proper breath..." He gestured toward the package.

"Brew some of that. It will help." Adom looked at the package, then back at Biggins. He smiled.

"One day, I'm going to understand everything you say without having to wonder if you might be a bit mad."

"That would take you thousands of years, I'm afraid. Dragons age differently, and madness is really just a matter of perspective." Biggins made shooing motions with both hands.

"Now go! Shoo! Shoo! Off you go!"