Chapter 20

Caleb blinked, lifting his hands up in front of his eyes and flexing his fingers.

We’re free. We’re free! We’re free!!

His dragon would have been turning loop-the-loops if it had been flying, joy and happiness surging through every fiber of its being. He’d thought it would be more difficult to tell when the curse had been lifted, since he hadn’t really known that he’d feel any different. But now that it was gone…

It’s like night and day, he thought wonderingly, looking up at the sky, somehow more miraculously blue than it ever had been before. The trees’ fall colors looked more brilliant. The birds sang more beautifully. Everything was just a more beautiful shade of color and light. Caleb was half-tempted to wind down the window of Kira’s car and stick his head out of it like a happy dog, just to feel the wind on his face and smell the scents in the air, to know that all of this was what it felt like to be free of the curse he’d been under since the day he was born.

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe things can actually feel this way…

“You all right there?” Kira asked, glancing across at him as she drove. “You look a little like you’re spacing out a bit.”

“What?” Caleb said, blinking and shaking his head. “Oh – no! I’m fine – better than fine. Sorry if I seem to be spacing out. I guess I am a little. I just… everything feels so much… more than it did before. I don’t know if I can even describe it. I feel like I’ve been wearing a tight-fitting hat for hours, and now someone’s finally taken it off.”

Kira laughed. “Sounds like me getting home from a long day of work and finally flinging my bra across the room,” she said, before laughing sheepishly. “Sorry. That was probably a bit too much information.”

“Not at all.” Caleb shot her a grin. “I’d like to see that.”

Kira laughed, but this time, it was unrestrained and joyful. “Well, play your cards right and you might just get to. Or if you play your cards wrong. Or even if you don’t play cards at all.”

Caleb laughed. “Well. That sounds like a promise to me.”

“We should probably keep our minds on the job for now though,” Kira said, sobering. “Dragon’s luck or not, we probably need to keep our wits about us.”

“Yeah.” Caleb nodded. “It’s especially true since… well, I’ve never been able to use my dragon’s luck before. It’s all just theoretical to me. If we had more time we could do some experiments, try a few things out. But…”

Kira nodded. “But we don’t. The protection on the land ends the day after tomorrow, and I don’t know if we’ll find what we need today, or if we’ll be able to convince Heit to meet with us. We need to do it as soon as possible.”

Caleb had found he couldn’t argue with Kira’s plans as she’d laid them out to him before they’d gotten in the car to drive to the county records office. She’d already told him that the clerks at the office were being weirdly evasive and unhelpful about finding what she needed, insisting that the only copy of the will – if it had ever existed in the first place – had burned up in the fire, and no one knew what it had said.

I think they’re hiding a copy,Kira had said. I don’t know why, but… well, it’s just a feeling I have. Or maybe they don’t know where it is, but they won’t look.Either way, it’s giving Tongle Heit exactly what they want.

Caleb found it hard to disagree with Kira’s assessment. She’d told him how many times and how much she’d begged for either the clerk working in the records office to have a thorough look for the will, or to let her into the archives to have a look for herself.

She’d always been met with the same answer: Sorry, that section is restricted. And I have better things to do than look for a document I know was all burned up. You’ll just have to accept it, Ms. Dearborn.

Caleb wondered if Heit had paid a bribe to the clerk’s office, or made some other kind of promise to them that had made their stonewalling worthwhile to them. It made him grind his teeth in rage to think about it.

A dragon would destroy an enemy of their mate – any enemy, no matter how puny,his dragon informed him loftily. This is what we should do now.

I’m not destroying anyone or anything, Caleb told it firmly. I just want the will. Once we have that, nothing else matters, all right? No destroying! It would be counter-productive anyway, since we need the will intact and whole!

His dragon retreated into sulky silence, its eyes glowing petulantly. Caleb knew that it would want to destroy what it perceived to be Kira’s enemies no matter what he told it, but it would just have to accept his word as law on this.

Maybe, if Heit isn’t willing to deal with us properly, we’ll see what happens,Caleb told his dragon after a moment or two, hoping that that might mollify it a little. To be honest, he was a little concerned about his newfound luck evaporating – he assumed the luck came from his dragon, and the dragon might not be willing to share if it was in a huff.

Whatever the case, the possibility of maybe a little destruction perked the dragon up enough for some anticipatory smoke to begin rising from its nostrils.

“We’re here,” Kira said, as she rounded a corner, and then turned the car into the parking lot of a kind of nondescript government office. It looked pretty much like any other official building Caleb had ever seen before – like a rural DMV, or something of that nature.

Stopping the car, Kira turned to Caleb. “Are you completely sure you want to go through with this?”

“Of course I am.” Caleb reached out, taking her hand. “You tried to do this the proper way, and you’ve been stymied at every turn. You know what you’re doing is the right thing. Maybe if Tongle Heit were willing to play fair to begin with, things might have been different. But you have to protect the parklands, the way you know they were supposed to be protected.”

Kira drew in a shaky breath, squeezing Caleb’s hands in her fingers.

“I know. I just don’t like pulling you into my problems –”

“There’s no such thing as a problem that’s yours alone anymore,” Caleb told her. “I mean it. Any problem of yours is a problem of mine. And I’ll always be by your side to help you fix them.”

He watched as Kira’s eyes teared up. Blinking fiercely, she lifted her hand to wipe her face.

“Okay. I can’t start crying now,” she said. “Otherwise they’ll know something’s up. But just… know how much I appreciate it, Caleb. And how much I love you.”

Our mate loves us! She loves us! We have proved ourselves worthy of her!

His dragon’s victorious roar echoed through Caleb’s head, temporarily blotting out all thought except his utter joy that his mate loved him – the feeling he’d only ever dreamed he would feel.

“I love you too, Kira,” he said, as his hand traveled up over her shoulder to her chin, tilting her head up for a kiss.

Even as warmth surged through him, Caleb knew they couldn’t get too caught up. Forcing himself to draw back, he gave Kira a quick nod, and together, they got out of her car.

“The side door is around the corner to the left,” Kira whispered as they walked. “You can’t miss it. And I know there’s only one staff member on today – it’s not like we have the budget here for more than that, or that it gets so busy that there’s a need for two. So once I get the one that’s here talking, you should hopefully have a bit of time to sneak around. Still, best not to take your time over things.”

Caleb nodded. “You got that right. I’ll be as quick as I can. I promise. Hopefully I don’t need any training – the luck will just flow back into me.”

“Do you… feel lucky?” Kira asked, a little cautiously.

“I’m not sure,” Caleb had to admit. “I don’t really know what that would feel like. But I don’t feel unlucky, if that counts for anything.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to find out,” Kira said. “One way or another. But you better get on your way – I don’t want the clerk to see us together.”

“Sure thing,” Caleb said. “Good luck.”

Kira laughed. “And you too – let’s hope you don’t need anything extra.”

Caleb shot her a grin as he parted from her, making his way across the parking lot around the side of the building. As much as he wanted to give Kira the impression that he was confident, he was in fact feeling more nervous than he wanted to admit. But he wasn’t sure how to go about testing luck – should he see if a plate didn’t break if he picked it up? Should he check that he didn’t fall down a set of stairs? It wasn’t like the curse had always made those things happen, so it would have been difficult to tell. The curse had picked its moments – that had been part of what had made it so annoying.

And I guess luck comes in many forms,Caleb thought, as he rounded the corner of the records office. Maybe I won’t know it until I see it.

As it happened, however, Caleb saw luck just a moment later – or what he took to be luck anyway. He’d assumed the side door of the records office would be locked. He’d figured he’d need to cross that bridge when he came to it – but instead, he now saw as he got closer that it wasn’t even closed, or not properly anyway. Somehow, a piece of… something, had gotten caught in the door from the inside, and it had prevented the door from latching completely.

Caleb paused, looking at it. Whoever had closed the door clearly hadn’t noticed the piece of material – or whatever it was – sticking out of the bottom corner of the door, and had simply pulled it closed behind them, without checking to see if it was latched.

It felt weird, seeing something that worked so perfectly in his favor right there in front of him. To be honest, Caleb felt a little suspicious of it.

Is this going to be something where it looks like it’s fine, but when I open it the entire door is going to fall out of its frame on top of me, and make such a loud noise it brings everyone in a fifty-mile radius running to see what’s happened?

Within him, his dragon’s eyes glowed with an air of smugness.

Perhaps you should simply see what happens,it said, sounding as if it knew something Caleb didn’t.

Perhaps it did – perhaps, if it was the dragon’s magic, it was more aware of what was and wasn’t working than Caleb himself was.

One thing he did know was that he couldn’t stand around here all day debating with himself about what to do.

Taking a deep breath, he reached out for the doorhandle, twisting it, and gently pulled the door open.

Nothing happened.

Well – nothing that wasn’t supposed to happen. The door simply opened, and Caleb saw that it was a piece of doormat that had gotten stuck underneath it, preventing it from closing properly.

I think I’ll leave that where it is,Caleb decided as he stepped through the door, silently closing it behind him but being sure to leave the piece of mat wedged in the corner. It’d be just his luck to come back and find out the door was self-locking, and he needed a key or fob to get back out again.

Once the door was shut, Caleb took a moment to survey his surroundings. He was standing in a plain corridor, with not much to see in it – a coat, clearly the clerk’s, hung on a hook on the wall, and their muddy boots sat on the floor below. In front of him at the end of the corridor he could see part of a room, though not much of it was visible from where he stood.

Well, here goes nothing.

Moving as quietly as he could, Caleb walked slowly down the corridor. As he came closer to the room at the end of it, he could hear voices – one of them was clearly Kira’s, but the other he didn’t recognize.

It must be the clerk’s.

Cautiously, Caleb peered out from around the corner. From here, he could see the front desk of the records office – and the clerk.

Caleb pulled his head back around the corner quickly, but after a moment, his brain fully processed what his eyes had seen: the clerk had had his back to him as they spoke with Kira, who hadn’t been visible, though Caleb could still hear her voice as she kept the clerk busy.

“ – No, I’m not saying you don’t know how to do your job,” Kira was saying patiently. “I’m just saying that I’ve sent the letter three times now, and no one’s gotten back to me at all about it –”

Caleb wondered if Kira was talking about something that had actually happened during her wrangling with the records office, or if she was just fibbing to buy him some time. Either way, he knew he had to make the most of it.

Moving swiftly and silently, Caleb darted across the space where the clerk could have turned around at any moment and seen him. He was guessing from the lack of an outraged shout, however, that he hadn’t been noticed. The back end of the office was far more expansive than the front – that had just been a desk and a little reception area. Back here, it seemed, there was far more room.

Pulling in a breath, Caleb made his way through another door – unlocked, he was happy to find – and into a huge room filled with metal filing shelves. There were twenty or so of them, standing in rows, and they extended all the way back to the far wall. And on each and every one of them were stacks of documents, boxes, and folders, and any one of them could have contained the documents he needed to save the Girdwood Springs parkland.

All right. I guess I just… have to go for it.

But go for what Caleb still wasn’t quite sure he understood.

But he wasn’t going to find out by standing here feeling mildly overwhelmed. Squaring his shoulders, he headed to the first shelf.

I suppose… I suppose what I’m looking for is something old,he thought, as he let his eyes drift over the first few stacks of manila and concertina folders. But it might be in a new folder, so that’s not much help.

Caleb swallowed down his frustration. He knew he needed to stay calm and keep a clear head. Looking for the will might be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but he’d felt the same way about trying to find the cure for his bad luck curse as well, and he and Kira together had still managed that. If anything, that had been even harder – he hadn’t even been looking for the right kind of thing when he’d first arrived! And he’d still been under the curse!

And yet, together, we did it,Caleb thought, feeling new resolve fill him. All I have to do, I guess, is look. And try to rely on my luck.

Still, it wasn’t easy. For the first time in his life, Caleb had to try to trust that things would go well for him – that all the cards would fall his way. After a lifetime of bad luck, it wasn’t something that came naturally to him.

Maybe… maybe it’s something that responds to touch? he thought, as he lifted a hand and ran his fingertips over the bottom of the shelf. He recalled something his father had once told him, when he’d returned from a buying trip to Europe. I can’t describe it, Caleb, he’d said. Somehow, when you find what you’re looking for, you just know. It’s like a sixth sense – a feeling that yes, this is exactly right.

Caleb frowned. He wondered if he’d know that feeling if it hit him with a truck – only to remember just how strongly he’d known Kira was his mate.

I could recognize that even though I’d never felt a mate bond before,he thought. Even though I had no reason to expect anything good would happen to me that day. I still knew, and I knew what I was feeling. I just have to trust my instincts.

Caleb pressed his lips firmly together. If there was one thing that was certain, it was that self-doubt and second-guessing were going to get him nowhere.

Lifting his hand again, Caleb walked along the aisle between the shelves, skating his fingers gently over each document, file, and box. Nothing had happened by the time he reached the end of the shelf, but, undeterred, Caleb simply made his way down the next aisle, still running his fingers gently over the documents as he passed.

Still nothing.

Still nothing on the next shelf, and the next.

Caleb knew he must be running out of time – Kira couldn’t keep the clerk in an argument about whether her letters of complaint had or hadn’t been answered indefinitely.

Pulling in a deep breath, Caleb started down the next shelf, his fingers sliding over the stacked folders.

Nothing here either,he thought with something close to desperation as he neared the end of the shelf. I guess that’s – wait.

As Caleb began to pull his fingers away from the shelf, he felt a sudden warmth shoot through his hand, all the way up his arm – almost as if he’d just experienced a very mild, non-painful electric shock.

What was that?!

Within him, his dragon had suddenly lifted its head, smoke coiling up from its mouth and nose.

We have sensed something!

Raising his hand again, Caleb slowly ran his fingers over the last few folders on the shelf, this time moving his hand more carefully over their spines.

There it was again – a rush of warmth, tingling up his arm from the tips of his fingers.

It’s here. It’s here. This is what we’re looking for.

His dragon’s voice was a low, but very confident growl.

Caleb hesitated a moment – but then he decided to trust it. Reaching up, he pulled down the folder that had sent the tingling feeling down his arm and opened it.

Nothing about the contents jumped out at him at first – it seemed to be budget reports and receipts from twenty years ago for things acquired by the county, like plots of land, cars, and building refitting costs. Caleb flicked through them all quickly, realizing that none of them were what he was after almost as soon as he laid eyes on them.

After the receipts and budget reports there were a few pieces of formal correspondence – also nothing that he needed.

None of these things is a will…Caleb thought, his heart sinking. But then, he’d only just gotten his magic – was it so surprising that he didn’t know how to use it yet?

His dragon, however, said nothing – it just continued to smugly breathe smoke. Sighing inwardly, Caleb shuffled on through the papers… until his hand lighted on a thick envelope, hidden inside a pocket on the back cover of the folder. Once again, he felt the warm prickle of electricity up his arm, but it was stronger this time, more powerful.

Caleb licked his lips. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it just yet, as he rested the folder on the shelf in front of him, and then, with slightly shaking hands, pulled the envelope from where it had been stuffed inside the pocket.

It was old – old enough that the glue of the envelope was no longer working, and the paper had become soft and worn. Carefully, Caleb opened it up, pulling out the folded documents within, a thick wad of paper.

Just as carefully, he unfolded the paper. It was thin enough that he needed to be extremely gentle with it, just to stop it from tearing as he touched it. But one glance at the writing across the top was enough to tell him what he needed to know: there, in thick Gothic letters, were written the words The Last Will and Testament of Mason George Thomas Girdwood II –

But Caleb barely had time to register what he was looking at before he heard something that made his blood run cold: the sound of the door leading into the records room being opened.

Caleb stood stock-still. He could hear annoyed muttering and footsteps from the far side of the room, but he couldn’t see anyone – thankfully, he was blocked from view by the massive shelves standing between him and the door. Kira must finally have run out of ways to keep the clerk busy.

But that just means I need to get out of here. And fast.

Carefully folding the will away again, Caleb slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Moving swiftly and silently, he made his way along the back wall. He could sense someone coming closer – all his dragon’s senses were on high alert, its instincts telling him which way to move.

He’s in the aisle we were just in,his dragon informed him, its eyes darting. Caleb knew it was right – he could see the clerk’s shadow as he moved down the aisle. Not wasting a moment, Caleb darted down the next aisle, heading toward the door.

Almost there –

Caleb would just have to hope the clerk wouldn’t turn around as he slipped out the door.

He won’t,his dragon purred – and he didn’t.

Caleb was almost expecting the angry shout from behind him, or for the shelves to collapse down on top of him, or for the door to jam, or any number of ridiculous things that could have – would have – happened if he’d still been under his curse. But instead, all that happened was that he easily pushed open the door and slipped through it, back out into the corridor.

And now, to get out of here.

Caleb hurried back the way he’d come, but this time, instead of going out through the side door, he simply jogged out past the front desk and out of the glass front doors. There was no sense in doing it covertly if he could just do things the simple way, after all.

As he made his way across the parking lot, he could see Kira sitting in her Range Rover, her face pale and tense, her fingers gripped around the steering wheel as if her life depended on it.

He smiled at her as he jogged over to the car, hoping she’d understand him, though he didn’t dare take the will from his pocket – he wouldn’t have put it past the curse to have one last nasty surprise for him, with a passing seagull swooping down to snatch it from his hand.

Still, Kira looked over at him, her expression anxious, when he opened the door.

“Did you – oh man, I don’t even know if I can bring myself to ask,” she said, shaking her head, looking at her white-knuckled hands.

Caleb grinned at her. “I got it.”

The look of joy that spread across Kira’s face when she turned to look at him was like looking at the breaking dawn – just as awe-inducing, and twice as lovely.

“You –!” She flung herself forward across the passenger seat, wrapping her arms around him. “I can’t believe this! You found it?!”

“Yeah,” Caleb laughed, once he’d managed to extract himself from the kisses she was enthusiastically planting all over his face. “It was in some old folder full of receipts and things, and then in an envelope… I’m not surprised it couldn’t be found, but then, it seems like the clerk wasn’t that interested in helping you either.”

“Yeah, I always wondered about that,” Kira said, a little darkly. “Maybe it was just laziness. But…”

“Mm. But.” Caleb nodded. “But I guess that’s kind of small potatoes, compared with what we have to do next.”

“Right.” Kira pressed her lips together, but the sparkle of hope remained strong in her eyes. “But I think we can do it.”

“I think you might be right,” Caleb told her, as she started the car.