A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4)

by Deanna Raybourn

I was introduced to her and it was like finding part of myself that had been somehow walking the earth without me. She was my other half when I had not realized I was incomplete.”

Oh, how I exulted then! To be engaged in an investigation once more, sparring with Stoker, was to be more myself than at any other time.

But when you make an effort, you are very nearly handsome.” It was the rankest lie. Stoker was not nearly handsome; he was utterly delectable, not in spite of his flaws but because of them. The scar and the untrimmed hair and the signs of rough living only made him seem all the more real. Tiberius might have presented the picture of a perfect gentleman, fresh from his tailor’s bandbox, but Stoker was everything true and vibrant and alive in the world.

A wisp of something upon the wind, dancing just out of the range of my perception. I snapped my head up, forcing my eyes open wide. And there it was, a glasswing, the size of a man’s hand, flapping lazily towards the Cestrum, alighting as elegantly as a queen upon the blossom. I could not breathe, could not speak, and even if I had the power, I would not have roused Mertensia or Stoker. For that moment, the glasswing was my own private little miracle. As I watched, transfixed, another came into the little glade, moving with the same slow majesty. Another came behind, and yet another, until the shrub was full of them, their wings of clear cathedral glass fluttering languidly against the dark green of the vines. Each stood perched upon a single creamy blossom, drinking deeply, the black veins of their wings stark against the white flowers. Almost against my will, I rose and moved towards them, my footsteps noiseless in the damp grass underfoot. They did not notice, or if they did, they did not care. They continued to drink, sipping nectar like Olympian gods. On impulse, I put out my hand, brushing gently against the vine. It shuddered lightly, upsetting the nearest glasswing. She hovered in the air, just above my fingertips, as if deciding whether to grace me with a gesture. She alighted upon my upraised hand as if bestowing a favor, her wings beating double time in case she had need of a hasty retreat. But after a moment she slowed them, walking forwards on legs as slender ...