“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.