Page 148 of Elven Shadow

She didn’t anticipate a hint of aggression to slide in there along with it just for fun, but that was what happened. “Because I told you to.”

Zida’s eyebrow-barely more than a few thin, scraggly hairs in her advanced age—lifted with a twitch before she pointed at Rebecca. “I’ll give you this one because you’re obviously not at your best. But don’t think that’s gonna work on me after you sort out…whatever this is.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but smirk back at the old woman. “Deal.”

Then the healer waddled back through the office door, muttering to herself and tossing up a crooked hand as if she could just brush away all the elf’s ridiculous quirks with a single wave.

As soon as the door clicked shut again, Rebecca let herself relax.

No need to stay so uptight when there wasn’t anyone here to see it.

Letting loose after a giant shot of magical adrenaline and being on the verge of melting into a puddle of homunculus-induced weakness were two very different things. She definitely preferred the former.

As Zida had suspected, Maxwell had apparently waited in line for a private audience with the new Roth-Da’al to ensure he was the last one who saw her for the day after the flood of members coming to swear their oaths and smile and shake Rebecca’s hand.

Which meant that now she was up here in what had become her new office practically overnight, with no healer hovering over her and no Head of Security threatening to unearth all her secrets and nothing else to do.

Nothing else but form a plan for her next steps. Given her current state and how badly she needed a remedy for it, those next steps now revolved around exactly what Rebecca had to do next.

More than anything, what she wanted was to get some breathing room and solitude. To slip out of the compound and do what an incredibly strong hunch was telling her needed to be done in order to heal herself.

Unfortunately, it was one of those things that had to be done in secret, with no one else around and absolutely no witnesses, because she needed her Bloodshadow magic to solve the problem of her mystifying new ailment.

Before Hector’s attack on the compound, sneaking out hadn’t been a problem. No one had kept close enough tabs on her for that. No one had really cared.

Of course, after the last time she’d gone out on her own and Maxwell had followed her, trying to catch her in the act of…whatever he thought she was up to, it already would have been more difficult to leave the safety of the compound’s walls on her own.

But now that she’d taken on this new commander gig—now that Maxwell had literally just admitted to harboring multiple suspicions about her, not to mention his recent promise to unearth all her secrets no matter what—slipping out of headquarters unnoticed would be a hell of a lot harder.

Rebecca had to wait until he left to dispose of the Hector-homunculus box. Then she could make her move.

After that, assuming everything went according to plan—and it did where her Bloodshadow magic was concerned—Rebecca wouldn’t need any more of the healer’s fun little sniffy vials ever again.

She just had to get out of here first.

If she didn’t manage to pull this off tonight, she doubted she would ever find the time again.

Then healing herself with Bloodshadow magic where no one in Shade could see it would end up being one of those things that actuallywasimpossible.

Now, she’d been forced into pulling off the impossible, and she intended to see it through.

But at what cost?

37

Rebecca had already wasted so much time.

She’d thought she’d been so smart.

Then Maxwell figured out all on his own how he wanted to dispose of Hector’s remains and the chopped-up homunculus parts, but the shifter was taking forever.

And now the clock of how much time her manufactured energy from the last emergency vial would actually last was running out.

She’d stayed in her new office, pacing, sitting in the armchair, going through what little existed in the desk drawers and the bookshelves. She’d promised herself she would wait until she knew Maxwell was out of the way, but this was getting ridiculous.

How long had she been up here? Checking the time felt like an impossible task too, because that would only show her exactly how much time she’d already wasted.

When the energizing effects from Zida’s last dose first began to wear off, which now felt a lot sooner than the last time, Rebecca’s restlessness and urgency to get out of here threatened to overpower her.

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