Page 159 of Elven Crown

Another explosion crashed against the building and sounded like it threw several large heavy somethings across the rooms above them.

Rowan leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. “Someone who didwhatnow?”

“Cast a Shattering on themselves,” she said. “That’s the furthest thing from a joke you can possibly imagine.”

When he looked up at her, an unexpected seriousness had returned to Rowan’s eyes. He studied her a moment longer, then raised his eyebrows. “Someone important?”

That was a weird question.

At first she didn’t know how to answer it and finally had to go with the generic response of, “It doesn’t matter.”

Then she was free to blast more magitek rounds at the unidentified enemy blasting the same back at her in intermittent bursts.

“Any specific reason?” Rowan asked.

Rebecca shook her head. “Just that it was from an entire lifetime ago.”

An entire lifetime, it seemed, and yet in reality, it had only been six months.

Rebecca had had so much practice over the centuries with picking up new identities and new communities and new roles, then putting them down again just as quickly when it was time to move on.

She’d thought she’d done the same easily enough when she’d left Golden, Colorado six months ago to head across the country, leaving behind a much smaller little private team of expert magical burglars. As well as the people who had formed that team during the several years she’d been a part of it.

And thevestrohímwitch who’d cast a Shattering on herself in secret, far before any of them could have ever suspected that witch would become the next Guardian of the Gateway portal between worlds.

Thinking about Jessica Northwood now filled Rebecca with a startlingly unanticipated sense of nostalgia. And something else…

Something she might have named as missing that part of her life and the magicals who’d shared it with her, if she’d had the time to process the sensation.

Also difficult to do in a magical firefight.

She shook herself out of the memories before spinning toward the doorway to open fire once again, wondering just how long these unidentified magicals attacking from above could hold.

When the augmented rounds of explosive attack magic she’d been firing from her pistol ran out and she had to drop back against the inside wall again to reload, Rebecca returned to the present and the current pain in her ass.

After confirming the lack of alcoholic beverages inside the abandoned park shop, Rowan had now given up investigating their current hiding place.

He’d dropped to the floor across the doorway from her and now sat cross-legged, facing her, holding his knees and heaving exasperated sighs every twenty seconds while the weapons fire continued non-stop. “Okay. I’m just gonna say it.”

“Or you couldnot,” Rebecca quipped before ramming her new, fully loaded clip back into her pistol and firing through the doorway again.

At least he waited for her to stop shooting before he continued his unsolicited thought. “This is getting ridiculous. I mean it. If you’re not gonna go solve this issue yourself,I’lldo it. It’ll take me a little longer, but hey. It’s better than being shot at and wasting even more time.”

She rolled her eyes. Just more of his constant bullshit chatter.

Until, when she next glanced his way during the firefight, Rowan had finished pushing himself back to his feet.

“Wait, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Someone’s gotta do it,” he said, gesturing calmly and casually toward the open doorway that lacked a door or any additional cover while spells, curses, battle magic, and magitek rounds crashed and sizzled and fired outside. “If it can’t be you, I get it. You’ve got your own angle. That’s fine.”

At first, she wouldn’t let herself believe this was anything but more posturing from the Blackmoon Elf. But when he didn’t stop or slow down on his way to the door, Rebecca’s insides churned with apprehension and disbelief.

“Don’t you dare!” she called after him.

“No, no. It’s all right,” he said, waving her off. “I can take one for the team. It’s nothing new.”

“Hey! We don’t know who these assholes are or what else they want besides our heads,” she argued. “We only know a sliver of what they’re capable of. If you walk through that door, you’re jeopardizing the entire mission!”

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