Page 150 of Elven Crown

But a quarter-mile in, the rescue team came upon their first building in the area. The faded sign hanging over the small window frame, its glass having been smashed out long ago, was almost impossible to read until they came right up to it.

Rebecca tilted her head to match the angle of the sign hanging almost completely sideways and dangling from a single rusty nail: ‘Tickets Sold Here.’

Tickets to what?

She noticed the other operatives sparing confused glances toward the same small shed, but they kept moving, following Whit’s lead.

Shortly after that, a larger series of buildings came into view against the night sky. The largest was a long, narrow structure reminiscent of a lodge or giant industrial hallway disconnected from a main building. All the windows were busted out as well, only some of the open frames haphazardly boarded over, as ifsomeone had tried to preserve the building, but had given up halfway.

Then they came upon the rides. Large, chunky machines meant to mimic the shapes of clowns or enormous mice or teacups. The metal frames had rusted over so badly, their red-brown coloring was almost brighter in the darkness than the scratched and faded paint of once vividly garish, cartoon-looking figures inviting children of all ages to climb aboard for the fun. Most of those figures were missing a head or an arm or both.

The abandoned theme park boasted no visible signs of its name or the former glory it might have once enjoyed, but it quickly became clear that this place had been shut down and abandoned for some time. Multiple decades, at least.

What an odd place for Shade’s unidentified enemy to hide and hold kidnapped operatives captive, but at least the chances of being interrupted or discovered by humans were incredibly small, if not non-existent.

Rebecca’s gut clenched even tighter at the thought that their captured operatives could be anywhere at this point. So could the enemy.

The farther the team moved across the abandoned park, the more outbuildings and dilapidated rides they encountered. Rebecca hoped Whit’s tracking system was detailed, or the team would have to breach and clear more buildings just to find the missing operatives, and that would take significantly more time.

Time their captured people couldn’t afford.

A concrete path reappeared halfway through the collection of rides, split and cracked over time where stubborn weeds had pushed through from the earth below. Every building looked ready to collapse at the slightest touch, many of them missing half their bricks and every door removed or bashed in, each window missing its glass and open to the elements.

The team worked to sweep every section they approached, clearing the areas behind the rundown rides before moving on. Even with the location of Diego and Titus’s cell phones signaling back to them and leading the way, this place felt just as abandoned as it looked.

There was no sign of movement in the darkness. No noise beyond the whispering crunch of operative boots across gravel, or cracked concrete, or the dried brown husks of overgrown weeds that had perished beneath the summer heat.

Rebecca had almost forgotten Rowan had joined this mission until he appeared at her side again and snorted.

“Nowthislooks more like home than anything else I’ve seen in this world.”

The ruins of someone else’s golden age reclaimed by natural forces to become nothing more than a ghost of what it had once been? Yes, that was a fitting description of most areas of Xahar’áhsh as it had been when Rebecca had stolen away from her home world so long ago.

She had no idea what things looked like back home now, but this was hardly the time for reminiscing.

She kept her gaze trained on the darkest patches of shadow around the run-down buildings and the broken, forgotten rides, and kept moving.

“This is a rescue mission,” she hissed at Rowan. “Not a sightseeing tour.”

He chuckled, and she fought back the urge to club him over the head for being so recklessly loud here.

“I don’t see why it can’t be both,” he said.

Clearly, he also didn’t see why conversation was more likely to jeopardize this rescue op.

Ignoring him was the best way to avoid encouraging him further. But if he kept this up much longer, she might have to do something about it, and that would only be another distractionthey couldn’t afford. Not to mention the fact that she’d vouched for Rowan’s presence here to Maxwell, hoping Rowan would behave himself far more than he had at the docks.

She hoped she hadn’t misjudged him that much.

Then, amid so much darkness and emptiness lending an eerie silence to the abandoned park, a new sound reached them.

It started as a grinding screech that crackled and popped through the air until a tinny, high-pitched tune in warbling notes followed.

Whatever mechanism now cranked out the dying carnival music achingly picking up speed had been as untouched and neglected as the rest of the park. The tune kept scratching and sticking, dropping into even creepier, lower tones until it picked back up again.

It made Rebecca think of old, dying, broken things, beasts and beings alike.

Whit stopped at the head of their formation and signaled for the team to halt. Everyone complied without question.

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