Page 40 of Elven Lies

Rebecca had been so focused on getting them to see the danger here and to take it seriously enough to act on, she’d forgotten how easily that would lead people to this exact question.

How did she know?

Because she knew Harkennr, and again, that was one more piece of information she couldn’t afford to divulge or explain just now.

“I just have a feeling,” she said.

Zida snorted. “Sure, kid. I used to have feelings all the time. Then I got old.”

Not helping.

But she did have to come up with more of an answer than just herfeelings, though her instincts were usually spot on. Except these days, Rebecca’s instincts seemed to be a little more colored by her past than the present warranted.

No one was ever supposed to know a thing about her previous work with Harkennr, but what she was dealing with now was new and uncharted territory. This issue with Harkennr in thepresent was a much more pressing issue than any one of her past lives before Shade, including the one she’d spent with the warlock.

“Beyond that,” she added, “it does us more good than harm to be especially cautious with this. Trust me, I’m with the rest of you when it comes to what needs to be done. We have to stop him. We have to get those magicals out of that prison, and we have to use whatever means necessary to keep him from doing it again.”

“Sounds like you’ve got something in mind already,” Bor grumbled.

“It’s starting to come together, yeah.” Then Rebecca turned toward Whit and nodded. “Whit, I want you to put a recon team together, and for the foreseeable future, this team needs to be on Harkennr’s trafficking convoys twenty-four-seven.

“I wanna know how many people he’s got abducting these civilians. How often new truckloads are delivered to the prison. Where they come from. Where they’re going. Hell, how often they stop for a pee break. Everything you can find.

“And this is recon only. Do not engage. But in the next forty-eight hours, I wanna know everything there is to know about those new incoming shipments, the regular routes, timing, absolutely everything.”

Whit set his jaw and returned her nod. “I’m on it.”

“Knowing exactly how he’s doing all this is one thing,” Rick said. “But if we’re going up against this guy in any way after that, we’ve got one other serious logistical problem.”

All eyes turned onto the blackhorn, making him look slightly nervous beneath the attention. But when Rebecca and Maxwell both gestured for him to continue, that seemed to buoy his confidence enough.

Rick cleared his throat. “This guy’s outfitted better than pretty much every other operation we’ve seen. It sounds like he’s gotway more resources than we do, which isn’t saying much, but this one’s big. There’s a lot at risk and a whole hell of a lot to lose. If we’re gonna do this right, Shade needs some serious upgrades first.”

Bor grunted and tapped a hand on the table. “Ain’t that always the truth of it.”

“You’re right,” Maxwell replied, “and it’s something that’s been on my mind as well. We’ve had a few improvements recently, but nothing that brings us anywhere close to evenly matched.”

Rebecca shot him a sidelong look, because now they were discussing what they needed to get this done. She’d hoped they would. She just didn’t have any ideas at the moment for helping her task force fix that single but crucially important issue.

“We do have the weapons cache from the docks,” she said, “but I agree, it won’t be nearly enough.”

“Don’t those count as an asset in and of themselves?” Bor asked.

“We can’t liquidate a stolen weapons cache to fund a sting op against the prison,” Maxwell said, centering his wide-eyed gaze on the cook in disbelief. “It’s one thing to use our acquisitions in the field, but selling them and putting that kind of weapons technology back on the streets just to fund an attack? That it’s completely counterproductive.”

“We’re not selling those weapons,” Rebecca added. “That defeats the purpose of having taken them.”

Zida puffed out a sigh and shrugged. “I assumed this was a brainstorming session.”

“That’s exactly what this is,” Rebecca told her. “I want any and all ideas out on the table, because that’s how we figure out what needs to be done next.”

“Except selling off a few fancy weapons.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but smirk at the healer. “Right. Except that. Does anyone have any other brainstorming points to put out there?”

Her council’s response was what she’d expected it to be—blank looks and silence as everyone peered around the table, waiting for the next best option to come from someone else’s mouth. But nothing cropped up, and the silence soon became as cloying as the urgency of this new and dangerous situation in which they found themselves.

Rebecca swiveled back and forth in her chair, wracking her own mind for possibilities.

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