Page 47 of Elven Lies

Halfway across the garage, Rowan stopped and extended his arm toward her. “All right, go ahead. Take it.”

She stopped beside him and looked him over with a frown. “Take what?”

“My arm. I’ll just pop us over there, right to the guy’s doorstep, and save us a whole bunch of time.”

“Nice try.” She stared at his extended arm, then shook her head. “But I’m not gonna bite on that one.”

“Oh, come on. It’s perfectly harmless. You know that.”

“It’s not the physical risks I’m worried about, actually.”

“Well good. You never used to have a problem with it.”

Rebecca resumed her path across the garage, fighting back the tightness in her stomach at the thought. “I’m not willingly going anywhere with youthatway. I’m still not sure you’re taking any of this seriously.”

Let him teleport her all the way to their destination with no way to track where they were when they got there?

Absolutely not.

More than ever now, she suspected this was another of Rowan’s tricks to get her where he wanted her. First, the caveatof the two of them having to go alone, and now he offered instant travel?

They might end up anywhere. Hell, he might even try to take her directly back to the Gateway itself, or somewhere else she’d never agreed to go, and use that as the basis for his argument that they might as well head back home to the Bloodshadow Court now that they’d already left Shade.

If she took his arm, she couldn’t control a single bit of where they ended up.

Rowan shrugged it off casually, as if he’d already expected her response but still had to give it a try. “Fine. Then I’ll drive. Where do we keep the keys?”

Rebecca barked out a laugh. “In your dreams.”

“What, you don’t think I can drive?”

“Even ifyouthink you can, I don’t trust you behind the wheel of anything. Not in this world.”

He puffed out a sigh through loose lips and spread his arms. “Then I’m at a loss here. No teleporting and no driving. So how do you propose we get to where we’re going?”

With a smirk, Rebecca gestured toward the open end of the garage.

“Oh no,” he whined, scrunching up his face. “No, that’s not how this was supposed to go. It was supposed to be fast. To help you get this over with quickly.”

“Hardly anything done right can be done quickly,” she said. “We might’ve driven with someone else, but you made it very clear you wanted this to be just you and the Roth-Da’al, all alone.”

He groaned again. “Not towalk…”

“Well this way, you get a walking tour of the city. AndIget to keep an eye on you personally. You’re not slipping out of this one, Rowan.”

With an overly exasperated huff, he rolled his eyes and quickened his pace toward the garage exit. “Then hurry up.”

Rebecca forced back a smile, which still felt out of place given how much was currently at stake for Shade. But it sure did feel good to have even a small reason to smile, especially now.

This wasn’t the ideal scenario for her, either—just the two of them out in the city on their own. Granted, that meant fewer Shade members for Rowan to mess with on their way to find this key-maker, but it also meant Rebecca would take the full brunt of any shenanigans he tried to pull.

And she knew he would. This was Rowan.

Walking was the only way to ensure she kept an eye on their surroundings in case the need to retrace her steps ever arose. It eliminated most possibilities for the Blackmoon Elf to pull the wool over her eyes and lead her into something she wouldn’t have agreed to willingly. She still wanted to believe he wouldn’t endanger her on purpose, but being overly prepared was far better than to go in blindly trusting anyone.

Even someone she once would have trusted blindly with her life and without a second thought.

Rowan moped silently about it the whole time.

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