Page 51 of Elven Lies

“And created the bullshit fulfillment of the prophecy when none of it actually existed.”

When Rowan turned abruptly down an intersecting corner without giving her a heads-up first, she gritted her teeth and forced herself not to yell at him. “You won’t change my mind on any of this, Rowan. I’ve seen the world. Two worlds, actually, and far more of either than you ever will if you keep going this way. The old prophecies and destiny and laws don’t apply anymore—”

“They apply toeveryone,” he interrupted, then stopped and stared blankly at her as if he’d forgotten who she was.

“What is it?”

“Hold on.” He took several steps backward until he lined up with the mouth of an alley on their left. “Yep.”

Then he took off into the alley.

Rebecca searched the surrounding area, but they were so far alone, unnoticed and unwatched, though for how much longer, she couldn’t begin to guess. Now that they were out together, though, she felt obligated to keep an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t create even more trouble than he was worth.

Which was just about impossible these days, anyway.

“What were you saying?” he asked as he moved briskly down the alley, searching the grime-coated walls and lightly stepping over oil-slickened puddles.

“I wasn’t,” Rebecca replied. “I’ve been finished from the moment I left Agn’a Tha’ros.”

“Right. When you stopped being who you are and started playing at someone else. I get all that, but you don’t have any proof the prophecy doesn’t apply or that you don’t still have a duty to—”

“Blue Hells, Rowan! Since when did you care at all about duty? I’m so sick of hearing about duty.”

“But you still can’t prove the prophecies are wrong…”

“And you can’t prove it’s right!” she snapped, bordering on losing control of her volume. So she forced herself to calm down again. The last thing they needed was to be questioned by any curious bystander listening to two people yell at each other about nonsense down an empty alley before trying to get involved.

“Show me the proof,” she added, her voice much calmer now. “Proof you didn’t just cook up on your own and that hasn’t been shoved down your throat by the elders. Show me that, andmaybeI’ll consider what it means. But until then—”

“Wait, wait.” Rowan thrust a finger in the air, his gaze flickering back and forth across the alley wall, then his smile returned and he nodded. “Oh yeah. This is definitely the place.”

Rebecca turned in a slow circle before spreading her arms. “What, the dumpster?”

He looked over his shoulder at her and chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Then he walked toward the alley’s left wall, whispering something unintelligible under his breath, and stopped.

There was nothing there but old, stained bricks that looked even grimier than the dumpster that likely hadn’t been cleanedin years. The Blackmoon Elf pointed at a number of bricks one at a time, tilting his head back and forth, then finally pressed a hand down on the grossest stain among all the others. “He gave me incredibly specific directions. I’m sure this is it.”

“Directions to a brick wall? Rowan, I swear, if this whole thing ends being nothing but a massive waste of my time…”

“Well don’t write it all off just yet. You haven’t even talked to the guy.”

“What guy?”

He cleared his throat, still squaring up to the brick wall, then rapped his knuckles against the nasty, damp, sticky-looking stain on the bricks and waited.

She stared blankly at him, hoping this wasn’t part of some elaborate hoax. She couldn’t afford to be led off track like this. Not when Shade still needed viable resources for taking the game to Harkennr ontheirterms and not his.

The longer they stood in the alley, with Rowan expectantly facing the brick wall he’d knocked on while nothing happened, the more Rebecca started to worry he might have lost his mind in his alleged search for her. That would have explained so many things…

When still nothing happened, it occurred to her that, for as much as she knew she wouldn’t enjoy it, the best thing she could probably do for herself and for Shade—short of eliminating Harkennr immediately, through some miracle—was to get rid of Rowan.

Not permanently but in a way that would make it impossible for him to return. A way that would prohibit him from interfering with her world now, if he remained so intent on screwing with her the way he clearly was now.

The only issue there was figuring out how to do that without physically harming him and without inadvertently offering himsome loophole through which he would just come right back to find her and start up with this lost cause all over again.

“Rowan?” she called from further back down the alley. “You said you knew exactly where to find this guy.”

---