Page 90 of Elven Lies

“Recon sat on this route for seventy-two hours,” he whispered. “They confirmed every piece of it twice over. So did you. So did I. I trust them, Roth-Da’al.”

Rebecca nodded and had to look away just to catch her breath again.

She trusted their intel, too. Rick’s recon team had all but pulled a miracle out of thin air when tracking down two of Harkennr’s consistent transport routes, which was more than she could have hoped for three days ago when making the order.

But the convoy transporting a vehicle full of kidnapped and trafficked magicals before sending them to a life of unimaginable horrors inside the Old Joliet Prison should have been here almost forty minutes ago, which definitely concerned her.

Harkennr knew how to play the game. If he hadn’t confirmed the superiority of his own forces and resources the last timethey’d spoken, he certainly suspected it. Either he was waiting for her to show her hand with a move like this, or he was planning a move of his own against her task force. Neither option was preferable.

Rebecca couldn’t shake the gut-wrenching suspicion that, even with all their careful planning and strategic preparation, not to mention the perfectly timed influx of working capital to better outfit the entire organization, something would go horribly wrong tonight.

Not the way it always went horribly wrong with Aldous in charge. The kind of horribly wrong that scattered her teams into the night, cracked them open like eggs, and left them spilled all over the interstate, left for someone else to find in the morning.

Any loss among her operatives was a hard blow. Now, though, Rebecca had spent enough time in command to vividly imagine how deeply losing any of the magicals she’d come to know would break her, and how quickly.

Everyone’s lives were on the line tonight, each one of them placed willingly into the Roth-Da’al’s hands because they believed in what she was doing and were ready to join her.

The same way the armies of Agn’a Tha’ros would have laid down their lives for the Bloodshadow Heir, no matter their probability of success or the cost. No matter the purpose or the ideology driving it.

She’d never wanted to lead anyone. Not councils, not courts, not armies, not lives. Yet here she was.

Butthismeant something. This was real.

Knowing that didn’t soothe her thundering pulse or the pre-battle giddiness surging through her. Combined with that warm, heavy, admittedly pleasant and reassuring weight of Maxwell’s presence beside her—that tingling rush re-infusing her cells with every pump of her heart—standing here behind the gas stationoff the highway for three-quarters of an hour became a new brand of torture.

She might not make it through another forty-five minutes like this. Hell, another fifteen felt like an eternity.

Rebecca refused to keep checking the time after that, taking turns with Maxwell to scout the highway in both directions until one of them confirmed the visual and gave the rest of their team the green light.

She did, however, occasionally peek through the single window at the rear of the building to double-check the store clerk slumped back in the chair in the back office. The others could say what they wanted about how much Shade’s healer creeped them out, but no one could deny Zida’s efficiency with potions. They did what she said they would.

The clerk would be unconscious for another hour, at least, and would wake to find himself nearing the end of his shift, hopefully assuming he’d merely fallen asleep during a break in the back. With the gas station’s meager security systems temporarily shut down and the security cameras set to loop a frame of absolutely nothing until 3:42 a.m, the guy would have no cause for concern.

Rebecca made a mental note to thank Rick and his tech team personally after this. Battling other magicals in a human city was one thing. Understanding human technology enough to break it down and stage an unwitnessed ambush at a gas station took his skill set to a whole new level.

She’d let herself get so caught up in the waiting, she didn’t register the twin lights appearing down the dark stretch of highway until she realized she’d been staring at them so long, they’d already doubled in size.

Those were headlights.

With a sharp hiss, spun back around the corner of the building, nodded at Maxwell, and whispered, “Incoming.”

He didn’t bother to look for himself before circling his thumb and middle finger between his lips and letting out a short, harsh whistle.

How much things had changed in the last three weeks, from Maxwell questioning her every literal step to now trusting her to the point that her visual on their potential target was enough for him to move their team to the next phase. No double-checking her work. No second-guessing her information.

When had that shift happened?

The buzz and crackling static of all the gas station’s external lighting, floodlights on the building, lampposts in the parking lot, and the neon backlights of every station pump flickering in quick succession whisked her back to this moment.

Power surges, faulty wiring, and flickering lights weren’t rare at old gas stations along the highway. With nothing else around, this particular flicker was manufactured from Zane positioned on the roof of the building.

Maxwell had assured her the Umbál had a special touch with electronics. He wasn’t wrong.

One power surge through the station’s entire circuitry was only the first signal to look alive. The second would come when they confirmed that the next vehicle to turn into the gas station was who they’d been waiting for.

Maxwell scanned the back of the building and the smaller parking lot behind them as all the lights flickered back on. “Do you think Harkennr knows his night-shift drivers are occasionally behind schedule?”

Rebecca had almost peeked around the corner again to check the oncoming vehicle’s approach, but she stopped to meet the shifter’s gaze instead. “They’re still alive. So no. I don’t think he knows.”

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