Page 63 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“I don’t have another panacea,” she said. “It’s not too deep. I’ll deal with it later.”

Vaara pulled his scarf from his face and began tightly binding her arm with it. She gave him a look, but said nothing as he finished wrapping it and tied it off.

Then she smirked in Toreg’s direction. “‘Astra’s tits,’ he says.”

“He said that in his mind?”

“Indeed.”

He hadn’t heard that phrase before. “What does it mean?”

“It means he’s surprised to see you.” She smiled. “Now he’s cursing at me.”

“We should just kill him.”

“Is that really what you think? Truly?”

Vaara looked at her, then down at Toreg.

No, he didn’t really think that. Not now, at least, while she’d taken control of his body and made him helpless. But it hadn’t occurred to him that Crow would have compunctions about things like that—that she would have rules about what she was and wasn’t willing to do with her abilities.

Crow jerked her head pointedly toward the pack on her back. Not a real command, but close enough that it caused a tug on the binding.

“I thought you said there would be no guards,” Vaara said as he pulled a short length of thin rope from the pack. Crow made Toreg get up and march to the gate, where Vaara began tying his hands to it.

“It seems we were expected,” Crow said, frowning.

“Who is he?”

“The one I replaced with you. We met at the prison, briefly.”

Suddenly he could see why she hadn’t wanted to take him. “He seems like an ass.”

“Yes, he does.”

“How did he escape the prison without you?”

“Patros has ways of getting things done. If he wants something, he’ll get it. I’m sure he had a backup plan after he realized I’d failed to retrieve Toreg for him.”

When Toreg was secured to the fence, Crow held onto him for an extra few seconds, staring at him with unblinking, glazed eyes. Her eyes darted side to side and up and down, as if seeing something that wasn’t there, like she was dreaming.

Then she snapped out of it and let go of him. Toreg blinked rapidly.

“Last time we met, you didn’t seem interested in working for anyone,” Crow said, crossing her arms. “What changed?”

Toreg shook his head, still recovering from her attack on his mind. “He told me how much he’d pay me,” he said. “Seems like he really wanted to get you back.”

“Is your loyalty so easily bought?”

“For that amount, anyone’s loyalty could be bought.”

Crow snorted. “Come,” she said to Vaara. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

She went through the front gate, not bothering with the back entrance. There would be no catching him by surprise now.

“Can you fade us?” she asked, taking his arm again. He did as she asked, shrouding them as she approached the front door. She slid a key into the lock, and the door opened with a creak. She waited, as if expecting some kind of trap to explode in their faces, but nothing happened.

The house was large, luxuriously furnished, and spotlessly clean—almost like no one actually lived here. Like it was only pretending to be a home and wasn’t quite succeeding.

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