Page 5 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“Oh, do you have a lot of other offers lined up?” she asked, waving to the empty hallway. “Yes, you must have people waltzing in all the time offering to whisk you away to freedom. I’m probably the third one this week.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who wants me? I’m a very sought-after man. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets me out of here, one way or another.”

“How long are you willing to wait? Are you enjoying your time here? Perhaps you’ll enjoy it even more when the next mage comes to take you to their laboratory?”

He gave it some thought. Crow side-eyed the door at the end of the hall. The guards could come through it at any moment.

“You might not get another chance for some time, if you get one at all,” she said. “What’s it going to be?”

“Fine,” Toreg grunted. “Do we leave now?”

“No. I’ll come for you later.”

He frowned. “How much later?”

“When things are ready. It could be another day or so. Lie low until then. Don’t do anything an idiot would do, if you think you can manage that. The next time we see each other, we’ll be on our way out.”

He retreated to the back wall of the cell and folded his arms. He was giving her a look that very much resembled a predator watching prey. “I’m looking forward to it.”

* * *

Crow sat backin her bed in her room on the ground floor of the prison and waited for the sun to set.

It was nicer than her tiny room in Patros’s house in Valtos, Ardani’s capital city. The bed was firmer, the blankets thicker, the windows bigger, even if they had bars across them.

It was raining hard outside, but none of it leaked inside. There was a fireplace in the corner warming the room, and tapestries on the stone walls further insulated the room from the cold. It was pleasantly large and quiet—and most importantly, pleasantly far from Patros.

It was a sad state of affairs when a prison was more comfortable than your own home was, wasn’t it?

If only she really were a mage. She’d call up flames in her hands, kill Patros, then live out the rest of her days alone and free in a nice room like this, beholden to no one but herself.

It was a fantasy she’d had nearly every night since she was a child. She knew she was only torturing herself with it, but she kept thinking about it anyway.

She turned over to peer out the window. The sun had crossed the horizon, and the sky was darkening. It was time. She pulled her small handheld mirror from the drawer in her bedside table and held it out in front of her.

After a moment, a man with cold eyes and a hard set to his mouth appeared in the mirror, looking back at her from the other side. He had an unassuming look, middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly groomed beard. You wouldn’t guess from looking at him that he was the most evil person Crow had ever known.

“Crow,” Patros said flatly. “Kind of you to show up. I did say sundown, did I not?”

She glanced outside again. The sun had only barely set. She couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds late. “Sorry.”

“I see you haven’t been found out yet. Did you meet with Toreg?”

“Yes. He’s agreed to escape with me. Everything is proceeding as planned.”

“Good. Have you met the warden, Alexei?”

She bent her knee and rested her arm on it, holding the mirror at arm’s length. “Not yet. He was away today, but I’m told he’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Just avoid him, if you can. I suspect he’ll spot your antics from a mile away, so don’t try anything with him.”

“You think he’ll be resistant to empathy?”It was uncommon, but she had occasionally encountered people who were immune to empathic suggestion. Some people had greater natural resistance to it than others.

“I think you don’t want to risk finding out. From what I’ve heard of him, I don’t think things will go well for you if you’re caught.”

She thought of the whip scars on the night elf she’d seen upstairs. “All right.”

“But you’ll be long gone by the time he notices anything is awry. Isn’t that right?”

---