Page 100 of Elven Throne

True, this was a completely different version of Rowan now, though a version still incredibly familiar to Rebecca. She’d seen this dynamic between him and his sister countless times before, though she had to admit she was also a little surprised to see it in full effect now. Hundreds of years later. After they were all supposed to have grown and matured.

Apparently, not all of them had.

Then Maxwell continued his pacing along the circular wall of the small domed chamber in which they’d found themselves, eyeing the stone ceiling lined with dangerously thick cracks, bits of broken furniture scattered about like the place had once been inhabited but had long since been abandoned.

“Time’s up,” Rebecca said as she approached Rowan. “What are we doing here?”

He snorted and kept rummaging through thin air, pulling at invisible threads she couldn’t see. “When in doubt, find a Peddler.”

“I’m surprised you don’t carry one of those around with you in your pocket at all times,” Maleine quipped.

He tensed in his crouch, as if he’d had enough and was finally about to lash out at her. But then he scrunched up his face, let out a slow exhale, and muttered something under his breath before doing his best to continue ignoring her.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “A Peddler? How’sthatgonna help us?”

Rowan offered a flourishing wave of his hand, as if the answer were obvious. “This one deals in trade.”

“Yeah, and every other magical snake-oil salesman in existence.”

“Forinformation,” he clarified. “This one, I’ve been told, has the exact kind of information we need.”

“You’ve been told? By whom?”

Gritting his teeth, he shook his head and funneled all his attention into whatever spell or weave he still hadn’t gotten right. “Listen, you have your sources, and I have mine.”

“Not anymore, I don’t.” She took one step toward him until the toe of her shoe rested perfectly in his line of sight. “You killed them all.”

Sister whirled toward them, the chamber echoing with her sharp, laughably fake gasp. “Well I’veobviouslymissed quite a bit of fun…”

Rowan paused again, though when he glanced up at Rebecca, there was an unexpected glimmer of guilt and remorse behind his hazel eyes. “That wasn’tentirelymy fault, okay? Not directly. And I already apologized.”

“Oh good. Well then that makes everything better and brings dozens of innocent civilians back to life.Thankyou.”

With a scoff, he went back to his astoundingly inefficient search.

Maleine let out a surprised chuckle. “Rowan…”

This time, hearing his sister admonish him by name, however playful it sounded, made him cringe.

“We see the Peddler,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately to avoid an outburst, “we pay the price of admission, and then we get what we need and move on. It’s that simple.”

“What are you looking for?” Maleine asked.

“Múrg dah’lás, would you just—”

“Rebecca,” Maxwell growled from the other side of the chamber.

She turned toward him to find the shifter pointing at something on the floor against the chamber’s curved stone wall, eyeing her with a knowing look.

Two skeletons, flesh and hair decomposed to nothing amidst ragged strips of cloth, both of them sitting up against the wall.

Rowan snorted. “Oh, it’sRebeccanow, is it?”

Not a question worth answering.

“Care to explain why this special Peddler still has long-term visitors?” she asked instead.

The Blackmoon Elf paused, looked up at her, then spun around in his crouch to eye Maxwell before his gaze fell on the skeletons. His eyes widened, and he cleared his throat. The next second, any discomfort he’d shown disappeared behind another staggering display of cockiness. “Tell you what. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

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