Page 7 of The Elven Spymaster's Thief

“As I was saying, I will tell you where the dagger is if you tell me why it is so important to you.”

As she spoke, I mentally checked off the places she had touched within the room. My gaze fell on the curtains. Pale blue brocade, they were heavy enough to darken the room to almost night at noon. Spelled against fading and dust, they were otherwise innocuous. I glared at them, they were hanging oddly. She had touched them.

Striding across the room, I grabbed the cloth panel that hung closest to where she had lingered at the window. Sliding my hands down the seams, I sought any imperfections. My right hand encountered a lump. She had unpicked, no, sliced the threads holding down the unfinished edge of the fabric and slipped the dagger sheath first into the gap. I pulled it forth.

“I still want to know.”

I ignored her. Reaching for my magic, I violently pulled on my storage spell. The dagger disappeared with a savage snap. I stalked over to the map and summoned Dargan.

“Visit Osmond,” I ordered with barely contained anger.

Dargan left without a word.

Folding up the maps and stacking the reports, I carried them to my desk. The woman wisely stayed out of my way, retreating to the wall again. Opening the drawer, I tapped the filing spell on it and shoved the stack into the folded space within. Then, not bothering to glance her way, I strode from the room.

To my great annoyance, she followed at a loping pace.

I would do my morning training. Surely that would discourage her from interfering with my routine. The added benefit of using acute focus to keep track of the complicated moves of my opponent would distract me from the fact that she was there. Why were my senses so preoccupied with her breathing?

My usual sparring partner, Maury, waited for me in the middle of the training room at the far end of the palace. His pale skin and ice blond hair set off his cold blue eyes, but none of it was as intimidating as his stature and breadth. I kept more fit than most light elves due to the nature of my work. Still, Maury relished in physical exertion of any kind, which showed in his heavily muscled body.

“Who is she?” he asked as I approached across the subtly matted floor.

“My new pet. Ignore her.”

Maury blinked and nodded. “Sparring with or without magic?”

“Without.” I was in the mood for physical training more than mental.

“Prepare.”

I ran through my stretches before Maury interrupted with an aggressive run at my back. I evaded him, spun, and lunged for the row of clubs hanging on the interior wall. Maury almost beat me there, but I managed to grasp two smooth clubs before he moved in for his next attack.

∞∞∞

Avril

Whispier’s movements were like music, fluid, beautiful, and powerful. His opponent was less graceful but no less deadly. The pair moved back and forth across the massive space with a series of sharp cracks as their weapons met again and again as they danced.

Thrice the size of the entrance hall, the high walls of the expansive room boasted floor-to-ceiling windows that sent long patterns of light across the floor. At the base of the windows, an array of potted trees, bushes, and plants clustered close to the walls as though for protection from the violence in the center.

I snorted to myself. I didn’t know what it was about elves and green things, but the whole palace was peppered with potted plants. Lilies in the corridor, ferns in the bed chambers, and cacti in the kitchen, I was running into displaced plants everywhere I turned.

I glanced at the pair of combatants again. They appeared uninclined to pause any time soon.

To stave off my boredom, I leisurely wandered along the only windowless wall in the room. Clubs, ropes, weights, and other equipment hung along the perimeter. I picked up a selection of balls from a bin. Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, they felt of equal weight. Giving one of them a tentative toss, I launched it into the air in a controlled arc. Perfect. I grinned in delight. Picking a bit of wall between a stack of towels and a wooden bench, I settled on the floor and crossed my legs.

Launching the first ball into the air, I took great pleasure in the graceful arch. The second followed it. Soon I had five balls whirling through the air, seeming to move like magic from one hand to the other in a dancing arch of colors.

The rhythmic strikes of the smooth round spheres in my hands soothed my frayed nerves. And once my hands fell into a pattern, I could almost convince my mind to calm.

“What are you doing?” Whispier demanded.

I lost my rhythm and faltered in the pattern. Balls scattered in all directions. Despite my efforts, I only managed to catch three. The yellow one bounced twice and then rolled toward the far wall. The remaining one, a bright green, rolled directly over to bump into the spymaster’s bare foot.

When had he removed his shoes? For some reason, I couldn’t reconcile naked toes with the vicious spymaster I knew him to be.

“Juggling.” I lifted my chin defiantly. If he was going to ignore me, I intended to entertain myself. “Surely you have heard of it. It is a human trick of hurling objects through the air without magic.”

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