Page 58 of Pretense

His own special blend of fake vomit splattered the floor, eliciting another round of curses.

A worker grabbed Edmund by the shoulders. “Out in the alley with you.”

Edmund made a great show of staggering across the room, gagging and pretending to almost vomit one more time, before he left the building, faking vomit drooling down the front of his shirt.

He rushed down the stairs, hunching, as if intent on reaching the alley before losing more of the contents of his stomach. In the time he’d been inside, the sun had set, the streets now deep in shadow except for the places where the gas street lights cast a dim glow.

In the alley, he drew up short.

Jalissa and Sarya already stood in the alley, and they both had cloaks once again covering their clothes. At one side of the alley, a man lay squirming, bound in…were those vines?

Jalissa worried her lower lip, eyeing the mess on his shirt. “I am sorry to pull you out, but this man would not take no for an answer, and I was not sure what to do with him now that he has been subdued.”

Edmund winced. This street was generally safe, but nowhere in a big city was truly safe at this time of night for a woman alone, even if Sarya had been lingering nearby. He’d hoped to be in and out of there a lot quicker than he was.

What were they going to do with the man now? If they simply let him go, he’d run off to the nearest tavern and start telling everyone how he was accosted by an elf near the Sentinel. That was sure to get back to the counterfeiters and make them nervous.

They also couldn’t turn him over to the nearest guard station either. They were bound to ask questions Edmund wasn’t willing to answer. And he didn’t yet know if he could trust the guards who patrolled this district. The counterfeiters could have paid off some of the local guards, which would explain why counterfeit money had yet to be reported.

That left only one option.

“We’ll have to take him with us. I wouldn’t mind questioning him on what he’s seen, if he hangs around this street often.” They wouldn’t be able to hold him long at the palace, but long enough to deal with the counterfeiters. If the man knew anything, he would likely spill it if he thought it would save him from charges of assaulting an elven princess.

Edmund knelt next to the man and hefted him over a shoulder. The man squirmed a bit, making unintelligible sounds past the vine gagging his mouth, but he was too trussed up to fight back.

“This vine is rather handy.” Edmund tugged at the plant binding the man’s ankles. “I’d love to have a pocket full of these that I could use on missions.”

Jalissa nodded, staring down at the man she and Sarya had captured. “I will have to consider how to make them portable…as long as those missions are not in Tarenhiel.”

“If they were in Tarenhiel, plant ropes would do little good.” Edmund grunted as he set out into the darkening streets with the man’s weight across his back. “An elf with plant magic would simply turn the vines against me.”

“True.” Jalissa grinned as she easily kept pace with him, her long stride a perfect match for his. “You would be bringing the means for your own capture in that case.”

As they made their way back to the palace, Edmund stuck to the back alleys, avoiding streetlights, as he led Jalissa and Sarya back to the safe house. There, he left the man on the floor under Sarya and Jalissa’s watchful gaze, while Edmund cleaned up and changed into something more befitting a prince.

When he returned to the main room, Jalissa glanced from him to the man on the floor. He could see her desperation to question him about what he’d seen inside the Sentinel building by the way she wrung her hands and rocked on her heels slightly.

“I’ll tell you when we get back.” He groaned as he picked up the man again. He had not reckoned on carrying a man across half of Aldon. His muscles and back would be sore tomorrow.

“I know.” Jalissa’s warm, brown eyes searched his face. “But you found something, right?”

“Yes.” Though, he wasn’t sure how it all fit together yet.

They hiked the rest of the way across Aldon. When they reached Winstead Palace, Edmund handed the man over to the gate guards and told them to alert General Bloam about the prisoner.

These guards were loyal to the royal family, so they didn’t question Edmund’s orders as the city guards might have. Instead, they let Edmund, Jalissa, and Sarya pass before some of them hustled the man off.

Jalissa stuck to Edmund’s side as he hurried toward Winstead Palace, as if she feared being left out if she didn’t keep up. She didn’t even flinch when they stepped inside the stone palace. If anything, her jaw went harder, her eyes sharper.

Edmund went straight for Averett’s study, breathing a sigh of relief when a light was still on inside. Good. For once he was glad his brother was up late working on paperwork instead of going to bed and sleeping as he ought.

He knocked, waited a moment until Averett’s voice told him to enter, then pushed the door open, Jalissa at his side. Sarya waited outside, taking a place next to the door.

Averett glanced up from the explosion of papers strewn across his large, oak desk. The desk was so massively built that it could stop a bullet if need be. “Jalissa, Edmund, good. I invited that list of elven nobility that you provided, and almost all of them have said yes. Please tell me you have something. I’m going to be holding a press conference at that ball, and it would be nice to be able to announce that we’ve caught the assassin.”

“I have something, but I’m not sure what it is yet.” Edmund closed the door behind him, waiting until Jalissa claimed one of the chairs across from Averett’s desk, before he pulled up a second one and sat. He leaned his elbows on the desk and faced his brother. “What do you know about counterfeit banknotes circulating in Aldon?”

“Counterfeiters.” Averett gaped at him for a moment, blinked, then shook his head. “As far as I know, very little counterfeit money has turned up in Aldon recently. There have been reports of counterfeit money showing up in some of the other cities and towns across Escarland, but your Intelligence Office hasn’t been able to track down the source.”

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