by Logan Jacobs
Even if they weren’t searching for us, Dar had a bottle of whiskey in his possession.
And they’d find it if they caught us.
A pair of tall shadows slowed their walk until they stopped across the street. Their cloaks moved behind them like black flags in the wind, and they tilted their heads to the side. A female voice then spoke in Elvish to her partner, and the partner turned and faced us.
Fuck.
“You two!” The elf’s voice pierced my chest as if he shot me with an arrow, and his tall shadow pointed right at us as his green eyes glowed within the darkness.
“We gotta move.” I pushed Dar.
“Shit.” Dar scrambled to his feet and sprinted ahead, and I followed his small shadow as we zigzagged down the way the two Elven Guard’s just came from.
The squelching from the elves’ feet behind us increased.
“Left!” I shouted, and Dar twisted to his left in response. We both squeezed through a small gap in between two buildings, and it was so tight we had to sidestep to move through it.
“They couldn’t have blacked out the entire district for no reason,” Dar panted as we shuffled through the thin gap.
“They could and would if they were looking for someone,” I said just as we came out the other side into a round gated courtyard. “Where the hell are we?”
I cast my eyes around frantically and saw four brick pillars with a burning torch attached on each one. Next to the pillars were four stone benches that surrounded a multilevel stone fountain with water cascading down into a large pool at the bottom. On the furthest end of the small courtyard was a black iron gate that led to a darkened street.
That was our way out.
So, I moved over to the gate and tried to push it open.
It was locked.
Then I dug through my pockets to find my pick.
Fuck.
I had left it in the cloak I wore when we stole the painting.
“You don’t happen to have a pick on you, do you?” I whispered over my shoulder to Dar.
“You don’t have yours?” Dar scoffed.
“Do you have one, or not?” I hissed under my breath as he searched his cloak.
“I do,” he said as he pulled out a tension wrench and a pick. “I don’t have my entire set on me, though.”
“Look at us, two thieves with only one pick,” I muttered as I pointed to the gate. “See if you can get that open while I try and get a torch for us.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” Dar whispered as he moved over to the locked gate and began to maneuver his pick inside of it.
As Dar tried to pick the lock, I kept my eye on the gap we squeezed through.
Still no elves.
Where the fuck did they go? They weren’t too far behind us when we ran away.
I could only assume I didn’t have time to waste. If and when the night elves found us, a torch would allow us to actually fight back. So, I climbed on top of one of the stone benches and reached for the torch on the side of the pillar.
I strained my arm as much as I could and felt my index finger brush against the handle, but the torch was just out of my reach. Then I paused as the patter of boots grew louder on the street that the iron gate guarded.
They were coming.
“Hurry,” I whispered to Dar and then tried to reach for the torch again.
Click, click, click.
Dar’s pick tapped against the pins of the lock to no avail.
“I have the wrong size pick,” Dar breathed as he pulled his tool from the lock.
We were fucked.
“They have to be down here,” an elven woman’s voice echoed from the street as their footsteps came closer.
If we were going to have even the slightest chance to survive, we needed that torch. So, I stretched out my hand again, balanced on the edge of the bench with one foot, and jumped. Then my hand clasped around the torch handle, and I pulled it off the brick pillar and landed on my feet.
“I think I heard something,” another elf remarked and sounded only a few yards away.
“Me too,” the woman elf responded.
Fuck.
“Psst,” I hissed to get Dar’s attention and gestured for him to hide with me behind the fountain. He nodded, slipped the tools into his cloak, and ducked behind the stone structure with me.
Then we waited.
I could hear the elves’ steps grow closer and closer until they were right at the gate.
“Where did the little rats go?” the woman elf wondered.
“We know you’re in there,” the other elf announced.
“It’s only a matter of time until we find you,” the woman elf chuckled. Then I heard keys jingle, and there was a loud click as the gate popped open.
Double fuck.
I held the torch as low and close to my body as possible to try and hide the light, but the fountain wouldn’t be able to hide us for long.
“What. Do. We. Do?” Dar mouthed.
We’d have to fight.
“There’s a torch missing from the pillar.” The woman elf observed the pillar to our right and then turned toward the fountain. “Surrender and we will be merciful.”
Did she see us?
Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the courtyard.
I nudged Dar, nodded toward the gap behind us, and then I stood up.
“We surrender,” I said as I held the torch at both elves as if it were a sword and glanced back to the tight gap in the wall we came in from.
“Ah, there you are.” The woman’s silver eyes shimmered in the dark like the torch’s flame. “It sure doesn’t look like you’re surrendering with the way you’re holding that torch at us.”
“Do not resist, or you will perish painfully, human,” the elven woman’s partner threatened as he took a step closer.
“Do you know who we are?” I asked and then started to back up toward the small gap in the wall.
“You’re a stupid human and a dirty halfling,” the woman laughed. “Why in the name of the glorious moon would we know who you are?”
“Why did you stop us on the streets?” I took another big step toward the alley. I needed to know if they were targeting us specifically or if we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The woman ignored my question, nodded toward the gap in the wall, and stepped closer. “You won’t escape.”
“Watch us,” I said as I turned, ran toward the wall, and then slid sideways to fit through the alley. Dar followed my lead, and we started to shimmy our way back through the thin gap.
I glanced back and saw the two elves in the courtyard calmly walk over to the gap in the wall and simply watch us. At first, I didn't understand why they weren’t chasing after us, but then I knew.
“Who do we have here?” another elven voice jeered not from the courtyard, but from the end we slid toward.
I raised my torch toward him, but he didn’t flinch.
“Don’t even try it, human.” The elf tapped the thick dark lenses over his eyes. That was a new feature I didn’t know about.
“What now?” Dar grunted.
We were trapped in between elves waiting for us at each end of the gap.
“Why are you even chasing us?” I asked again through gritted teeth.
“My patience is wearing thin,” the woman elf replied as she placed her hand on her sheathed sword. “You ran from us, and you’re out past the holiday curfew. Now, you’re trespassing.”
“We didn’t know about any curfew,” Dar protested.
“Then why did you run?” the woman elf questioned. “Something to hide?”
Triple fuck.
“Do not resist and prolong justice,” the elf with the dark glasses snapped. “Resist, and we’ll have our own version of justice in the street with you both.”
“Okay, okay,” I sighed. “We’re coming out.”
“We are?” Dar’s eyes darted to me and then to the hungry elves wait
ing for us.
I lifted my chin to see the night sky sprawled out above us like a blanket. The stars speckled the black void like dust, and the faint hue from the moon shone along the edges of the building. I would’ve done anything to be one of those stars. Free to roam and burn their furious light where no night elf could ever live, and where no one decided what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.
Freedom.
The keys’ melodic voice echoed through my thoughts and sent goosebumps across my skin.
I thought of Cimarra as she danced in my mind like she did on the stage, and just the sight of her punched me in the gut. I then saw Penny’s emerald eyes and hair that rivaled the torch in my hand and caused my eyes to burn with tears.
If we wanted freedom, we’d have to fight for it.
“Human!” The elf with the glasses revealed his glistening blade in the moon’s milky light. “Drop the torch and come out.”
“Dar?” I nudged my friend behind me but didn’t look away from the elf’s gaunt face. “Give me the bottle.”
“Bu--but Wa--” Dar stammered.
“Just give me the bottle,” I said again.
“Bottle of what?” the elf demanded as he pulled his sword out and pointed it at me. The tip of the blade was still a lunge or so away from my chest, and it didn’t have a lot of room to stab me. So, I wasn’t too worried, yet.
Dar rummaged in his satchel and pulled out the swooshing bottle that clanked against the wall.
“The halfling pulled out a bottle of clear liquid,” the female elf in the courtyard replayed for the elf closest to me.
“It’s water,” I said without breaking my eyes away from the elf just in case he decided to lunge at me with his blade. “Take a big sip Dar, but savor it and keep it in your mouth because these bastards won’t be giving us any water in the holding cells for days.”
I heard Dar tilt the bottle back and take a sip, but he didn’t swallow.
Perfect.
“We’ll have you strung up and filleted like a fish at this point, human,” the elf’s voice rattled. “Now come!”
“Lemme get a swig of the water first,” I said as I reached my hand toward my friend.
Dar put the whiskey in my hand, and I raised the bottle to my mouth, and the liquid created a hot pool over my tongue. Then I put the torch in front of my face, and the hot flames licked my lips.
I had never done it before, but I saw a performer spit fire during the one show my father took me to when I was a kid. Now seemed like the best time to try it. It was either this, or agreeing to be flayed alive by the pointy ear bastards and … well, fuck that.
So, I spat out the whiskey across the flames, and the spray of liquid turned into a red net of fire that engulfed the elf’s face in front of me.
The elf screeched in a way I’d never heard before and fell on his back, writhing in pain. His overcoat caught on fire, and then his hair ignited into a reddish-brown flame around his face.
Dar nudged me and grunted with a mouth full of whiskey after he’d seen my plan play out. I handed him the torch as he too unleashed a deadly mist upon the other two elves, who were frozen with shock at what they’d just seen.
As they too joined in the chorus of screeches, I shimmied out the gap, pulled out my dagger, and silenced the one I’d sprayed with my whiskey flame of death.
My blade went straight through the elf’s chest and almost brought my entire hand through with it. Blue blood leaked like oil over my knife as I pulled it out, and the screeches from the other two elves fizzled as Dar ended them like the burn from the whiskey ended in my mouth.
No other elf waited for me on the street, but three elves were now dead. That was very bad if we didn’t get the fuck out of there.
In the list of shit that would get you deader than the deadest corpse, killing our overlords was at the top.
“We have to move.” I gestured at Dar, and then I threw the torch off to the side.
Suddenly, more steps echoed from down the street where we had first run into the Elven Guard.
So, we ran, and we ran fast.
This time, the moon provided us with some natural light so we could navigate through the darkness much easier. But there was no way we were making it back to the stables with the Elven Guard everywhere. We had to find somewhere to lay low for a bit.
“Up there!” I pointed to a ladder leaned up against the front of a building, and then I leapt onto the ladder and climbed like a fire burned beneath my ass.
I stepped over the ledge of the roof, and Dar tumbled over with me. I then lifted the ladder with us so the elves couldn’t climb it. When I tossed the ladder on the roof’s tiled surface, a metallic clang roared through the dead of night.
Dar and I collapsed onto our backs and gulped in air together.
A group of elves ran beneath us on the street but never stopped.
We were alone.
Only the stars above us knew where we were and what we had just done.
Chapter 13 - Cimarra
I woke up to see rays of sunlight invading my room. As much as I loved to have my own place in the front of the theater building, the sun made me reconsider when it beat down on my face every morning.
I sat up in my bed expecting to see Penny asleep across from me, but the bed was already made, and she was gone.
I knew she meant a lot to Wade, and I didn’t want any tension between the three of us to distract or frustrate him. So, I wanted to extend an olive branch of my own after I’d seen how she and Wade interacted after the heist. I wished for us to learn more about one another, especially if we were to love the same man. As I told her the night she nearly bled to death, “We both want the same thing.”
That feeling had only grown for me the past few days, and it seemed like it did for Penny, too.
As much as I wanted to figure out all of my relationships as I lay in bed all day, I couldn’t. So, I reached for my journal on the small wooden nightstand and opened it to see my schedule for the day.
“Busy … ” I muttered to myself as I covered a yawn and flipped through my list.
Lists were my life as of late. If I didn’t make a list, I’d drown in the wave of details. I had to keep track of all of the theatre’s woes since the count was clueless, all the whiskey supplies we needed to order, and I needed to construct a business plan to present to Wade.
On top of all that, today was the day I was scheduled to meet with the count and discuss meeting with Wade. I was more than curious to see how our discussion would go. The theatre was the count’s treasure, but it was a treasure he didn’t know how to keep.
My idea was to present the count with an offer for me and Wade to handle the finances, rebrand the theatre, and allow the count to continue to host the show.
That’s what he did best.
Once we had total financial control of the theatre, we could pour a percentage of our past and future whiskey sales from Hebal into the advertising of the relaunch. That could entail an array of flyers spread throughout the district, a billboard, or even both of those options. I still had to work out the details, but I thought that would be a good start.
After the relaunch, we would sell our whiskey within the theatre and collect our coin accordingly. Then we’d continue to pour most, if not all, of our theatre profit back into the business in any way we needed. That could be more maintenance, better acts, security, or all of those things.
Either way, I was excited about the opportunity to help Wade grow his empire.
As I thought of the theatre business plan, I suddenly remembered we needed to order some more yeast, so I jotted that down in my notebook on my lap.
“Cim?” A light knock tapped against my door.
“Yeah? Come in,” I said and looked toward the door as it squeaked open.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”Ashlin, a younger dancer, stepped in with a frown on her face.
“My door is always open.” I smiled. “What’s with the sad fa
ce?”
“Um … ” Ashlin’s bright green eyes dropped to her feet and then back to me. “Some of the other girls have me worried.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I can stay here much longer,” the young dancer sniffled as her eyes pooled with tears.
“Talk to me, what’s going on?” I asked as I closed my notebook, scooted over, and patted the space next to me. I considered all of the girls to be my sisters, but Ashlin was different. She reminded me of myself when I was younger.
“Is the theatre going to close?” Ashlin’s lips trembled as she sat down next to me, and then a tear dripped down her cheek. “Sandra and Vicki told me it is.”
“Ash,” I whispered as I wiped a tear off her cheek, “you know how Sandra and Vicki get when they are bored.”
“I know, but--”
“They don’t know what they are talking about half the time,” I said as I lifted the dancer’s small chin with my finger. “Don’t listen to them.”
“That’s why I wanted to ask you,” Ash sniffled. “I don’t want to go back out on the streets. I have no family and nowhere to go, please--”
“It’s not closing,” I said, and my strong tone seemed to surprise her. “I won’t let that happen, okay?”
“But it’s struggling?” Ashlin asked as she ran a hand through her dark wavy hair.
“It is,” I sighed.
“So, it could still close?” The young dancer’s eyes widened.
“Trust me,” I said as I pointed toward the window in my room, “I won’t let you go back out on the streets. All you need to worry about is performing the dance routine tonight, okay?”
“That’s easier said than done,” Ashlin chuckled as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m tired of doing the same routine over and over.”
“Well, use these struggles as motivation,” I replied. “You’ve only tasted a tiny bit of what a human girl could go through out there. We have to dance as if our lives depended on it.”
“I know, I’m--”
“I will do my best to make sure we all have a place to lay our heads at night, but you need to stay focused on the show,” I said and rested my hand on hers. “When I first came here, I was tossed to the wolves because I was the ‘prettiest’ one. What they didn’t realize was I was not only the prettiest but the smartest and most talented. I see that in you, too.”