Great. Just great.
“We appreciate your generous hospitality,” Mago said, “but Master Wiggs and I would prefer to be in the same room.”
“But each room only has one bed.”
Mago stepped up to me and slipped his hand in mine, intertwining our fingers.
Oh crap in a bucket.
My cousin gave the captain a dazzling smile. “The sleeping arrangements won’t be a problem.”
Realization dawned, and one of the goblin’s fangs bit into his bottom lip to keep from laughing. Two of the guards at the station didn’t try as hard, but at least they muffled their snickers with one cough each.
I looked anywhere but at Mago. In response, he gave my hand an affectionate squeeze. So help me if he tried to solidify this with a kiss . . .
“Understood, Master Peronne. One room it is. I will have refreshments sent up.”
One of the guards on duty unlocked the door, and then locked it from the outside once we were inside. I’d have been shocked if they didn’t.
“Did you have to do that?” I kept my voice low. This was the goblin embassy; the walls most definitely had ears—and eyes.
Mago removed his doublet and tossed it on the entirely too prominent bed. “Yes, I’m afraid I did,” he replied in Myloran. “I won’t allow them to separate us.”
I raised an eyebrow at his language choice.
“Very few goblins speak or understand Myloran,” Mago explained. “They don’t feel it’s worth the bother.”
Good enough for me; I switched to Myloran. “I’m not saying your idea wasn’t brilliant, but—”
“It also stopped any further inquiry.” He flashed a quick smile. “There are some things those goblins wouldn’t want to know more about. This was one of those things.”
I sighed. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I chuckled weakly. “Those goblins think it’s your pleasure, too.”
“Raine, you need to sit down.”
“I need to drop this glamour.”
“Then drop it. Hold on until the guards return with food, and then drop it. You can’t hold it forever.”
I nodded. He was right. “If things get ugly, I’ll need every bit of my power, and I’ll need rest to use it.” I glanced over at the bed. It didn’t have any drapes that I could pull to block the inside from view. Though I’d hide under the covers if I had to. As a kid, I used to think that bad things couldn’t get me if I hid under the covers. At least here, the bad things wouldn’t be able to see me. Yes, the majority of goblins in the embassy were loyal to Chigaru, but some of them had to be working for Sathrik Mal’Salin and Sarad Nukpana. That captain could be one of them. If so, he’d have a vested interest in keeping the prince from meeting with his banker.
I looked out the barred window. I’d been in a bedroom like this only a few months before, in Prince Chigaru’s hideout in the district of Mermeia called The Ruins. That time I’d officially been the prince’s prisoner. He had wanted me to find and use the Saghred for him. I snorted to myself. If he knew I was here, he’d probably want the same thing right now. Armed and armored elves patrolled the walls of the embassy next door. The wards and shields and number of guards told me they were on high alert. The goblins were putting on a similar display. Though the goblins were nocturnal with night vision to match. Their high alert at nearly two bells was more alert than the elves. And if all the lights suddenly got extinguished and the goblins were feeling playful, those elves were toast and they knew it.
“Whose flash of brilliance was responsible for putting the elf and goblin embassies next to each other?” I asked.
Mago leisurely pulled a cigar from an interior pocket in his doublet and lit it. “The maze that is the bureaucratic mind is a mystery best left unsolved.”
A key turned in the lock and one of the guards wheeled in a cart with several covered dishes and a bottle of wine. He nodded to both of us and left. Of course, he locked us in.
We looked at the food, then at each other. We couldn’t touch any of it. Drugs were favorite goblin interrogation tools.
“It would smell divine, wouldn’t it?” Mago said. “Goblin torture is indeed cruel.”
“Our excuses for not eating?”
“This afternoon has been quite traumatic and we have nervous stomachs.”
“Which nicely complements the nervous rest of us.”
“Indeed. I’ve developed an unfortunate case of indigestion.”
I looked at the tray. “Better than a fatal case later,” I muttered.
Mago was studying me intently. “For a moment I could see you,” he whispered.
He wasn’t talking about Symon Wiggs. I got up and went to the bed, which conveniently was in the shadows. I was shaking. From exhaustion, but mostly from fear. I was an elf in a goblin embassy, a wanted and hated elf. This glamour was the only protection I had and I was about to lose it.
Literally and figuratively.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Mago said. “I’ll keep watch.”
“I can’t go to sleep. I’ll wake up as me.”
Mago smiled gently. “Would that be so bad?”
“It was this afternoon. When I’m Symon, the Saghred can’t get to me.”
“As Symon you can’t defend yourself.” Mago pulled back the bed covers. “Raine, you can’t run from who you are.”
“Or what.”
“You’re not a what. The only way that would ever be true is if you start believing what others say—others who want what you have for themselves.”
“They’re welcome to it.”
“They’re not and you know it. You’re defending that stone as fiercely as you’re protecting the rest of us. You know what’ll happen if anyone other than you gets hold of it. You won’t let that happen.”
I snorted. “I’m just all kinds of noble, aren’t I?”
His smile was back. “Yes, you are,” he said softly.
I tried to think of a glib comment for that; but truth was, I was too exhausted to make the effort.
Mago helped me off with my boots, but first I took the boot knife and stuck it under the pillow. I lay back with an exhausted sigh.
“Mago?”
“Yes?”
“I’d rather sleep in a cathouse than a house full of cats,” I managed before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
I woke up in the same place where I fell asleep. I loved it when that happened.
I was also me again, wearing the same singed, torn, and bloodstained clothes I’d had on at the hotel. That was the thing about glamouring—when you let go of one, you not only got yourself back, you got the clothes you’d been wearing. I guess it beat the hell out of popping out of a glamour naked.
Mago was standing by the window, the drapes pulled wide open, letting in the morning sunlight, anything he could do to make it uncomfortable for any goblins to try to come and get us for some pre-breakfast interrogation.
I dragged myself out of bed and actually managed to stay on my feet. Amazing. “You stayed up all night.”
Mago shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Though I’m usually engaged in a more entertaining activity than watching you sleep.”
“When did I lose—”
“About five bells,” he replied. “The hour before that you phased in and out.” He smiled slightly and shook his head. “Even in your sleep, you were determined to hold on.”
The key turned in the lock. I took a breath and held it. Well, Raine, you’ll see what happens when it happens.
The same guard who had brought our food opened the door. “Both of you will come with me,” he said, his tone brusque. The guard saw me and his eyes widened in shock.
I couldn’t run, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to hide. I went with a glare instead. The guard quickly stepped back into the hall and closed the door. No key turned in the lock this time. We heard him talking quickly in hushed, hissing tones with others.
“I do believe you’ve put a slight crimp in their morning,” Mago noted. “Bravo, cousin.”