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Owen’s glow relit, and he said, “Good, you found it.”
Mac looked around the empty space. “So, this is what it’s like inside all these buildings?”
“From what we can tell,” Owen said.
“It would be pointless to build an entire city, inside and out, just for show,” I added. “I wonder how much of all this is illusion.”
“But there’s still enough to physically interact with, which tells me that the Elf Lord’s scheme is big enough to make it worthwhile,” Mac said. “Speaking of which, any sign of our elf friends?”
“Not yet, but they’ve still got a few minutes,” Owen said.
McClusky scowled, but before he could say anything about elves, I held out my bakery bag. “Cookie? There are also some scones in there.” He looked at me like I was insane, but Mac reached over and took a square of shortbread from the bag.
We waited a while longer, and then McClusky gestured for the bag and took one of the giant cookies. Mac checked his watch, then shook his head and said, “This is just like them. It’s a power game, you know. They’re showing they have the power position by keeping us waiting.”
I was surprised to see Owen smile ever so slightly as he said, “Okay, you’ve made your point. I’d like to get this over with.”
At that, the shadows shifted and five elves appeared right next to us, as though they’d been standing barely a foot away that whole time. I couldn’t stifle a yelp of surprise, and I wasn’t the only one. McClusky started coughing, having choked on his cookie.
I hadn’t heard or seen the elves come in. Had they been there all along? Earl was there, but I didn’t know the others, and when I got a look at their apparent leader, I forgot about the others. He was in human guise, so he didn’t look like an elf, but he did look otherworldly. All elves seemed to look eternally young, but while Earl looked like he really might be a college student, this guy had the look of a thirty-year-old actor who could still believably play teenagers. That is, sexy, mature-for-their-age teenagers, the types who have steamy affairs with their young, pretty teachers on teen nighttime soaps. He also was perfect casting for the role of dashing young rebel leader, with his intense eyes and catlike grace.
It was a good thing it was so dark and the lights were so far away from me, I thought as I brushed a few beads of sweat off my forehead. I wondered if maybe he was using a charisma spell to maintain the upper hand in the meeting because I normally didn’t react to other men this way, especially not when I was standing right beside Owen.
The elf leader smiled at all of us—though it felt like the smile was mostly directed at me—and said, “Hi, I’m Brad.”
That broke the spell. I bit my tongue before I blurted, “Brad? Seriously? Brad the elf?” He’d have looked right at home in a jaunty beret with a couple of bandoliers over his shoulders. He should have been “Jacques” or maybe “Pierre.” Brad was the star player on the football team, not a resistance movement leader. The rest of us introduced ourselves, using first names only. I wished I’d thought to give myself a cool code name because “Katie” wasn’t any more of a good resistance name than “Brad.”
“Now that you’ve graced us with your presence, I guess we can get started,” Mac said, sarcasm dripping from his words.
Judging by the elves’ body language, I had the feeling Mac was going to face some resistance, and not the kind he was trying to organize. I didn’t know yet if it was the idea of working with wizards or Mac assuming leadership they weren’t on board with, but I recognized a certain degree of wariness in the way they viewed the situation. They weren’t crossing their arms over their chests, or anything else that obvious, but there was something defiant about the way they stood.
“Who are you to decide that you’re in charge?” Brad asked mildly. His tone wasn’t challenging at all, but his eyes might as well have had lasers in them.
“I represent the Council.”
“The Council only governs wizards. We have our own leadership.”
“Your leadership is why we’re here. We all seem to have been caught up in your people’s power struggle.”
“So you admit it is our business.”
Owen took a slight step backward, giving off clear “I’m not with him” signals.
“Would you just listen to my ideas before we start arguing over who’s in charge?” Mac bellowed.
“I am very much interested in hearing your ideas,” Brad said.
“Okay, then,” Mac continued, “I think our priority has to be getting out of here, and the way to do that may be to take them by surprise. History’s full of uprisings where the prisoners attacked their captors.”
“And how many of them were successful?” I couldn’t help but mutter. I could tell from Owen’s face that he was thinking it, but he didn’t dare challenge the Council representative. When Brad gave me an appreciative look, I felt like a kindergartener who’d received a gold star for my drawing.
“It sounds like a good way to get ourselves put back under the spell or to get put in a real prison that’s not as comfortable,” one of the other elves, a pixie-haired woman named Doris, said.
“You want to stay here forever?” Mac asked. “That’s a lot longer for your people than it is for mine. How else do you think you’re going to get out? We have to force them to let us go, and that means forcing them to listen to us. Now, I figure that anyone here that we don’t know is either an illusion or is working for them. The illusions seem to be like the extras in movies. They’re just part of the scenery. They don’t talk, they don’t interact. They just go about their business. Everyone else is probably in on it, working to maintain the illusion. Those are the people we can grab. I’m sure you’ve all got someone in your day-to-day lives who’s like that. If each of us gets one or two, then we’ll have taken out most of their people, and then we can fight back.”
“What do you mean by ‘get’?” Earl asked.
“Not killing, not unless you have to. But immobilize them, certainly, lock them up.”
