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The elf’s tiny pink tongue protruded from his mouth, his blunt, thick thumbs screwing into his oversized ears before the door slammed again.
“I can see they fear you,” I said, my teeth chattering.
“Since when did werewolves have such a delicate constitution?” Sal shrugged out of her coat and draped it around my shoulders, belting it at my waist.
And that’s when I saw her arms.
Long and draped with ropes of lean muscle, each covered with intricate designs I couldn’t make out in the dark despite my typically acute vision. Sal reached behind her to shoulder her bow and knock an arrow, each perfectly shaped mounded swell standing out under the tension.
Moisture flooded my mouth as she turned her torso to aim the arrow’s tip at the door and kicked it hard with the heel of her boot.
“Follow my lead,” she said.
At that precise moment, I would have followed her to the very gates of hell.
When the door creaked open this time, she didn’t wait to be asked the password, but booted the small figure through the opening.
I watched in horror as it bounced off something in the background and disappeared into the darkness.
“Did you?” I stammered. “Did you just kick an elf?”
“Everyone knows they bounce,” she said. “This way.” We both had to duck to get through the entrance.
Once again, my expectations were blown all to hell.
Far from the small, dank, cramped hovel I had expected, the space inside soared to cathedral height. In the center of the Great Hall, a courtyard with raised gardening beds and mature fruit trees surrounded the perimeter. Candles lined the lofty walls, illuminating portraits of women wearing the ubiquitous red hoods of the Order.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Used to be one of the Order’s strongholds,” Sal said, pointing her arrow ahead. “They’ve been subletting to the elves since their numbers have dwindled.”
“Werewolf hunting not as lucrative as it used to be?” I asked.
“Not as many of you to hunt,” she said.
My stomach tightened at the implication.
We found our less-than-enthusiastic door attendant brushing flower petals from his coat in the squashed geranium bed where he must have landed after ricocheting off the fluted colonnade.
“The wolf stays with you,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. “No one else will have her.”
“Fine,” Sal said, fishing a coin from her pocket and tossing it to him. “For my horse.”
“Not fine,” I insisted. “I barely even know this woman.”
“You know them even less.” Sal jerked her chin toward the cloisters surrounding the courtyard, where dozens of the gnome-like creatures were gathering to scorch me with withering glares.
“What about this place made you think I’d be safe here?” I asked from the side of my mouth.
“Because I’m with you.”
And weirdly enough, I believed her.
We began walking down the corridor when a pearlescent glob hit the toe of my boot. “They’re spitting at me.”
“Don’t take it too personally,” Sal said. “A werewolf ate one of the line supervisors a fortnight ago.”
“Line supervisors?” I asked, repeating the unfamiliar term.
