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The dark elves don’t stop by often, but when they do, they really don’t bother to clean up after their animals.
“Wow, something’s really rattled you,” Riya says, eyes facing forward as I collect myself.
“I’m fine,” I say, grinning, with my head cast downward to avoid future incidents. But something still prods at my thoughts.
“So you just found a beautiful, life-salary-costing necklace and bracelet in the middle of the forest,” she asks. “That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”
I nod.
“You think I should return it.”
“I think you’re losing your mind,” she says. “Absolutely don’t do that.”
I stop walking. She stops walking. I look at her, my brow furrowed as she turns around.
“But it belongs to somebody,” I say. “Somebody’s probably looking for it. And if I keep it –”
“No,” she tries to interject. But I speak louder over her.
“If I keep it, they could execute me for stealing.”
She smiles at me, taking a seat on the front steps of her dormitory.
We’ve arrived in Lowtown proper. Her hand rests on the stone pavement, near where a long root of vegetation creeps out, having cracked the rock’s surface. No parts of this area have been unaffected by the slow crawl of the nearby forest, and a lack of maintenance or order by the dark elves has left Lowtown in shambles.
Her eyes have wisdom in them. At times, they seem calm or concerned. Right now, they bore through me, peering into another world.
“This jewelry,” she asks me. “Was it just lying on the ground for you to pick up? Did it look like somebodydroppedit?”
I shake my head.
“Right,” she says. “Because knowing you, if it was, you wouldn’t have taken it.”
“The first one I wouldn’t have seen if Skye hadn’t pointed it out,” I say. “The second was pinned to a tree trunk.”
She nods.
“Still,” she says. “It is a little odd that there were two of them. That makes it all the more likely they were left intentionally.”
“What do you mean?”
Zion, Declan, Colson, and Brantley all walk past us. They seemed to have been enjoying a lively conversation before they noticed us, talking on the stone steps of Riya’s dormitory.
“What’s this then?” Declan asks, looking between the two of us.
“None of your business,” Riya says, a little coldly.
Declan nods. Zion, Colson, and Brantley seem uncomfortable in their own skin and would rather look at anything than either of us.
“Remember, ladies,” Declan says. “Watch what you say.”
He doesn’t explain himself, because explaining himself would defeat the purpose of secrecy. But lately, members of our group have been disappearing. Declan suspects that the dark elves might be listening to our little home in Lowtown, quashing any signs of dissent before they can materialize into real problems. The people who disappeared all made very open, very public threats against the elves before they vanished.
Riya and I think he’s skipping his portions.
“Keep walking, Declan,” Riya says.
He looks agitated, as though he wants to say something to counter her, but just shakes his head instead. He picks up his feet and walks to a dormitory across from us, along with Zion, Colson, and Brantley.
