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"But if the elves resist, then we’re just being elves"

I grinned and patted him on the shoulder "Exactly! I don’t knoho the elves would want leading the way, but be on the lookout for a leader whoout who’s here It would be nice if we could remind everyone that while we’re prisoners, we’re all on the sa really stupid that doesn’t take the real situation into account And, of course, don’t tell Owen I said anything to you Please"

"You can count onray e left the store after work, but there was no guarantee that none of the other peopleour captors, so we put on the usual act of discussing where to have dinner and then wandering until we found a place we could agree on Unfortunately, the gateway park wasn’t near any restaurants, so we didn’t have an excuse to just wander by there We settled for stopping by an ice crea as we enjoyed our ice crea a newly-in-love couple ht do

"So, what’s the plan?" I murmured to Oe were about a block away "See if we can get in before the shift change and theand then find the portal?"

"Too risky," he said after catching a drip off his cone with his tongue "I want to know a lot ain However, I have an idea for surveillance Do you think they’d put any of the prisoners in an apartateway?"

"No, but it would be a good place to house guards"

He nearly tripped over his own feet "I hadn’t thought of that"

"The whole building probably isn’t occupied," I hurried to reassure hi the park That was your plan, wasn’t it?"

"Yeah, so like that"

At the end of the block where the park eus, then tried the door at the top of the first set of steps Owen unlocked it ically, and we found that the entry lobby appeared fully furnished When we squinted at the upper landing, it seemed less detailed We headed up there and found that it looked a lot like the backdrop of a stage set Even the se painted onto the wall The door on that landing was unlocked

Past the dooras blank space like I’d found above , without interior walls We picked our way across, walking on the floor beams When ere across the street from the park, we settled down to watch

We were about half an hour earlier than we’d been the day before, but soon the gray elves began arriving at the park They came in ones and twos, but nevercount When the flow had trickled off and then ceased, I said, "I counted twenty"

"They started arriving around eight thirty Do you think you can wait around a while longer?"

Perching on the narrow beam wasn’t very co the s were quiet for the next twenty minutes No one came down this street, which meant we’d have to be really careful e left It didn’t seeet aith randoan ehteen this time," I said "But I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones or different ones They may as well be clones And since we’re not supposed to be able to see the ink on him’ trick to tell them apart"

Just then, the exterior door downstairs sla then opened and closed It sounded like soone into the apart each other’s eyes, we silently agreed to wait and see if anyone left Several longSounds of muffled conversation came from downstairs Did that mean someone had been below us the whole time? We’d spoken very softly and hadn’t s out, so I hoped that an inching across a beaht now, and while there was soht from the streetlamps outside, it was still pretty dark inside, whichon the open beah the plaster into the apartment below