“But if the elves resist, then we’re just being elves.”
I grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “Exactly! I don’t know who the elves would want leading the way, but be on the lookout for a leader who makes sense as you go around figuring out who’s here. It would be nice if we could remind everyone that while we’re prisoners, we’re all on the same team, but I’ll settle for not doing something 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 on me. Thanks for letting me know.”
*
I didn’t see any lurking men in gray when we left the store after work, but there was no guarantee that none of the other people milling around weren’t among our 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 cream shop after eating dinner and then walking as we enjoyed our ice cream. That seemed like the sort of thing a newly-in-love couple might do.
“So, what’s the plan?” I murmured to Owen when we were about a block away. “See if we can get in before the shift change and the meeting and then find the portal?”
“Too risky,” he said after catching a drip off his cone with his tongue. “I want to know a lot more before I try going in again. However, I have an idea for surveillance. Do you think they’d put any of the prisoners in an apartment across from their gateway?”
“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 him. “We should be able to find a vantage point for watching the park. That was your plan, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
At the end of the block where the park was, we made sure no one was following us, then tried the door at the top of the first set of steps. Owen unlocked it magically, 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 small table on the landing was just an image painted onto the wall. The door on that landing was unlocked.
Past the doorway was blank space like I’d found above my apartment, open through to the end of the building, without interior walls. We picked our way across, walking on the floor beams. When we were 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 never more than that. I kept a running count. 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 comfortable, but I said, “Of course. Let’s see how long the meeting lasts and how many come out.”
Things were quiet for the next twenty minutes. No one came down this street, which meant we’d have to be really careful when we left. It didn’t seem like this was a place we could get away with randomly wandering into too many times. Finally, gray elves began emerging from the park. “I counted eighteen 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 them, we can’t exactly pull the ‘accidentally spilling ink on him’ trick to tell them apart.”
Just then, the exterior door downstairs slammed shut, and we both froze. Another door inside the building then opened and closed. It sounded like someone had gone into the apartment immediately below us.
We froze. Meeting each other’s eyes, we silently agreed to wait and see if anyone left. Several long moments went by without any sound of doors opening or closing. Sounds 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 moved much, and no one had come up to check things out, so I hoped that meant they hadn’t noticed anything.
Owen began inching across a beam, and he gestured for me to follow him. It was fully night now, and while there was some light from the streetlamps outside, it was still pretty dark inside, which made it hard to see our footing on the open beams. The last thing we needed was to put a foot through the plaster into the apartment below.
