You’ve never seen an elf, have you? Only in pictures, I’m guessing? You get used to the sight of them, but the first time you see one in real life is uncanny. The proportions are all off; things are in places they’re not quite s’posed to be. Their fingers are just a little too long, their faces are just a little too narrow, their pupils are just a little too small compared to the irises, which barely leave any room for the whites of their eyes. And god, they’re so tall. And thin. You’ll never see a fat elf, and I gotta say, it’s just weird. Of course, you’re looking at me like I just said something perverse, and maybe I have. People who live east of the Raktar like to believe they’re so enlightened. They think they wouldn’t shit their pants if they were suddenly face to face with an elf, but they would. You would.

And I’d have to wager elves probably think the same of us. I mean, I don’t think there are many elves out there who are intimidated by humans physically. As a political entity, maybe, but, you know, despite their gauntness, they actually pack a lot of punch. But they probably think we’re just as weird-looking as we think they are. And it’s not like I look down on elves, you know. I’m just saying my first impression of this particular elf was influenced by my lack of prior contact with elves.

As I looked up into that face, a face that looked down at me in cold calculation, I felt the almost irresistible urge to stand up. Close the distance a little, if not all the way. “I apologize for the wait,” she said. Her voice was even and casual. “I’m Lanu, as you may have guessed.”

I didn’t speak. I waited as she made her way to the desk, sat down and picked up a tablet. Tapped around a bit, the pale blue glow reflected by her own pale face. Without so much as glancing up, she continued: “I also apologize for those two, the men who picked you up; they can be a bit rough, but if I’d known that things would play out like they did, I would’ve sent someone else.” Her eyes flicked up, her prominent eyebrows raised. “Do you know what I sent them to do?”

My grip was fixed to the arms of my chair. “To meet with those men in the parking garage. Right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, that was a stop on their way back. I’m trying to work out an arrangement with some potential allies and they insist on giving me the run around, because they’re nervous, nervous that certain others might be watching. And they have the right to be nervous. But that doesn’t make any sense to you, does it?” I shook my head. “And to make it make sense, I’d have to tell you some things it’s probably not smart to tell you yet.”

“Then why tell me anything at all?”

“Because,” she explained, “I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner.”

I laughed, a quiet laugh that wasn’t entirely real but it made me feel better. “Not doing a very good job of that,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, I blame Hik and Durn. They were . . . less than hospitable. But back to the question at hand: do you know what I sent them to do?” She put the tablet down entirely, switched it off.

“To follow Kar, make sure he didn’t get hurt.”

She laughed this time. It was fake as hell, faker than mine. “Did Kar tell you he wanted out?”

“He might’ve mentioned something about that,” I volunteered, my grip on the chair turning my knuckles white.

“Yeah, I figured he must’ve. He wanted out, but he presented a bit of a problem for me. If you’re part of this organization, you handle sensitive information. No way around it. I didn’t trust him with much; you knew him yourself, so you can probably guess why. But there was still a lot that he knew, such as the location of this base of operations. So, when someone wants out, we let them out, but not without the promise that if you ever - ever - let something slip, it’s lights out for you.”

“Lemme guess,” I tried, “he ‘let something slip?’”

She nodded solemnly. “He didn’t just want out after the shooting at that club - we’ll get back to your involvement in that - he wanted to sever all ties, forget we existed. And that’s a little hard to do when you’ve got crosshairs trained on your chest, literally or otherwise.”

I leapt to my own defense: “I tried to stop Groth. You know the money I got from Kar? That was to give him something to work with after, you know, he lost his business and -”

“I know,” she interrupted, “and it was an irresponsible thing to do. You didn’t know all the factors at play, and you just happened to hold enough sway over Kar to convince him to hand off ten thousand bits to you.”

“Then enlighten me.” My voice was suddenly stable, confident. It surprised me. “Tell me what factors were involved, ‘cause right now it looks like you sent your guys into Groth’s bar and kicked him out ‘cause you wanted to deal drugs from it. And you and Kar are so busy telling me that I ought to stay out of it and that I don’t know who Groth really is, but from everything I’ve seen it looks like he’s just a bystander caught in the crossfire of your operation. So if, based on all the shit I’ve seen, I could figure out a way to help then why shouldn’t I have tried?”

Lanu’s searing red eyes held me in their gaze. I started to regret my tirade, wondering whether she planned to kill me after all. She breathed a heavy sigh. “Groth is a man of unstable temperament. As was evidenced by tonight’s incident. It was dangerous for you to try to interact with him, even as one offering help. Yes, we needed his establishment to fund our efforts; you’re not wrong about that.” She leaned in, those eyes still holding me in place. “But do you know how easily he could’ve shot you instead of, or in addition to, two of my guys? During every attempt we’ve made to do business with him, he has demonstrated the same impulsivity, the same indignance. We ultimately decided that, rather than collaborate with him, it would be safer to buy his establishment ourselves. We offered him a nice price, too, better than he would get on the current market, yet he resisted our efforts.”

I fidgeted in my chair, trying to restrain my tongue. “Yeah, that’s . . . that’s the kind of thing you should expect from a guy who’s being backed into a corner by the mob.” Again, immediate regret. That still, fiery glare hit me with renewed intensity.

“We’re not the mob. I know that’s how it looks. But it needs to look that way, for reasons you can’t understand.” She picked up the tablet, started toying with it again. “Listen: I sent Hik and Durn to kill Kar. His crime? Disclosing this location. He thought that, if he told everything he knew to the embassy, they’d grant him protection. The harm had already been done, but we needed to follow through for the sake of consistency, take him out. Unfortunately for him, you did our work for us and made it much more painful than it would’ve been if you’d left the job to the professionals.”

Her face remained blank, but her fingers stopped dancing on the tablet and her eyes started darting back and forth. “Just as I thought,” she murmured, turning the tablet around so that I could see the screen. The image of several armor-clad mages in formation on the front steps of the house registered in my mind and I felt the blood drain from my face. “They’re trying to circumvent the ward I set up around the house. Those etchings bordering the door? More than decoration.”

“But they aren’t -” I started, the blood draining from my face.

“Even connected to a chip?” she finished. “Come now, what do you think’s on those chips? There’s more than one way to store data, you know. Judging by the way that captain’s pacing, he’s likely talking to his philosopher friends back home, trying to get the proper ward removal spell sent to his chip,” she continued, pointing at a mage with a red stripe down the left side of his armor. “I’m guessing they don’t know where the ward’s coming from. I just activated it from the tablet but it’s the etching that has the runes for the ward on it. It’s the etching that’s listening to all the tablets it’s hooked up to as secondary points of contact, awaiting activation or deactivation. And, of course, the philosophers don’t have a visual on the place, and it’s not like the mages would recognize those runes.” She glanced up at me, smirking. “Interesting, right?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. Wasn’t a lie, either; that was some interesting shit.

“There’s a lot I could teach you. And, luckily for you, there are some open spots in our ranks after what happened to Kar and the others.”

I winced. “No, I’m good. Won’t breathe a word of anything that happened here, though.”

“No, you don’t seem to understand.” She stood up, tablet under her arm. Though the mages weren’t the most comforting sight I’d ever seen, keeping an eye on them through the tablet was better than picturing them in my mind’s eye, feeling their presence mere feet away. Suddenly, I felt exposed. “I’ve cleared the whole place out. Nobody’s in here besides you and me. Those mages are going to crack the ward sooner or later, and I’m a little undecided, if you will; this house is compromised and it may be best to leave it to the mages, but it could nonetheless continue to serve as an asset, and I’m sure I could negotiate to keep it. After all, I have a bargaining chip.”

She crouched to meet me at eye level. I was frozen in place. “Yes, my ears inside the embassy say you’ve made it onto a watchlist or two. Something to do with breaking into the Source of your tablet, or so I hear. And what for? To complete a job, a trivial one. Tell me, how much did you get paid for that? Was it worth it?”

And then I knew I was fucked again. There are only so many times you can know you’re fucked before knowing you’re fucked loses its impact, just like you can’t be scared for long before it starts to wear off, regardless of how bad a situation you’ve gotten yourself into. “Oh, come on,” I protested. “There’s no way you’d’ve gone to the effort of telling me all that if you were just gonna turn me in.”

“True,” she affirmed. “You’re a potential asset. You’d be a lot more useful to me than this house would, given its compromised status, and I’m sure I’d be useful to you, too. But I can’t force you to cooperate with me. So which will it be? A place in Cypher or whatever the mages out there have in mind for you?” She stood up again, leaned back on the desk.

I thought back to the previous day, when I’d seen Kar slam Groth’s face into that counter, seen him take everything the guy could call his own. Kar was an asshole, but it was Cypher that pushed him to do shit like that. I couldn’t be a part of the organization that did that sort of thing to people. I tried to picture myself busting up someone’s face. Nope, couldn’t picture it. Except I had done it already so I didn’t have to imagine. But that still didn’t feel real, the way I’d killed Kar.

Lanu waited. “I can protect you from the King’s forces. You’re in no danger so long as you’re with me. But if you refuse: well, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do and I’m sure you’d do the same in my position.”

I stood up, looked her right in those weird red eyes. “I’m sorry, I just can’t,” I whispered.

“No reason to be sorry,” she said. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah. Well, then.” A couple moments of silence passed. “In that case, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that my conscience got the better of me and I’ve decided against turning you in. I’d estimate you have about three minutes before those mages break the ward. Good luck.”

She vanished instantaneously, in the same way she’d appeared in the room. The silence after she’d gone was oppressive. I stood up, my legs heavy and my breath shallow. I had to get out of this place. I turned to the double-doors behind me. Ran at them, pushed them open, my trembling arms barely mustering the strength for that one tiny push. I slipped through and they slammed behind me, a ceremonious crash that made me wince.

Fuck, the hallway ahead of me looked so ominous. I could see the front door of the building from here. I didn’t wanna go out into the main lobby; there was too much risk of being seen through a window. My whole head was pounding, and my vision was a little fuzzy. Every movement felt slow and heavy, and made me feel seen, regardless of whether the mages had a line of sight on me or not.

I decided to try my luck at one of the other doors lining the hallway, see if I could slip out a window. How ‘bout the one left of me? I swiveled and it was like the world capsized; could barely maintain my balance. Remember what I said about being scared for so long that you couldn’t feel scared anymore? Well, there’s some other threshold you pass when you’re in this state and I don’t know how to describe it but I think I passed it just as I opened the door.

Two mages stood in the middle of the room, the smooth geography of their armor subtle and uncompromising under the soft light of the bulbs that hung from the ceiling. The window was open behind them. In one unified motion, their heads turned towards me and they raised their palms. Fuck, it didn’t seem real; I just stood there, watching them like I was watching a movie. And then I tried to move and I couldn’t. No, like, I actually couldn’t move. They’d put a paralysis spell on me and I fell over backwards, my rigid form meeting the ground with a thud that I couldn’t feel. I just heard it, heard it like it was someone else’s body.

Their blank black masks hovered above me, descended upon me. Up came the palms again. For the first time, I saw the finely serrated texture of the polymer that made up their armor. Seamless, immaculate, flexible at the joints yet rigid in between. Completely inhuman. I felt a sharp jolt and I was out cold.