*

I tried not to look at my watch too often, since that made time pass more slowly, but we were getting awfully close to that two-hour mark, and there was no sign of Earl. I didn’t say anything about it until it was five minutes past the time he was supposed to have returned. “Earl’s late,” I remarked, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

“He may have run into something.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“It may not be something bad. He may just be taking extra precautions.”

“You’re probably right. Two hours wasn’t long enough. I’d rather him be late and stay safe. Let’s wait longer.”

Owen conjured lunch for us, and that passed some time. When another hour had passed, I said, “Okay, I’m officially worried. What should we do?”

“You’re the one in charge.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “We don’t have to maintain that pretense now. The Council guys are still enchanted and the elves aren’t here, so you don’t have to act like the good little soldier.”

“I’m not acting. You’re legitimately in charge. They agreed, and you’ve done a good job. What do you think we should do?”

I clenched and unclenched my hands, thinking. This was more responsibility than I was used to having. Sure, I theoretically ran a department, but Perdita was the only person who reported to me. I was generally more of an assistant type who was surrounded by experts.

Thinking of Perdita gave me an idea, though. “It’s probably safest to assume that something happened to Earl,” I said. “Fortunately, we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket. We’ll carry out the plan ourselves. If they got to Perdita, she should be easy to revive, since we didn’t even have to try the first time. She’s got a good network and should be able to round up enough people to make your portal. If Earl is okay and was just delayed, he’ll know we had to act, and he knows to check in with Perdita.”

“So, to Perdita it is,” he said, standing and offering me a hand to help me up. “Maybe we can find a path through the building that will take us out far from where we entered.”

“And let’s hope that they’ve given up on finding us around here,” I added.

There was a door on the other side of the empty room, so we started there. The door led to an interior stairway. The door at the top of the stairs opened without a key into another nearly featureless space. We made our way down the block, treading carefully on the incomplete floors. When we reached the end, Owen looked out the windows on the side of the building. “I don’t see any of the gray guys, but that doesn’t mean some of the other people out there aren’t guards who might be looking for us.”

“So how do we get out of this building?”

“I don’t think they’ll notice a little illusion, since most of the people here aren’t real. We should be able to get away with that much magic.”

We went back to the last stairwell door. Before he opened it, Owen took my hand, and I felt the magic surrounding me. Safely disguised, we stepped into the stairwell and went down the stairs. There was a mirror at one landing, and I paused and did a double take when I saw an elderly couple looking back at me. “That’s us?” I asked.

“A little preview of our future, perhaps,” he said with a slight smile. “Now, remember what Rod told you about carrying off an illusion. Try to move like the woman you saw in the mirror.”

We paused just inside the front door to get into character. Both of us bent over slightly, and I took his arm at the crook of the elbow. As we left the building, we moved slowly and carefully, then went down the front steps with painstaking care.

Knowing we were fugitives made me want to hurry from one safe place to another. I resisted the impulse and stayed in character. They were looking for young people, not a couple of old-timers. Unless they detected Owen’s magic, they shouldn’t notice us at all.

We crossed the street and went up a block, then paused at a corner grocery to act like we were shopping. I didn’t see anyone giving us suspicious looks, but when we stepped out of the store, one of the gray guys was on the sidewalk outside. I fought not to hold my breath or do anything else that would make me look more nervous than someone in my position should be. Maybe he was there watching someone else, not staking out the place for us. Why would they even think to stake out that place? It wasn’t as though the grocery store was an obvious destination for fugitives.

We moved past him in our elderly shuffle, but since I didn’t dare turn to look at him, I couldn’t tell if he even noticed us. It was sheer agony to keep moving slowly instead of hurrying away. “Easy, easy,” Owen breathed, apparently picking up on my tension.