so blatantly.”
Angelique crouched by the chest and nudged the lid—which wasn’t even fastened—up a bit so she could get a look at the goods it held. “What’s this? We’ve got some illegally mined jewels here.” She squinted in the dim light as she checked her magic senses to make sure the jewels hadn’t been enchanted before prodding a few of them. “The Chosen must have finally realized Nefari was captured since these are here and most likely getting shipped out by sea instead of being sent south.”
“It’s been over a month since Elle sent word that they’d apprehended him,” Quinn said, finally responding to Angelique’s judgmental assessment of the place. “I imagine his extended absence—or silence—raised some alarm.” She sounded a little muffled since she stood outside the dilapidated warehouse. She was supposed to be standing watch, but Angelique had fetched her the logbook when they first arrived, and given there was almost no likelihood of the Chosen employees assigned to man the warehouse returning anytime soon, it was safe enough for Quinn to stand outside under the sputtering light of a torch and try to make out entries.
Though judging by the packing job they’ve done here, I’d be surprised if those entries have more than the day—and probably not even the right day.
Angelique peeled back a magic carpet that was pinned to the wall, checking that nothing was hidden behind it.
It’d been fairly obvious that none of the storage containers in the warehouse was big enough to hold a mirror—at least a mirror big enough to hold a man.
But the warehouse was the last spot they had to check on Mullberg’s east coast, and she was going to be thorough!
“Do you want me to head back to the inn and buy the workers another round of mead?” Quinn asked. “They were exuberantly toasting the inn’s portrait of Queen Faina and Princess Snow White. They might have tossed back all the drinks we bought them in advance by now.”
“Nah. I’m almost done here—and you already had them drunk as skunks when we slipped out of the inn to sneak in here. I’m pretty sure they’ll pass out there for the night.”
That was how life had progressed for Quinn and Angelique.
When they first started breaking into Chosen strongholds, they had gone through great efforts to sneak in and out of hideouts. Without Elle’s skills it had been much harder…until they realized the Chosen workers in Mullberg were a great deal less intelligent and cautious than those in other parts of the continent. It was an easy thing to stake out their usual drinking holes, lure them all there, and get them roaring drunk. Their inebriation gave Quinn and Angelique the chance to take their time in their searches and be a great deal more detailed about it.
It didn’t always work, but more often than not, it did.
Angelique shook her head as she opened a barrel—and found it empty.
“Considering how far ahead of us the Chosen are, it’s shameful how sloppy and relaxed their bases in Mullberg are.” Even knowing the warehouse workers were halfway across the city, she kept her voice on the quieter side—Quinn would be able to hear her regardless, and there were some sense of caution even experience couldn’t override.
Angelique frowned at the half-packed goods mounded around her. “They should be more alert here than anywhere else given that the Veneno Conclave is here. But considering how we could barely find Chosen camps elsewhere before they’d disappear like smoke, they are ridiculously easy to infiltrate here. Lovelana did say there may be three to five Chosen spies in the Conclave’s ranks. Perhaps that’s why they don’t need to be so careful here—a spy might be directly ordering their movements.”
Angelique’s frown morphed into a scowl as she moved from one row of packed crates to the next and stepped in an icy cold pile of slush.
She held the starfire crystal she’d been using above her head, revealing a hole in the ceiling where snow drifted in. It looked like the workers had tried to temporarily patch it with canvas, but one of the heavier snows from earlier in the season weighed enough to break through it.
Charming.
“It is a curious thing,” Quinn agreed. “But typically a spy would avoid meeting with cohorts to avoid suspicion. Maybe it’s not that these Chosen employees don’t fear the Conclave. Maybe it’s that the royal family isn’t doing much of anything to address the Chosen, much less the monsters that are running around the