request for an audience. Better to let them stay slack so we can catch them when we finally get through to the queen.
Angelique pressed her lips together and made herself leave the sword behind and slip through the door, casually flicking the death spell—black mage magic at its finest—that had been set around the warehouse as a guard, restarting the dangerous trap.
“Everything is set,” Angelique said.
Quinn stepped away from the barrel she’d been casually sitting on. “Excellent. Let’s find our boys, then. We’re leaving as planned, yes?”
“I think it’s still a good idea to leave, even if they are stinking drunk. There’s no point in sticking around, and I’d rather put some distance between us and this city,” Angelique said. “One of the workers had a tiny bit of magic. It’s unlikely, but he may be able to tell that I poked around.”
“Very good,” Quinn tugged at the shoulders of her gray cloak so it settled around her better. “In that case, let’s be off.”
The two strolled through the city, doing their best to look casual—although Angelique knew they weren’t nearly as convincing as Elle would have been.
It was near the midnight hour, so the city gates were closed and guarded, but that didn’t stop Angelique and Quinn, who had become questionably skilled at scaling walls and buildings.
“You know,” Angelique casually tossed a rope into the air, then tapped a tiny sliver of her magic, using a little spell she knew from sewing magic to guide the rope up the salt-crusted city wall and tie itself securely around a merlon—the stone cube that jutted out of the crenelated wall. “I would have thought that as a soldier, you would have been more opposed to all of this breaking and entering.”
“What is there to oppose?” Quinn motioned for Angelique to scoot up the rope first.
For the first week of their…adventure, Angelique’s arms had ached from dragging her carcass up and down a rope. But now she hefted herself with ease, quickly reaching the top of the wall—which wasn’t even taller than the two-story mercantile that created the alleyway they’d been standing in.
“It’s illegal.” Angelique peered down at Quinn before flipping the rope to the other side of the wall and scrambling down, then using her magic to toss it back over to Quinn.
In record time—Quinn’s arms had never suffered as Angelique’s had given that the soldier was more fit than her—Quinn appeared at the top of the wall. “Perhaps. But we’re not stealing anything.”
Angelique snorted. “No. We’re just sneaking in and out of cities without permission.”
Quinn slid down the rope and landed next to Angelique, nearly soundless. “If we’re talking about surprises, I must confess I never thought you’d be legalistic.”
Outside the city, it was dark—with only the stars and moon to light the sky, though the snow that still drifted across the land reflected that light and made it much brighter. Just bright enough, in fact, that Angelique could see the thoughtful set of Quinn’s mouth.
“Legalistic? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Instead of looking at everything through the scope of a moral compass, ‘what is doing the right thing verses what would be harmful to others,’ you focus on what you are allowed or not allowed to do.” Quinn tugged on the rope, reminding Angelique to unknot it.
When the rope slithered down the wall, Quinn coiled it up and hung it over her shoulder. “For example, you worry about the illegal activity of breaking into a city without passing through the proper channels rather than recognize that you’re doing so because we’re fighting against a sect of black mages that have wreaked havoc across the continent and seem to be running free without a care here in Mullberg.”
“Well…” Angelique trailed off, not quite sure what to say in response. “It does sound silly when you say it like that.”
Quinn shrugged as they began to pick their way across the countryside.
The snow, thankfully, was less deep this close to the coast, and it only leaked through Angelique’s boots instead of also soaking her trousers.
“You’ve proven that you’re willing to forsake rules in order to save others,” Quinn continued. “But you question yourself so much over it, it becomes an emotional ordeal. Things like breaking into a Mullberg city don’t bother me because my entire career is about protecting. By tracking the Chosen, I’m attempting to protect the continent. As long as I don’t do harm to others, I frankly don’t care what snooty and useless-against-the-Chosen law I have to break to