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“You hid it well,” Mac said dryly. “So the elves have us captive, huh? I guess we saw something we weren’t supposed to.”

“That’s what we think. I was hoping you saw more than we did.”Advertisement

“Just a portal. Who else is here?”

“We’ve seen a few people we know from MSI who’d gone missing,” I put in. “There had been a lot of reports of missing elves, so I imagine they’re here, too.”

“And you say memories break the spell?” Mac asked.

“Bringing up a vivid memory from the real world seems to work,” Owen said. “For us, it was an accident that we simultaneously came up with something that reminded us of each other.” He turned pink and left out exactly what that something was. “My story from when I was a kid worked for you, so I hope that’s all it takes for us to wake up everyone else. You’ll have to bring your partner out of it, since you know him best.”

“But be careful,” I added. “There are people we think might be monitoring us. If they notice we’ve remembered, they might do something.”

“If you’re worried about that, then you’d better act natural now,” Mac said. “There’s a guy across the park who’s watching us.”

I was facing away from our possible watcher, and my back itched between my shoulder blades at the thought of being observed. It took all my willpower not to turn around to see who it was. I was afraid that even using the compact mirror trick to see behind me would be too obvious. “Is he an elf wearing gray?” I asked.

“Yeah. You’ve seen him?”

“Even before the spell broke last night, I did something that I shouldn’t have been able to do if the spell was working—probably because I’m losing whatever magic I had. They’ve been following me since then. I’m trying to convince them that one part of the spell may have broken, but the big spell is still okay.”

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“What do you think they’d do if they knew you’d broken the spell?” Mac asked.

“Probably put us back under it,” Owen said with a shrug as he moved a piece on the board. I didn’t know enough about chess to know if it was a real move or if he was maintaining the pretense.

Mac frowned. “I’m worried that they’re keeping such close tabs on you. We should probably have a contingency plan. I wonder if it would help to write down a memory and then keep it in a place where you’re bound to see it, even if you forget who you are again.” He moved a piece on the chessboard.

“That’s a good idea,” Owen said, countering his move. “We should all do that as soon as we can.”

Mac nodded acknowledgment and continued authoritatively. “The first step is getting information. We need to find this end of the portal that brought us here. We need to find the boundaries of our prison. It would help if we knew what they’re hiding. And then maybe we can find a way to get out or send a warning. If we can revive the people we trust, we can get more done.”

“We’ll revive the ones we know, and I think they’ll know which of the other elves should be on our side,” Owen said. I was a little surprised that he didn’t resist Mac taking over, but then he’d known Mac since he was a little kid, so it probably seemed natural to Owen to defer to him. “We’ll take every opportunity we can to see what else we can learn.”

“Okay, then.” Mac nodded toward the board. “Finish the game. I’ll try not to be a sore loser. I’ll deal with McClusky. You want me to tell him all that I know?”

“If we’re going to work as a team to get out of here, I think he’ll figure it out, so you may as well be up front about it,” Owen said wearily.

Mac looked even more somber as he said, “And you know I’ll have to report this when we get back.”

Owen went a little pale, but he nodded. “Of course. I guess I’ll deal with that when we get back.” He made a move, then said, “Checkmate.”

“And just in time, too,” Mac said out loud as McClusky arrived, sipping from a paper coffee cup and nibbling on a giant cookie.

“Did the kid beat you?” McClusky asked.

“It was a good game,” Owen said diplomatically.

“You were right about these cookies,” McClusky said around a mouthful.

“Come over any time,” I said. “You have to try the brownies, too.”

“See you around,” Mac said with a wave as Owen and I headed toward the store. pqdm.com