‘Well, we can’t be seen aiding a known enemy, now can we?” They smiled. “You will be led back to your cells. Tonight, you will be guarded by, hmmm, a skeleton crew, yes?”

This was a terrible plan and a terrible idea and I could see, from their point of view, how it seemed like a great one. It would probably work out for them.

“You’ll go back to your quarters, where, ah, we seem to have forgotten to confiscate your belongings and provisions. Your escape won’t be noticed until noon, and then it’ll take until evening for us to send out our scouts. That seems more than reasonable, Queen Eliza.”

I could only sigh. I hated this plan and I hated them for coming up with it, and I hated that I didn’t have a proper way to tell them to stick it somewhere. From the position of protecting their people, and their people’s freedom, this was the best play. It was just really going to suck for us. We’d been hurrying south, of course, the threat of war consuming the north was real, but now we’d be chased. And once the Wydonian military got wind that we were south of the border, things would get a whole lot more interesting. I assumed the defense of the capital would be increased as well. I tried to come up with a way for us to get out of this without alerting the whole damn country we were here, but I saw no way to do so without endangering Amethseryne and every Elf living in it. If the Council of Regents was looking for a way to start more… ‘social reforms’, this could easily be the trigger. I couldn’t really ask for more time, a whole day was already a lot, and I assumed that, by this time, messenger birds had already been sent out.

We exchanged a few pleasantries. I couldn’t even muster up the annoyance to sound as condescending as they did. All in all, they’d done us a favour. I looked at Morgana. She seemed to have calmed down somewhat, but she had big “this isn’t over yet” energy. Finally, we were led back to the cell. Morgana and Sabine’s shackles had been taken off, and Sabine immediately relaxed. Morgana barely moved, though the Elf who undid her manacles backed away as soon as the lock popped open and I saw a wry smile play on her lips. That woman gave me the creeps. As much as I liked big buff women who looked like they could suplex me, Morgana was too dangerous even for my tastes. I wasn’t into being poked with sharp objects, after all.

We sat in the cell and waited until nightfall. Not that there was much to do. Mellie, Lillian and Tilly discussed the lay of the land going east. Our original plan had been to head due south, but with the word out that we were in Amethseryne, the Wydonian military would be coming straight up to pincer us in, and while our disguises might hold up when walking through small towns, from now on we had to assume that people would be looking for a party of nine headed towards the capital, and that one of them would be the Demon Queen in disguise.

“Eliza,” Lillian asked. “Why don’t you just fly ahead? To the capital? I doubt anyone would be able to stop you.”

I shook my head. “We’ve already seen there’s magic that hurts me a while ago. They’re expecting me to fly in and go full Demon Queen.” I looked at Sally. “You know how they always go ‘It’s obviously a trap’ in stories like this?”

She nodded, and smirked. “‘What do we do now?’” she said mockingly. “‘We spring the trap!’ It’s dumb.”

I nodded. “It is dumb. We’re not springing the trap. We’re going to dismantle the thing, we’re going to get Anastasia free, we’re going to expose the Council, and then we’re going to have the queen take a good hard look at her country, because this place is a mess.”

I crossed my arms for effect. Sabine nodded. Kazumi shuffled up and leaned against me. I kissed the top of her head.

“Aww,” Mellie said, and nudged Lillian.

“I see them, Mels, they’re very cute,” Lily said. It was a little cold, but she couldn’t hide the little smile that played on her lips. It was a little embarrassing to be looked at like that, but what was I going to do, not kiss my girlfriend on the top of her head when I was a full nine feet tall? There had been an audible sound of disappointment when I went from Full Dragon to my shorter-but-still-really-tall Form, mostly from Sally, who had earlier admired the large horns, wings and tail that came with it.

“Other than the new route,” Sabine asked, “have our plans changed at all?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Everyone shrugged, and there was a mumbled chorus of “I don’t see why”’s. The only exception was Morgana.

“I am coming with you,” she whispered.

“I… that was already the plan, wasn’t it?” Kazumi asked, a little confused.

Morgana shook her head. Clearly she’d been running off a different playbook in her head, where I was the Demon Queen and she was my chosen assassin. I was sorry to disappoint her, but I was Queen Liz, and it looked like she was going to be ‘that person I needed to keep from murdering people’. This world seemed to be full of people who didn’t so much need vengeance as they needed therapy, and short on therapists. Maybe I could have Lisa and Daniel dictate some books on cognitive behavioral therapy to Kazumi after this was all over, it would do a lot of people good.

I looked at Morgana again.

Maybe one on anger management, too.

We decided to close our eyes. It was at least six more hours until nightfall, and we were going to be walking all night. It was best to conserve energy.

Evening fell slowly, and we all whispered to each other, wondering when we were supposed to break out. Tilly was raring to go, bouncing off the walls in annoyed excitement, and she was mostly expressing what we all felt. Time was of the essence, now even more than it had been before, and we were both done sitting around and really hungry.

Our plan was going to be simple. We’d break out, head back to Mellie’s as quickly as possible, grab our gear and as much food and provisions as we could carry, and then head northeast, curving east towards the Redwood, which was a big-ass forest that spanned all the way from Amethseryne Lake to the Dergow. At some point we’d stop to eat, but we had a hearty breakfast, even though it had been interrupted. I’d miss the fish; Mellie had been a much better cook than expected. Morgana, at least, didn’t need to eat, and she’d mentioned softly at one point that there was good hunting at the woodland edge, so we shouldn’t be wanting for meat, at least, those of us who ate red meat. Going by Lily’s expression when that was mentioned, she wasn’t one of them.

Our chance came a lot more telegraphed than we’d expected. In all fairness, we should have seen it coming. Even their plan to let us break out of prison was, in the end, condescending. On an ideological level, I agreed with the Court. The Elf had for the past who knows how many centuries been living as a vassal state under Wydonian rule, and in the past forty, fifty or so years things had seemed like they might even be getting worse. They deserved at least access to their traditional way of life. But it was really hard to get past how annoying those two asshats in their wooden thrones were. I took a deep breath. I remembered reading a sign once, that parodied how the powerful tended to treat the powerless.

“You were rude to me, so now you get no rights,” the sign said. It was a trend I’d often seen before, something that was really easy to fall for, and something I refused to take a part in. No matter how utterly punchable they were, they made really valid points, and their people deserved access to their own culture, deserved more rights than they currently had. Them, the Orc and all inhuman races. I was ruminating on the fact that the odds were high that we’d have to completely dismantle Wydonia as a feudal state, when the guards coughed loudly, dropped their keys, and just walked off as the sun set. At least they hadn’t said “oops.”

“Really?” Sally yelled after them. “While you’re at it, why not just give us a handj--”

“Hush!” I said, quickly cutting her off. “Let’s just count our blessings and get out of here.”

Tilly was the first to run to the bars and tried to push between them to get to the keys. The bars hissed when she touched them and she yelped and jumped back.

“Careful,” Sabine said, obviously too late, and Tilly glared at her. “Those things burn magic.”

“But I’m not… ohhhh,” Tilly said. “So that’s why this is happening.” She raised what should have been a paw but had become a claw again.

Sabine rolled her eyes. “Might as well.” She snapped her fingers dramatically -- I knew for a fact she didn’t need to -- and Tilly, Sally and Kazumi all lost their magical disguises. Kazumi suddenly took up a lot more room in the cell, and Mellie yelped, laughing as she was instantly covered in Lamia.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Kazumi said. I heard Erza laugh softly as she woke up, nudged by the sudden volume of snake.

“Mmf Fmmn,” Mellie mumbled, and then tried again as she was extricated from underneath Kazumi’s heftier half. “I’m fine, that was just unexpected is all.”

Tilly tried to push between the bars again but the extra foot in height had, sadly, also given her enough extra inches horizontally to make slipping between the bars much less of a likelihood.

“Allow me,” Erza said, and she kicked the cell door out of its hinges, keys be damned. It was hard not to stare at her in admiration. She shrugged, completely and utterly and totally aware of how that had looked, and just shrugged. “Looks better that way.”

“Ye-ah you do,” Sally mumbled, and followed her out the door. Erza chuckled again.

Under the not-quite cover of not-quite darkness, we made our way back to Mellie’s. The streets, gangplanks and walkways were empty. No, deserted. I got the distinct feeling that the Green Court had ordered everyone indoors to make our escape even easier and it was hard not to feel belittled. We weren’t that incapable, thank you very much.

We made our way to Mellie’s home and got all our things in the slowly deepening darkness of dusk. Thankfully, on the trip to the market earlier that day Mellie had bought provisions for days, and we all divided them among our backpacks. There was a little hustle and bustle. Nobody spoke much. Even though our escape had been meticulously -- if not offensively -- made easier, we still didn’t want to risk someone being a hero. Sabine had shrunk me back down to human size because we came to the realization that my backpack didn’t fit anymore. While my clothing would grow and shrink with me, the backpack hadn’t.

When she poofed me back, we shared an intimate-if embarrassing moment, realizing that my smaller human frame couldn’t hold up the torn tops that my wings had burst through, and I hurried into the other room to put on something that was at least halfway decent. I would’ve happily had her follow me, but we sadly didn’t have the time. So I put on a new shirt, vest and gambeson, all of which had been ruined. We hadn’t found a solution to that particular problem yet.

We finally all stacked up by the door, and opened it softly.

“Okay, Mellie,” I said softly.

“Hmm?”

“Which way to Mordor?”

Sally nearly fell over trying not to laugh.