He gave a small nod, lowering his eyes. “I’ll do my best.” Just once, she wanted him to channel Wayne’s confidence to the point of arrogance. “In the meantime, just . . . make yourselves comfortable.”
* * *
Comfortable proved to be an impossibility.The loft was packed to the brim with tools, crates, and supplies, leaving little room for them to exist—not to mention sleep. As a result, Jo, Takako, and Wayne had all taken to spending the majority of their time in an odd hybrid space nearby—part restaurant, part bookstore, part concert venue.
She and Wayne had already set up in what had become their corner couches. Takako was the last to join them, book in hand. She perched with a steaming mug of something thick, green, and earthy smelling—something Jo hadn’t yet been brave enough to try.
“Samson says he’ll need a few more days.” It had been Takako’s turn to ask today.
Jo’s stomach dropped, her magic crackling beneath her skin in rebellion. Even though Samson wasn’t here, she wanted to argue, wanted to tell him they didn’t have a fewmoredays, not when Snow was . . . when they didn’t even know if he . . . But Jo pushed it all down.
It had only been three days since they arrived.
Jo took a breath, letting it out slowly, and then looked up at Wayne and Takako, startling a bit at the look of concern on their faces. She cleared her throat, taking another bite of what she’d come to think of as an Elvish empanada. It was a pasty sprinkled with what looked like glitter, but with a rich, savory, meaty flavor—a deviation from the candy-like appearance that she’d been pleased to discover the first time she’d tried it. “Fine. We can wait a few more days.”
Takako and Wayne shared a look before nodding in agreement.
Except, two days later, there was still no word.
“What’s he even doing?” Wayne huffed, sitting back in the booth of a fancy bar and lounge they’d splurged on a taxi to get to. The scotch he ordered, which had probably cost as much as their fare, sat untouched in front of him, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.
“Making contact with High Luana in general is no easy feat, let alone one specific individual,” Takako reasoned, but even her voice held a sort of flat disbelief. She was drinking a bright purple cocktail out of a swirling martini glass, a cherry-looking fruit changing rapidly through various neon colors at the bottom.
“You had smartphones back in 2005 that could contact anyone across the globe,” Jo fumed. “We had biobands in 2057. And these, whatever they are, can do the same thing, right?” She fished one of the obsidian disks Wayne had bought her to play with out of her pocket and placed it a bit roughly on the table in front of her. “So what makes contacting one elusive elf so goddamn difficult?”
“Might want to dial it down there, dollface,” Wayne hissed under his breath, and it wasn’t until that moment that Jo realized how loud her voice had gotten, how much she’d been inching forward in frustration.
Takako wasn’t wrong; Jo had been reading as much as possible about High Luana at night (in-between trying to actually learn some Elvish). It was the farthest spot of land in the Luanian Empire from any other non-elf territory, literally separated by a continent and a sea. Still, her point about the phones should be valid . . . She let herself slump back down in her seat with a dejected huff, grabbing her own cocktail from the table and taking a long drink.
“And this is why we’re not letting you ask him for updates anymore,” Wayne muttered.
The liquid inside her glass was perfectly clear sans an iridescent slick on the top. Though no ice kept it cold, it was chilled to near biting perfection and slid cool and calming from throat to chest to stomach. Jo shivered at the sensation, licking the berry tang from her lips before speaking again, voice more restrained.
“If we don’t have anything by end of day tomorrow, I’m demanding news.”
“We have no choice but to give him more time,” Takako tried. Jo couldn’t identify the undercurrent in her voice, but it made her less willing to argue.
Still, she couldn’t help mumbling under hear breath, “We don’thavetime.”
* * *
One day became two.Two became four. And Jo’s ability to give Samson the benefit of the doubt waned completely. Eslar, and by association Samson, were the only things currently standing between her and finding Snow, making sure he was alive, saving him from whatever torturous position Pan had left him in after the Society had been destroyed. The longer they lay in wait twiddling their thumbs, the more likely it was that Snow was suffering a fate Jo couldn’t even bear to think of.
It was clear Samson knew something was up the moment Wayne and Takako left without Jo.
“Jo . . .” Samson whispered her name, and it killed her how nervous it sounded, especially after she’d worked so hard for so long to garner his trust. But she couldn’t keep waiting like this, not without understandingwhyat least.
“What’s going on with Eslar, Sam? Why haven’t you been able to contact him, really?” Jo tried to ask gently.
As expected, Samson winced, a near full-body, knee-jerk reaction, though whether it was to Jo’s questions or to the mention of the elf, she couldn’t tell.
“I’ve t-tried, been trying, honest.” Samson ran a shaking hand through his hair, the other hand reaching blindly for the nearest bauble, fingers trembling as they began to rearrange its varying pieces. “He’s not . . . I can’t get a hold of him.”
“I’m sure you’ve tried.” Jo walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and hating the way it tensed beneath her touch. “But it feels like we’re wasting so much time.”
“He’s very busy,” he said, standing up straighter, and Jo could almost see a physical wall going up between them. “And very far, that’s all. It takes time.”
“But you’vehadtime,” Jo groaned, hearing the whine creeping into her own voice, unable to pull it back this time. Samson looked at her for a moment, face crestfallen and eyes holding something heavy in them that made Jo’s heart ache.
