He chuckled. “My father has tasked the regular police with watching the building, and has also ordered me not to go near it. He doesn’t want to risk spooking the owner on the off chance this was something other than a mere robbery.”
“Like what?”
“Like a means to blackmail his target. It would certainly explain him only taking the contents of one box.”
“Isn’t it also possible that, given both lines of elves do like keeping little incriminating bits and pieces for possible use later, he was simply trying to retrieve the contents of that box, thereby stopping either a scandal or future problems for his family?”
If that were the case though, why go on and raid the cottage the next day?
“Indeed,” Mathi was saying, “but until we can find the owner and talk to her, we won’t know.”
“Hence the illicit comment. But why? Your father’s request isn’t unreasonable, even though it does suggest he is unaware of the true extent of your breaking and entering skills.”
“Not even my skills could get us past a twenty-four-hour ground watch. I might, however, have found another means of skirting them.”
“Why are you so gung-ho about circumventing your father’s orders?” I asked curiously.
“The mere fact he issued them.”
“Given your grand age,” I replied dryly, “I would have thought you beyond your teenage rebellion years.”
“I,” he responded, in much the same tone, “am barely on the cusp of breeding age for an elf, so the rebellion is not out of place.”
I laughed. “And the real reason?”
“He denied the council request you be sent in to investigate.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “Why would they request that?”
“I tried to access the file this morning and couldn’t. I subsequently told the council it was necessary we get into the house when I made my report this morning.”
“Why couldn’t you get into the file?”
“My access has been revoked.”
Surprise rippled through me. “It has? By whom? Sgott?”
He didn’t, after all, like Mathi’s deep access into the system and had threatened a complete lockout more than once.
“No, by my father. In the interest of protecting the victims, apparently, who do not wish their names known or released.”
Another reasonable point, given the suspected informational leaks throughout the IIT. “So, if this building is under twenty-four-hour watch, how are we going to get in without your father being informed?”
“I have enquiries open with a mage and a dwarf.”
“I daresay you’re hoping it’s the former with the best breaking and entering option, given you and underground spaces are not compatible.”
“As has been established recently, my dislike does not hamper my actions. The question is, can you control your loathing of rats if a tunnel turns out to be the better choice?”
Said loathing had been born out of having them running over my face when I was a kid. “I’ve traversed them before; I can do so again.”
Even if my brain was saying,No, no you can’t.
He laughed. “Will a bacon butty sweeten the deal?”
“Add some chips, and yes it will.”
“In what world are chips ever considered breakfast material?”
