She sheathes her blade and runs lightly across the hall, throwing herself into me, wrapping her arms around me, burying her face in my neck.

"You're alive," she keeps repeating. "Thank the goddess and the nymphs, you're alive!"

I feel her breath, light and beating faster than a rat's heart, on my neck.

"Oh, Arq," she whispers, her voice catching. "It is so horrible. Everyone dead, everyone gone. Jet-"

She starts to cry. Now I feel her tears, soft and wet.

Her breakdown hits me hard. Everyone has limits of what they can endure. I know, because part of my work for Jet involved pushing elves past those limits. But Lynae always seemed so self-confident, so in control. The elf-maid who took down an egg stalker in the dark sewers under the city has lost her nerve and is sobbing, clutching onto me like a drowning man hanging onto a pier piling in an iceborn squall.

"Shhhh," I whisper, awkwardly patting her back. "Shhhh." I look up to Enturi for guidance.

He is glaring furiously at me. Really angry. As though he would slay me with his eyes alone, if he could.

What the hell is his problem?

Then I remember how Lynae flirted with him, and how awkward and embarrassed it made him. No wonder he's angry. He's been crushing after Lynae and it was into my arms that she ran. That must really set him on fire.

In the past, I might have had a good laugh at Enturi's expense. But standing in the blood of our boss and comrades it just doesn't feel right. Plus, he did me a big favor getting me into the Hall of Law a few hours ago, so I don't really want to piss in his face today. So I just kind of look away and hope Lynae pulls herself together soon.

Long awkward moments pass. I decide that I better do something, since it doesn't appear that either the lovesick pretty boy or the emotionally broken elf-maid are in any shape to pick up the pieces.

"All right," I say. "Time to get it together. We can't stay here. We're at risk. The humans may come back. If they don't, other elves may come and I am not sure that right now we want anyone to know that we survived the massacre. We need to get out of here and disappear for awhile." I gently disengage from Lynae and she wipes her eyes, nodding in agreement.

"Yes," says Enturi coldly. "We had better go into hiding. But where? My place and yours, Arq, are most likely known to the humans already, thanks to Jeamo's scrying. They have probably already been ransacked.  It won't be safe to go to either place. Lynae lived here. The safe houses are known. So where?"

He answers his own question before I can speak.

"The House of Law, of course! No one goes there, so no one will look for us there. We can take food in for a week or two, until we get something else figured out. And we can sneak out at night, if we abolutely need to."

Lynae looks up, clearly surprised.

"The House of Law is haunted and dangerous. We can't get in there."

"We already have," Enturi tells her triumphantly. "We were just there. Probably why we survived the attack on Jet. We were not where we were supposed to be." He furrows his brow and looks at Lynae with cool curiosity. "Neither were you, apparently. Where were you?"

She sighs.

"I was on a mission for Jet."

"What kind of mission?" I ask.

"Scouting. Jet was pleased with his takedown of the smelter guards working for Lainath. Next, he wanted to put some pressure on Rien. So he sent me out to confirm the location of several guard rooms and the times of the shift changes. If the information panned out - and it did - Jet was going to send you two and a couple others to invade the barracks and kill the guards."

"Yeah, not much point to that now," I say. "Come on, we have to get out of here. Sky'll be gray soon enough. It's already too late for us to get back into the Hall of Law now."

Concern creases Enturi's face.

"Then where?"

"Relax," I say. "I've got a place we can go until tonight. Not exactly nice, but it'll do. Dry and safe."

I figure we will be safe at my old cave for the day. I'm willing to bet that anyone who might know of it is dead. Alvar and his friends are. Even if the little traitor elf-girl told Calmorien about the hidey-hole, he and his guards and Jeamo are all dead now, too. I think for a moment about taking Lynae and Enturi to my little apartment in the Lydia, but decide against it.

That's my safe place. Just mine.