Through the doors at the end of the hallway is the room Enturi described: a long hall, with two rows of columns running its length for support, surrounded by converted cells on every wall. The hall is lit throughout with oil lamps, a considerable extravagance of light for Elftown. I have more coin than most, and I only run a lamp briefly each night. Of course, Rien is an oil merchant, so we’re all probably paying for this light.

As we come through the doors we walk past a cadre of archers, shooting at targets hung on the wall on either side of the doorway. They look awkward and unskilled, and I am thankful that they stop shooting as Lynae and I move through them. Further down the hall is Mýldir, pouring oil into clay pots, making the alchemical bombs that he’ll use to burn Elftown down. Great. I’ll be living in a hall filled with incendiary bombs, oil lamps, and unskilled archers. On the plus side, at least there’ll be no rain.

Lynae leads me to a small, unlit chamber. The chamber next to it is lit, and through the door I see Enturi, sitting at a small table and frowning over a scroll. My room has no table, but there is a small bed and a bench, on which my weapons are placed. I slide them onto my belt immediately, glad to have them back. This is the longest we’ve been apart.

“If you’re ready to get to work, you may join Mýldir,” Lynae says. “When he doesn’t have a use for you, you may drill with Muilon and his archers. You’re to stay here in the hall for now. Matter of security. Enturi’s under the same restriction.”

“Fine,” I reply. “I’m just happy to do something.” I feel tense, edgy from the past days’ inactivity.

“When I am here, I am in command of this post. When I am not, Muilon is in charge. When you are working for Mýldir, you follow his orders. Understood?”

I nod. I’m used to following orders. Jet saw to that.

* * *

I spend the next two days carefully filling oil pots, watching Mýldir stir powders into the oil and cap the pots with lids either containing a wick spout or narrowly indented to hold liquid. Most of the pots are the former and will simply be smashed the night of the escape, spilling the burning oil out onto the floors and walls of the buildings in which they are hidden, to ignite the wooden buildings.

“How will you avoid getting sprayed with oil and burned?” I ask.

“I have good reflexes.” He grins. “But it’s not too hard. Light the wick. Pick up the pot. Throw it against the opposite wall. Run like hell.”

The other pots are the incendiary bombs. There are maybe a dozen of them, to be placed strategically throughout Elftown. When he gets to these pots, Mýldir will pour two liquids into the shallow indentations on the lids. After a few moments, the mixture of the alchemical liquids result in an explosion powerful enough to destroy the building the pot is in and rain burning oil on the neighboring structures.

“A few moments?”

The herbseller turned alchemist laughs. “There’s enough time to get away, if I’m fast. This isn’t a suicide mission.”

He’s an interesting character. A bit twitchy, eyes and fingers always moving, darting back and forth with nervous energy. Like he has spent too much time trying out his own concoctions. But he is capable of precision and steadiness and attention to the fine detail required for measuring powders and pouring oil. It’s as if someone tried to turn him into a gnome and was half successful; his actions and personality reflecting the change even though his appearance adheres mostly to elven characteristics.

“Thanks,” he says at one point, under his breath, while in the middle of stirring. “I appreciate your help.”

“How much?” I ask.

This catches his attention. He glances up at me briefly before returning his focus to his task.

“A fair amount. What do you want? I don’t think Rien would approve of me giving you some of my fun herbs.”

I laugh. “That’s not what I’m interested in.”

“What then?”

“A bomb. If you can spare one. It’s important.”

He glances up again, his habitual smirk back.

“Got something you want to make sure gets burned up?”

I nod.

“Upstairs, in the Hall of Law. There’s a rune on the wall above an altar. I want it burned, destroyed.”

“You want me to obliterate the wall?”

I laugh. “That’d be nice. But maybe not necessary. The rune is painted with blood and magic. The paint burns if exposed to flame.” I rub my ribcage, remembering the pain. “It explodes quite nicely, in fact.”

He pulls out the stirring rod and wipes it off, humming an erratic jumble of unharmonious notes. His eyes dart from side to side as if he is looking at invisible objects and counting them. Then he nods. “I think we can manage that. I don’t think we can spare an incendiary. But if what you say about the runes is true, one of the smash bombs ought to work.”