That was a good question.

  Asking for a simple ‘are you my enemy?’ wasn’t a good question to ask. Even if she wasn’t my enemy right now, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t be later. It was much too broad of a question as well as one with too open of an answer.

  “What’s your real name?” I decided to start with something easy. “Tempest is a handle, so how about you start with that?”

  The blonde fake Elf closed her eyes and sighed. “Which one?” She turned her head and looked at me. “I’ve had dozens.”

  “Fair enough.” I tilted my head. “How about why there is a bounty out on you?”

  Her response came almost before I finished the question. “Elves are pricks.”

  “The Agate Senate has–had…” I wasn’t sure if it had been rescinded yet, but after the debacle of the Basilisk rampage, the Agate was supposed to have rescinded the bounty. “There was a bounty out for me because an ambassador died during a failed coup.” I shrugged. “So I get that the Elves can be unreasonable.”

  She sighed. “I’m just a loose end.” Tempest stretched her hand towards the ceiling, then let it drop by her side. “My dad took a job with Mariene family. They wanted to plant a feeder in the Authority, then use my abilities to take over the Aquamarine Senate by collecting thralls in all the major families.”

  The blonde twirled a finger around her long blonde hair. “But Alger have silver hair and a lot lighter skin, so from the start, I was never going to be allowed near any pure-bloods.” Her face fell. “Dad said my grandfather was furious that the bloodline had been tainted and tried to nullify the deal.” She stifled a sniffle. “We still don’t know where the other blood came from, but the only way for me to look like this is if there was Ager and High Elf mixed in somewhere.”

  The Authority was based out of Porthy, with the main office staffed by Algor, or Ice Elves as some people called them. The thing was, I didn’t recognize the Mariene family name.

  “What happened to your host family?”

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  “Dad said there was an investigation by the Twelve. My grandfather was executed for treason and a bounty was put out for me when I was two.” Tempest closed her eyes. “Well, the first bounty.”

  “What about your mom?”

  The fake Elf shrugged. “No clue. The family was large enough that there were plenty of cousins, but they all vanished, so either the Twelve did a purge…”

  Or they were on the run. The Succubi War was still talked about enough that trying to use an Incubi to create a weapon to infiltrate an organization would have harsh consequences.

  “You got dealt a bad hand.” I shook my head. “So how about we ignore the sympathy story for now and focus on the present you.”

  The pale Elf sighed. “You’re as heartless as that monster of yours.”

  I chuckled. “No, just well versed on the sympathy card.” I nodded at her. “Something tells me that you’ve used that initial injustice as justification to do all kinds of bad things to the Elves.”

  “That’s not…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know.”

  “You know if you stay on this path, you’re eventually going to get killed.”

  The blonde woman glared at me. “What do you care?”

  “I don’t.” It was the truth. This woman had attacked me and made my life more difficult, but she’d been conditioned to go from relaxed to survival mode for who knew how long. Being on the receiving end of her lashing out wasn’t justification enough in my mind to kill her. But it also didn’t mean that I was going to stop her destructive trajectory.

  “We’re leaving in the morning.” I pushed off of the wall, which drew a flinch from my prisoner. “You can stay here tonight, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to stay here after we’re gone.”

  “You’re letting me go?” The woman’s voice cracked as she spoke.

  I stopped at the door and looked at her over my shoulder. “You’re not my enemy right now and I doubt we’ll wind up on opposite sides in the future.” I shrugged. “Your magic will return in the next few days. If you want to come after me for defending myself, then next time there’ll be a different ending, but..” I tossed my hand. “Like I said, I don’t think it’ll ever come to that.”

  I left the dumbfounded woman in the bed and walked out into the hall. The light in the room that Starna was using was off, so I left her alone as I went to the master suit. It was past midnight and I was looking forward to some sleep before meeting Storbek in the morning.

  As I laid down on top of the blankets I found myself wondering if Tempest would still be in her room in the morning. A Succubus Mage could be a strong ally, though one that would galvanize the Senates against us. None of that mattered though, because I had a feeling she’d be gone before we got up.

  When I woke up, my assumption proved correct.

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