Without the illusion fighting against her, this lock was a breeze to open. In under a minute, she had the padlock off. With a deep breath to steel her nerves, she swung open the door and broke the glamour.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the bull man beat her to it. “It took you long enough.” He opened his eyes and stretched, breaking his meditative pose. His voice was a deep rumble. As he stood, he snorted, his muscles tensing. “I could hear you prattling on about debts, but do not be concerned. I will have my revenge on Dalgo. You may escape him without fear of being pursued.”

  “You know, when you assume you make an ass out of yourself,” Lanie said, half amused, half annoyed by the bull-man’s cock-sure attitude.

  “What did you say to me? I am grateful for your assistance opening the cage, but I will not stand for being insulted.” He took a menacing step forward, ducking his head to let his horns clear the doorway.

  Lanie backed up to give him space. “Whoa, easy, big guy. No insult intended. I’m just saying that you’ve made an assumption about what I was going to ask of you.”

  “Oh? And what boon would you ask of Gidul, son of Zammetu, son of Enkidu?”

  Lanie knelt and started to work on the lock holding the girls prisoner. She nodded to the crying, exhausted figures within, “Them,” she said. “I’ve got some nasty characters chasing me. These young ladies need to get back to the mortal world, and I can’t take them without putting them in more danger. So…” she drew the word out as she lifted the last lever in the lock, hearing the satisfying click as the shank popped free. “If you want to pay me back for freeing you, you’ll see them home. Or,” she amended, remembering the hell of her own home life, “at least, to someplace where they’ll be safe and free.”

  Gidul crossed his well-muscled arms across his huge chest and eyed her. His gaze moved to the young women. It was subtle, but Lanie caught it when his fierce, angry features softened slightly. With a snort, he nodded. “I can do this. But,” he stamped a hoof, and anger returned to his features, “first, I must take care of that toad Dalgo.”

  Lanie shrugged. “Hey, he was going to sell me to the men chasing me. Go for it, big guy, and have fun doing it. Hell, hit him a couple extra times for me and Nips, and for them, while you’re at it.”

  “This I can do.” A feral grin spread across Gidul’s face. He turned to head for the stairs, but Lanie called out to him.

  “Hey, before you go, you don’t happen to know of a way to get back to the mortal world from here, do you?”

  Gidul stopped, one hand on the doorframe, his head cocked to the side in thought. After a moment, he answered, “Go South. At the top of the pass, at the highest point, turn right. A little way into the forest there will be two slabs of stone leaning against one another. That is a Way. It will take you to the Cedar Forest. Once you are there, travel East across seven hills. At the base of the seventh hill is a Way to the mortal world.”

  “Thank you,” Lanie said, committing the directions to memory.

  Gidul stepped through the door, and made no effort to stay quiet as he stomped his way up the stairs to find Dalgo.

  Lanie lifted the padlock from the hasp, but she didn’t open the cage door. Odds were good that whatever language the girls spoke, she didn’t know it, and there was no way she could explain the bull-man even if one of them did speak English. Better to let that situation sort itself out. She had a good feeling about Gidul. He was gruff and scary, but the way his eyes had softened over the plight of the caged girls hinted at a soft spot.

  She knew she was making excuses to avoid dealing with the frightened, sobbing girls, but that was her story, and she was going to stick to it. Besides, if Basty hadn’t been lying about that compass, her best chance to find it was while Gidul was keeping Dalgo occupied.

  Lanie considered her shoes for a moment and debated leaving them off. She could sneak better with them off, but if she had to run… “No,” she thought, “Better to wear them.” She slipped them on, then held her bag open for Nips to climb into. Catching his eye, she whispered, “You ready? This might get… interesting.”

  Nips nodded. His face was a serious mask, but there was a gleam of excitement in his eyes that made Lanie suppress a smile of her own. For all that Brownies were supposed to be homebodies, Nips, it seemed, had a taste for adventure.

  When the sound of roars and crashes filtered down from above, Lanie started up the stairs. The stone was gritty under her feet, making her glad she’d opted to put her shoes on. She kept to the sides of the steps out of habit. There would be no squeaky boards on this staircase, but the centers of each step were worn smooth and round from long use. She couldn’t help but wonder how old the building was for stone stairs to have worn down like that.

  She stopped at the top of the stairwell. There was a heavy door, but it stood open. Lanie could see another doorway across a narrow hallway, and the sounds of a fight came from somewhere down the hall to the right. There was a lot of crashing, the tinkle of broken glass, and splintering of wood. Gidul was making an excellent distraction. There were shouts of fear and outrage in Dalgo’s croaking voice, and bellows of rage from Gidul.

  Lanie peeked out.

  The shop was a packed jumble of goods. Everything Lanie could imagine was piled, or shelved, or crammed into the store. Elegant, carved china cabinets and fragile glass display stands held everything from a century-old vacuum cleaner to delicate porcelain figurines. There were musical instruments, worn paperbacks, a CB radio, assorted tools, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, pots and pans, a rack of swords, and even a kitchen sink. It looked like a pawnshop run by a hoarder.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Dalgo was darting between the displays, trying to keep his bulk out of Gidul’s reach, and the bull-man was plowing through the displays and piles, heedless of the destruction he was causing. It had only been a minute or two, and the place already looked like it had been hit by a tornado. As she watched, Gidul shoved aside a life-sized wooden dime-store Indian statue—the sort of antique that collectors in the mortal world would likely have paid a pretty penny for. The statue crashed into a rotating jewelry case full of cheap souvenir tchotchkes, breaking the glass and sending Las Vegas key-chains, tiny Eiffel Towers, and Niagara Falls shot glasses scattering across the store.

  She wanted to stay and watch. The look on Dalgo’s face was priceless, but there would never be a better time to search the rest of the building. The short hallway had four doorways leading from it: the one from the basement, the closed door across the hall, the open storefront to the right, and what looked like a back exit to the left. The rear exit had a bar across it, securing it shut. Moving with care, Lanie crept the five steps to that door and slowly lifted the bar. A clear escape route was an essential part of a good heist, after all.

  Lanie set the bar against the wall and cracked the door open to take a peek. She was gratified to see an empty alleyway. With a nod of satisfaction, she closed the door again, pushing it slowly to avoid any sound. Her heart was beating hard, and her senses were alert for any change in the sounds coming from the shop. This was the part of her job that she loved. A little danger, a pinch of problem solving, a dash of exploration and discovery, and a heaping scoop-full of the thrill of being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be; it was a recipe for feeling truly alive.

  The last unopened door revealed a small storeroom. It was lined with shelves that were a neatly organized contrast to the chaos of the shop floor. Lanie walked down one row of shelves, running her eyes over the contents. She whistled softly to herself. This was where Dalgo kept the valuable stuff.

  "Careful, Lanie," Nips said, keeping his voice low. "Some of these things might be trapped. Or worse: cursed."

  "How can I tell?" Lanie stopped, her fingers only a couple of inches from a silver goblet.

  "Feel for the magic and listen to your gut. I'll let you know if I see anything, but this is outside my area of expertise. Just... go slow, and if you get a bad feeling, listen to it. Or if it hums. Or is too sparkly. Or if it sings sea shanties. Definitely avoid anything singing sea shanties."

  "That's oddly specific. I'm going to want to hear that story when we have time."

  She ran her eyes along the items on the shelves. A gaudy statue, a pair of silver goblets engraved with some sort of crest, a filigreed ivory snuff box, a collection of labeled bottles containing things like myrrh, frankincense, saffron, ambergris, aconite, wormwood, mistletoe, fennel, and others; some that Lanie recognized, and many others that she didn’t.

  An oversized battle-axe leaned against one of the shelves, and on the shelf next to it were a pair of daggers in fine, tooled leather sheaths and a bare short sword that looked ancient. The daggers and sword both made her fingers buzz as she reached for them, but there was something about the sword that made the hairs on her neck stand on end. She pulled her hand back as though she’d been reaching for a hot stove. That sword was bad ju-ju, but the daggers felt fine.

  Lanie grabbed the daggers. She dropped one into her messenger bag and slipped the other into her waistband. There were many other things on the shelves, but there wasn’t time to examine and evaluate all of them. Once she’d given the rest of the shelves a quick once-over without finding anything resembling a compass, she started to turn to check the rest of the room. Then, with a sigh, she turned back and grabbed the silver goblets and slipped them into her bag. She considered the snuff box, but decided that real ivory wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. The goblets should be enough to recoup some of her losses on this trip, and getting too greedy would just weigh her down and probably get her killed.

  At the back of the room was a staircase, and tucked in the space under the stairs was a desk holding several leather-bound tomes. One of them was open on the desk and proved to be a ledger with a list of transactions. Lanie ran her finger down the page to the most recent entry. She made a mental note of the name of the Elven noble who’d paid for the three girls from the cage. It was unlikely she would ever have the opportunity, but, if the occasion ever arose, she promised herself his balls would meet her new daggers.

  A quick rummage through the drawers turned up a pouch of silver and copper coins, all from various times and places throughout history, which she plopped into her bag to check out later. There was no compass, though. Nips had been unusually quiet through everything so far, but when Lanie peeked into the bag to check on him, she found him happily polishing the slightly tarnished goblets. After a quick pause to listen to the continuing sounds of havoc from the shop, she padded up the stairs.

  The next floor up turned out to be Dalgo’s living space. It was nearly as cluttered as the shop floor. The sitting room was scattered with the eclectic decor of an indiscriminate collector, but, thankfully, not the mess of a hoarder. Lanie’s shoulders slumped as she looked over the tacky jumble, and a roar from downstairs reminded her that she didn’t have much time.

  Rather than going through the room piece by piece, she tried to decipher the froggy little merchant’s mind. Where would he hide a magical tool that would be important to his trade routes? She crossed the room to a short hallway, passing a neat kitchen as she went. She imagined how a person would live in this space. The kitchen was clean and uncluttered, functional, but the area that a guest might see was an ostentatious display. He liked to exhibit his wealth, but his desk had been plain and well-organized. The display was for outsiders; it was a mask he wore, probably to make his business partners underestimate him.

  Down the hallway were two doors. One of them opened onto a bedroom. An oversized bed sat amid another abundance of showy wealth. This room was less cluttered, but the walls still held the sort of mishmash of art that was the hallmark of one who cared little for the art itself, and more for the appearance of wealth and sophistication it created. The room was another showpiece. She closed that door and tried the other.

  Jackpot.

  This room was an office. It was neat and well-organized. A rack on one wall held rolled parchments, and a quick check proved them to be maps. There were more ledgers lined up on a shelf, neat stacks of letters and blank paper on a desk, and a well-worn travel chest that looked like it dated back to the age of the steam engine.

  The chest was secured with another heavy brass padlock, this one ornate. The shank and body were engraved with curling vines. A hinged cover protected the keyhole, and the metal tingled faintly against her fingertips—a telltale sign of magic.

  Lanie turned it over in her hands, studying it. She’d seen diagrams of old handmade locks like this before, the kind riddled with hidden traps and clever tricks to defeat thieves. She’d never expected to run into one in real life.

  And definitely not one spelled against tampering.

  Her fingers itched to try it, but her gut warned her to be careful.