28

The three of us hid behind some bushes for several minutes and watched the goblin guards at the mouth of the tunnel from a distance. It was possible that Zia and Tressi could distract them, but we had to be careful. Not all of them were so easily duped.

The guards standing there were the same ones I had provoked into fighting each other this morning. Their faces showed several bruises, and they stood there with the sullen looks of men that had recently been punished by their superiors. No, flirting wouldn't work on them at all. 

"Have you figured out what you're going to do yet?" Zia whispered next to me.

"I can't think of any way to sneak by them," I said. "I'm going to have to use magic, and that's going to escalate things. There seems to be no way around it."

Tressi frowned. "And you have to be careful that using magic doesn't lead more of them to Silvy's place."

"Exactly," I said. "And while I'm sure they're assholes, I don't want to kill them."