Chapter 5

Ignoring my exhausted muscles, I turned around and chased after the scrawny elf into the narrow alleyway. I couldn't see him, but there were only so many places he could go in these tight alleyways.

"Are you sure we should be chasing him back here?" Kiuyk asked as we left the main street. "I can't count how many times my parents have told me to stay out of the back alleys."

"We're not kids anymore. We can defend ourselves, and if things get dangerous I'm sure the guards will understand us using our auras." I smiled wryly. "Besides, I've already been robbed. How much worse can it get?"

The elf was fast. By the time we reached the first intersection only a few dozen feet from the main road, we had lost sight of him.

"Damn it." I looked down each path but saw nothing. "Which way did he go?"

"Give me a second," Kiuyk said, arriving a second behind me. She knelt down and examined the cobblestones.

"You really think you can track someone on a stone road?"

"With how dirty these back alleys are? Absolutely." She grinned as she traced her fingers over what looked like just another part of the stone to me. "Scuff marks, fresh ones. He went this way."

Letting Kiuyk lead we continued through the dim passages. With each passing step, the sounds of the main roads became duller, and the already dim light of the moon and stars were made darker by the confined space and tall buildings. It became harder for Kiuyk to track the thief as we crossed with more traveled backroads, but for as much as Kiuyk hates to study her survival skills were top-notch. It wasn't long before we found the elf boy, calmly walking through the tight alleyway.

'Not bad, but we've got you now,' I thought confidently. The elf had been cautious, running as far as he did even through these winding back alleys, but there was no way that two of Vydiqa Academy's best students were going to be tricked by a common thief.

I moved up behind him, careful to make as little noise as possible, but just before I could grab him the elf bolted forward and started sprinting.

"Damn it! Stop! Thief!" I shouted as we started to chase.

"We're too tired to chase him," Kiuyk said behind me.

"Do you have any better ideas? We can't just split up."

These back roads were like a maze, so trying to split up and flank him would be impossible, and if I lost sight of him without Kiuyk to track him I would be completely lost. 

"Our best chance is to chase him down and hope we can outlast him."

With no other options, we kept running.

Moving through the narrow alleyways was difficult. The ground was uneven from disrepair, slick with dirt and moss, and the occasional crate or barrel made it hard for Kiuyk and I to pass. Meanwhile, the elf was thinner than us, rested, and familiar with these backstreets as they dashed around each obstacle with zero hesitation.

"Get back here you runt! Give me back my money!"

The path opened up a bit as we chased him into an actual street again, but this still wasn't a main street. Dilapidated buildings lined the sides of the run-down road, the air was stale, and what few people there were moved together in tight, quiet groups. There was more space between the buildings here, but the street looked like a tunnel as lines of laundry hung from building to building.

'Great, he dragged us into the slums,' I thought, hoping that the thief didn't have any friends to try backing him up. 'Actually, finding friends might make him stop running, and we can probably take down a bunch of thugs...'

"There!" Kiuyk said, trying to keep her voice down on the relatively quiet street. She pointed down the street and I could see the elven thief weaving between groups of people.

We continued chasing after him. Fortunately, the ground here was much more even, and evading the small groups of people was much easier than maneuvering those tight alleyways. We were slowly closing in, but if he found another alley to duck into we would go right back to where we started.

I glanced up, searching between the ropes of hanging clothing for the local guard tower. I nearly cursed when I finally found it, showing no signs of activity.

'The guards must be dealing with some other criminals elsewhe-there!'

I turned my attention back to the street ahead of us and smiled. In the distance, there was a pair of guards talking to some of the locals. The thief would be running past them in just a few seconds.

"We've got him now." I started waving my arm. "HEY! STOP THAT ELF! THIEF!"

The guards turned toward us, but not before the elf managed to hide himself behind a group of people and then slink into an alleyway. I pointed to where he went and one of the guards ran over, but suddenly stopped. Turning around the guard started to approach us.

'What? Why aren't they chasing him?' We stopped running a few feet ahead of the guard.

"Do you girls think it's funny to waste our time?"

"Wh-what?" I asked, my back instinctively straightening from the guard's tone. "I-I don't understand. We were just trying to chase down that thief."

"What thief?"

The guard leads us over to and points down the alleyway. My eyes widen at the solid wall of brick and stone about a dozen feet down. I went in to look behind a few crates and barrels, but there was nothing there. There was nowhere to hide, no windows or doors to break into, and the wall was too high to climb in such a short amount of time.

"He-he disappeared..." I said numbly.

"Please sir, we promise we weren't making it up," Kiuyk said to the guard.

"Can you give a description?" the other guard asked as they finished speaking to the locals.

"Well we didn't get a good look at his face, but he was an elf, he had a dark grey scarf wrapped around his neck and had brown hair and fur."

"An elven thief?" the guards seemed a bit more intrigued now. "Let me guess, he pickpocketed you two?"

"Swipped my coin purse," I told them, showing them the sliced piece of leather on my belt. "You already know about this guy?"

"We've had a couple of reports about an elven pickpocket running around the city for a couple of months now. Never seemed that important before, but if he really just disappeared like this..." the first guard turned to his partner. "Taqu?"

"I'm on it." the second guard approached the alleyway, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands as if in prayer. The area was silent, save for the chittering of a small crowd gathering nearby. The guard's brow furrowed before she sighed and opened her eyes. "I've got nothing. No traces of magic. Either he wasn't here, or this thief is skilled enough at magic that I can't find a trace of him."

"He was here!" I assured them.

"Alright already," the first guard sighed. "I'll put in a report about it later."

"But-"

"But nothing. I'm not going to say you two are lying, but we have other business to attend to and we can't just put it on hold on the possibility that a random thief is a master of magic."

"...okay," I sighed, understanding that this was the end of the discussion.

"Good. Come on Taqu, we need to get these clotheslines down." He started walking away. "Can't see a damn thing from the tower."

"Yes sir. You two get home safe now."

"Thank you, ma'am," we both said as she left.

"...sooo," Kiuyk turned to me. "Do you have any idea how to get home from here?"

"Nope."

~~~

"I'm home!" I shouted as I entered the house.

"Oh? Home early for once?" I heard Mother ask from the den.

"Very funny Mother," I replied. Mother was reading one of her books by candlelight, not looking up at me as I entered the room. I made my way over to the couch opposite her, sitting down heavily and making the old piece of furniture creak under my weight.

"Rough day?"

"Yeah..." I had spent most of the way back trying to think of how I would explain the day's events to my parents, but after coming up with nothing I figured I should just be blunt about it. "I got pickpocketed after school."

"You what?" she asked, finally looking up from her book. Practically leaping out of her chair she grabbed me by the shoulders and started looking me over. "Are you alright?"

"Mother, I'm fine," I said, letting her move my head back and forth as she looked for injuries that didn't exist. "The guy stole my coin purse without me noticing. Me and Kiuyk tried to chase after him but he disappeared."

"Really?" she asked skeptically. "The two of you chased him through the city and the guards didn't catch him?"

I looked away. "We.... may have followed him into the back alleys."

"Xara..."

"We were fine!"

"You know that's dangerous."

"Mother, I'm 16 years old! I'm about to graduate from the academy at the top of my cohort," I told her, feeling exasperated. "Z'kyd'qa's teeth, I can block swords by flexing my muscles!"

Mother put her hands on my shoulders. Only now did I realize that I was hyperventilating a bit.

"I know. But whether you're a student, a paladin, or a grand master, you will always be my daughter, and I will worry about you."

She put her hand on my cheek and I let my head rest on her palm. "...okay."

"Now are you sure you're okay? It's not like you to shout like that."

"I'm just...stressed out I guess. The trial is less than a week away, today was hectic, and..."

"And you just want to make sure everything is perfect," she said with a slight chuckle. "You really are his daughter."

"I guess so." I smiled softly before a chill ran down my spine at the thought of how mad Father would be if he heard me shout at Mother. "Where is Father? Is he still at the temple?"

"Yes. There's no sermon this cycle so he decided to put in a little extra work. I was going to bring him dinner later, perhaps you would like to do it for me?"

"Sure. But let me bathe first. I'm not sure if it was my training or the slums, but I feel gross."