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.Whoever had come up with the list of subjects for modern kids needed her head slapped, several times.Before coming to this world, Emily didn’t seem to have been taught anything useful at all.She looked at the lock, then she looked at where the door met the floor, then she looked at the lock again.If someone was behind the door, they’d be caught instantly, but there was no choice.Pulling off her undershirt–and ignoring Alassa’s gasp of shock - Emily carefully pushed the fabric under the door.It would have been easier with a newspaper or a sheet of parchment, but she had to make do with what she had.A moment later, she took the hairpin and started to push at the key’s head, trying to maneuver it out of the lock.There was a clinking sound as it hit the fabric.Grinning, Emily pulled her shirt back into the cell along with the key.“Clever,” Alassa said, her face lighting up like the sun.“How did you think of it?”“I was desperate,” Emily muttered back, as she picked up the key.It appeared to be made from solid iron rather than anything more exotic.She half-expected a hex to explode in her face the moment she inserted the key in the lock, but it clicked open normally.They stepped into the hallway.“Keep very quiet.”The sorcerer’s home–if it was the sorcerer’s home–was eerily silent, almost deserted.No matter how much she listened, she could hear nothing.The sorcerer might be gone, or he might have used silencing charms to keep unwanted guests from hearing his footsteps.There was barely any lighting at all.Emily crept along the hallway towards a hint of light in the distance.Alassa followed, still carrying the chunk of wood.She looked like a warrior princess, complete with a determined expression that surprised Emily.But Alassa had been raised to be a Princess.They turned a corner–- and walked right into the young bandit.He let out a yelp of surprise, grabbing Emily and shoving her back against the stone wall.Emily tried to bring her knee up to strike him in the groin, but his armor absorbed the blow.The Sergeant would have given her a sharp rebuke if he’d been there, part of her mind noted.just before Alassa brought her wooden club down on the bandit’s head.He folded and hit the ground with brutal force, groaning in pain.Emily knelt down beside his body and stripped the bandit of sword and dagger.“Kill him,” Alassa ordered.Emily stared at her in horror.She couldn’t kill someone in cold blood, not yet–and perhaps not ever.But Alassa was right; if the bandit raised the alarm, they might be unable to escape.Emily gripped the sword tightly, ready to bring it down and slice through his head, and then lowered it again.“No,” she said, and hoped that she wasn’t making a mistake.“Hit him again and then we can run.”Alassa gave her a sharp unreadable look, then struck the bandit a second time.Once he’d stopped moving, she and Emily moved quickly down the corridor.“The sorcerer must be watching for us,” Alassa gasped.“Most sorcerers know everything that happens in their house.”Emily nodded, holding the bandit’s sword in front of her like a talisman against evil.It wouldn’t be enough, she knew, if they did encounter the sorcerer.There were books about what happened to swordsmen who fought sorcerers on even terms, all written in the same mocking style as the Darwin Awards back home.The rare times that a swordsman overcame a sorcerer helped to winnow out weak and useless sorcerers from the gene pool, not that they’d put it quite like that.But no magic reached out to snare them - or to kill them - as they reached the main door.It might have been hexed, so Emily used the sword to lever it open.Nothing happened, so they stumbled out into the bright sunlight.They didn’t seem to have moved too far in the city at all, although it was difficult to tell.Alassa grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the streets, ignoring her tattered clothing and distinctly unpleasant appearance.She, at least, seemed to know where they were.“You,” a voice snapped.Emily turned to see a man wearing chainmail armor, escorted by three other armsmen.“You’re the missing Princess?”Alassa pulled herself up to her full height.“I am Princess Alassa of Zangaria,” she informed him, in a tone that left no doubt that she was telling the truth.“And we have escaped from the kidnappers who took us from your city.My father will hear of this.”“I must escort you to City Hall,” the guard said.Emily found herself wondering if he’d actually meant to say City Hall, or if it was the closest adaption the translation spell could do.“The City Fathers have been very concerned.”“I suggest you have the bandits in that building arrested,” Emily said before they could be led away.No doubt the City Fathers would be relieved to find Alassa safe and sound, but the kidnappers were still alive and free.“They might take the time to escape.”“More guardsmen are on their way,” the guardsman informed her.His voice was insufferably confident, mixed with a fear that Emily didn’t quite understand.But then, someone would have had to pay for the lapse in security.“The bandits will not escape.”Chapter Twenty-EightAS IT HAPPENED, THE CITY FATHERS weren’t the only ones who wanted to see them.Mistress Irene had been staying at City Hall and, by the looks of things had been wearing out the carpet by pacing back and forth while waiting for news of her missing charges.Judging from the comments Emily had overheard as they were escorted into the building, Mistress Irene been an unwelcome guest, probably because she took her responsibilities seriously.God help anyone who got in Mistress Irene’s way.City Hall itself was a massive building that reminded Emily of the Roman Senate.Dozens of young men ran around the building, carrying letters and packets from one room to another, while a cluster of older men supervised their every move.There were no women at all, apart from Mistress Irene–and, given the looks that the two girls received as they entered the building, Emily suspected that women were generally barred from entering City Hall.Like so much else about the strange new world she’d discovered, it seemed surprisingly primitive–and barbaric.“May all the Gods be praised,” Mistress Irene said when Emily and Alassa were escorted into the small antechamber.“I feared that the worst had happened when your friend told me that you were gone.”Emily and Alassa exchanged glances.“I had to send the others back to Whitehall under escort,” Mistress Irene said.“Now tell me, what happened to you?” Her eyes darkened.“And if this was some kind of practical joke.”“No,” Alassa said in a very small voice.She sounded as if she were going into shock, now that the immediate danger was over.“Mistress, we were abducted
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