Page 85 of The Mage and His Stolen Prince
“Nu-uh,yougot caught!”
Accusations were tossed back and forth like a ball until Wilde barked, “Quiet.”
Both imps snapped their mouths shut.
Maximus narrowed his eyes. “Who do you work for?”
Together the minions crowed, “The Lord of Grimnight.”
“So, you’re here to spy on us,” Fitz said.
“Nu-uh, we’re messengers,” the purple one explained.
“Which means you can’t shoot us!” The green one stuck its tongue out in a taunting face. “That’s the rules, and you’re the good guys, so you have to follow the rules.”
“Why should we follow the rules when we know the evil mage won’t?” Angelica asked.
The imps shivered under her cool stare and tucked themselves closer to Delilah and Wilde, like those were the only two people here they trusted.
“Ease up,” I said, waving for the others to give them space. Maximus hesitated the longest, but he finally took a single step back. “What’s your message?”
The green imp in Wilde’s arms relaxed first. It glanced up shyly at him and then turned to the rest of the group and announced with purposeful capitalization, “The Lord of Grimnight is Very Scary.”
We waited, but no further message followed. “Is that it?”
The imps exchanged a look. Then the purple one shouted, “There are monsters in the woods!”
“We know,” Fitz said.
“Don’t go that way,” the green imp said, pointing slightly to the right of our path. “Or you’ll run right into his lair!”
Fitz looked in that direction then gave a bewildered, “Thank you?”
The imps leaned toward each other, whispering in another language. Then the purple imp said, “And especially do not stop at the lovely, renovated cottage! We made the beds fresh, and they areours, and not for dirty questers to put their stinky human feet in!”
“But the patrols don’t come out this far,” the green imp said, “so we trust that you will honor your word and not go there.”
The imps looked at us expectantly.
Fitz figured it out first. “We promise not to go there?”
Satisfied, the purple imp turned its face up to Delilah and said, “Let me down.”
Delilah opened her arms, and the imp flew away.
The other imp launched out of Wilde’s arms, chasing its companion through the trees.
As their laughter faded, Angelica said, “Tell methistime at least that you all thought that was weird.”
Fitz nodded. “Likely a trap. An evil mage might be tempted to go somewhere forbidden, so he thinks we’ll fall for the same tricks. We’ll go that way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction of where the imps indicated, “and we’ll stay far away from any ‘lovely cottages.’”
I didn’t remember everything about the Lord of Grimnight, but I didn’t think he wasthatstupid. If anything, he would do the opposite. “Imps aren’t that bright. He might have told them to send us on a different path, so they literally told us not to go down the correct one.”
“What does the map say?” Maximus asked.
Fitz pulled it out, frowning as he examined it. “It’s quite old, drawn long before the forest was ever here, but the most direct route is where the imps pointed. However, I suggest we travel like this,” he said, drawing a semi-circle loop that would bring us through the opposite side ofTraumstead. “It will take longer, but the Lord of Grimnight’s minions will be looking for us from the wrong direction.”
“Are you sure you want to take that path?” Wilde asked, his calm gaze locked on the map.
