Page 91 of Robb

“Yoo-hoo!” she called in a falsetto, and it was all Robb could do not to rub at his face in exasperation.

… Trent.

Trent, don’t blow it, you absolute idiot.

Hope spread through him like wildfire. If Trent was here, then that presumably meant that other agents were here as well. Tahnee’s people must’ve been able to get in contact with the Agency and track her here.

He caught her eye for a split second, and saw the excitement that she was trying to keep hidden. She’d noticed as well.

Surreptitiously looking about, Robb tried to see if he could spot any of his other team members, either in their regular clothes or dressed up as medieval stereotypes – but no luck.

Still, he thought. James would recognize them if he saw them, so it makes sense that they’d be staying hidden. I can’t assume that Trent came up here to play dress-up princess by himself – surely at least some of the others are here somewhere, lying low and waiting for the right moment. Preferably in somewhat more subtle disguises.

A part of him felt suddenly, deeply touched. The fact that even one of his agents had come to rescue him after Bruce’s nasty little charade caused a strange upwelling of emotion that left his throat tight.

He knew he wasn’t popular at the Agency. He knew he had a reputation as the fun police, his tendency to be a stickler for rules leaving him isolated. And he knew that his involvement in behind-the-scenes politics – including the long, drawn-out operation to lure James out into the open – must have made him appear understandably untrustworthy. He’d had to put his team in danger in order for James to expose himself, after all – and he’d known there was a possibility that they could be seriously hurt or even killed.

But he’d also had enough faith in their skills to believe it would never have come to that, even if things had become complicated at times.

That being said, Robb thought, snapping back into business mode, James and the others are going to detect Trent as a shifter if we get any closer – and James isn’t about to let that kind of thing go uninvestigated. We need to maintain the element of surprise.

I just wish I knew what Trent’s actual plan was.

In the end, though, it turned out that he didn’t have to wait to find out.

“Hey, mister!”

Robb turned, to see a troupe of traveling players approaching.

Or, to be more accurate, Brooke and Rhys, dressed as traveling players. Not that Rhys was particularly convincing, given that his pants were about six inches too short and his face was furrowed in a scowl.

“Mister!” Brooke said again. “We needeth more actors for our performance! Willst thou, uh, acteth with us?”

James stared at them.

Tahnee stared at them.

The bodyguards stared at them.

Robb stared at them.

This is your plan?! he thought, mildly bewildered.

Though, to be fair, he supposed that they were probably unaware of Hargreaves’s original plot to wake the dragon, their current plot to parade Tahnee in front of all their bigwigs and force her to make infinite amounts of gold, and their lack of concern regarding their activities being blatantly obvious to the general public. He couldn’t imagine his team being this blasé if they knew that Hargreaves were quite happy to forego their usual role within the social contract, warped though it was.

Still. It really wasn’t a good plan.

That being said… I really can’t see us getting a better chance than this.

The dingo nodded. We must seize the opportunity.

Robb opened his mouth, not sure exactly how he was going to make this work.

“Of course I wilt acteth in thine play,” Tahnee said grandly, taking a step forward – before a huge, meaty hand gripped her arm.

James sighed in apparent exasperation, Bruce bobbing up and down as his shoulders rose and fell.

“This is a new low, Robb,” he said. “Even for your team. And you’ve had some doozies.”