Elayra rolled her eyes at Ghent’s claims of his abilities, none of which he had demonstrated thus far, and laughed at the concept of [i]him[/i] adding a sense of “stability.”
	[i]Wonderland’s going to eat him alive,[/i] she thought with a snort.
	She frowned and gave a displeased shake of her head when, despite his earlier claims, he tripped over one of the legs of a table.
	“You forgot to add ‘poised’ to your list,” she taunted, her smirk returning.  
	She gave yet another roll of her eyes at Ghent’s excuse for tripping. 
	“Pretty sure they’re in the same places,” she said condescendingly as, at last, he joined her, and the two of them headed back out to the street. With the shield above them, only a few stray raindrops splattered against them, most blown by the gentle breeze that occasionally wove its way through the park.
	When he answered her question, she nodded in recognition of coffee. “It’s not the easiest thing to find anymore, but we have coffee in Wonderland. It even has a similar description. Don't make it quite right, and it can pack one heck of a punch.”
	Elayra returned his stare with an irate, questioning sideways look, her brows twitching upward.
	[b]“Why? You want some?”[/b]
	She snorted. “No, you featherless dodo. Like I said, the portal’s by a place called ‘Hava Java.’ I was merely curious.”
	Elayra stopped as they reached where the park’s road met a larger street, the shield hovering above them stopping with her. Her back stiffened, and her hand went to the quiver of arrows, ready to pull one out as she glanced down either side of the new, open road, her fingers gently brushing the blue fletching. A car sped by on the opposite side of the street, sending a spray of water up around it from the stream of rainwater flowing beside the curb.
	“Which way?” she asked Ghent, looking to him once the car had passed, the driver hidden behind tinted windows.