I needed to think fast. Come on, Lailah, you can do this. Your father was a sorcerer! Your mother was an elf. You can find a way out of this…

Unfortunately, I couldn’t perform any spells, despite my father’s dutiful tutelage, and although my looks certainly wouldn’t break any mirrors, I didn’t inherit even a fraction of my mother’s beauty.

Except for her ice-blue eyes.

I fluttered my eyelashes at the ogre, remembering that ogres are easily distracted by pretty things.

“Ooh, you scared me, Mr. Ogre!”

The ogre licked his lips and leered at me. “I scare you, little human?”

“Yes. Only, I’m not a human. I’m half-elf.”

He grunted. “Halfling, huh. I eat halfling for breakfast.”

I placed a hand on his huge arm. “No! You don’t want to eat me. I’m nothing but skin and bones. I’d just get stuck in your teeth.”

The ogre seemed to think about this for a second, but before he could respond, I heard the unmistakably grating voice of a troll: “There you are, ogre! I paid you to kill the girl, not chat with her!”