Here's the rewrite:
"Elflame," he muttered, taking in the cobblestone streets stretching out ahead of them.
The city just outside the Academy was quieter than usual, almost empty, which made sense since the semester had ended and the students had all gone home. They'd appeared in a hotel room, and after leaving it he found himself standing in a marketplace that had been largely abandoned by its merchants.
"Haah, haa, haa."
He glanced back to find Anna struggling with her dress, the fabric riding up despite her repeated attempts to pull it back down, and several men nearby had already noticed, some grinning openly and others staring without any attempt to hide it.
"Can you not draw so much attention?" he said, though what he hadn't realized was that his own face had been completely altered during the healing process, and the scarf he was wearing did nothing to disguise him.
"Tch." Anna clicked her tongue and yanked the hemline back down, having been distracted trying to adjust her bra, and she worked quickly to spare the onlookers any further view of what was underneath.
"Where are you taking me?" There was genuine unease in her voice.
Since he'd mentioned so casually that he could kill her, she'd understood that her life was entirely in his hands, and that understanding had settled into her stomach and stayed there.
"You'll see," he said, not even looking at her.
"Teleportation gate," she muttered, recognizing the route they were taking.
He didn't respond, his attention already somewhere else.
She looked around the empty marketplace, at the stalls that had been packed up and the streets that had gone quiet now that the Academy term was over and the merchants had gone chasing profits elsewhere. The whole place felt abandoned.
She glanced at her palm and noticed the tattoo wasn't visible, though she'd learned by now that it activated whenever she considered disobeying him, and she looked up at his back and gritted her teeth.
What had she gotten herself into? She should've been with Auston right now, not stuck in this situation with no idea whether he'd even recovered from his injuries, and without her teleric, which she'd lost in all the chaos, she couldn't contact Nora to find out.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She couldn't stop thinking about what had almost happened earlier, and how for a terrifying stretch of time she'd thought she might lose the one thing she'd been saving for Auston's nineteenth birthday next month, something she'd been planning and waiting for, something meant to be theirs alone.
But when she'd been left vulnerable and exposed that morning, the horror she'd felt at the thought of someone else taking it, especially him, this person she despised, this weakling who'd hurt the love of her life, had been total and consuming.
He hadn't, though. She knew she should feel relieved, maybe even grateful, but instead she felt something stranger, which was irritation, because of that look he'd given her, that completely disinterested expression, like she was unremarkable, like she was the only person who thought she was worth looking at when she stood in front of a mirror.
Was it just pride? Maybe he didn't find her appealing at all. The thought bothered her more than it should have, and worse, it made her wonder whether Auston actually felt the same way, and self-doubt crept into places where she'd never had to question herself before.
"We're here."
She looked up and saw the long queue stretching in front of the teleportation gates, travelers waiting with luggage and documents in hand, and the familiar sight of it brought a brief sense of normalcy to what had been a very chaotic day.
"Go," he said, producing her ID from his spatial ring, then pulling out her own money and holding it out to her without any trace of embarrassment about it. "Buy tickets for Frosten."
She frowned. "The north pole?"
Her eyes widened before she could stop them, because of all the places in the world, why there?
"Yes," he said, completely flat.
"Are you stupid?" The words came out before she could think about stopping them.
The north pole, of all places, the most inhospitable stretch of land on the entire continent, and he'd just decided they were going there without any explanation.
"Are you sure you want to find out?" Those indifferent eyes landed on her, and she hated how powerless they made her feel, because she could've taken down countless people stronger than him without any effort, yet here she was, walking toward the counter like someone's servant.
She had to do something, she couldn't just keep going along with this, but she still didn't fully understand the nature of their contract, which meant she had no choice for now except to comply while she worked through everything she knew about slave contracts in the back of her mind, looking for any limitation or weakness she could use, because every magical contract had them, she just had to find where they were.
"Where to?" the young man at the counter asked with the kind of tired professionalism that came from asking the same question all day.
"Frosten," she said, and the word came out reluctantly.
The clerk looked at her with mild surprise, something about her face nagging at him like a memory he couldn't quite reach.
"Frosten?" he repeated, as if checking he'd heard her right.
"Yes," she sighed.
"Can I see some ID?"
She handed it over, and the moment his eyes found her name and then her surname, his expression shifted entirely.