by Martha Carr
“Like someone holding a vibrating cellphone and an Icy-Hot patch on your neck at the same time?”
Ember’s eyes grew incredibly wide before darting toward Cheyenne. “And bugs.”
“Yeah. And bugs.” The halfling forced back another laugh. “Uh, so this is pretty cool.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“But it’s cool.”
“Cheyenne, I don’t know what the hell to do with this! I’m already up to my neck in figuring out how to do life all over again in that stupid chair. Which is really great, by the way. Thanks for that too.”
The halfling pursed her lips and didn’t say a word.
“But that’s all I can handle right now. I can’t… I mean, no. No, no.” Ember shook her head vigorously, her ponytail slapping the headrest. “This is crazy.”
“Hmm, not really.”
“Don’t start.” The fae pointed a finger in Cheyenne’s face and tried to keep looking as stern as possible. A confused laugh burst out of her anyway. “No way this is happening.”
“It never occurred to you that this was a possibility?”
“You know what? You don’t get to be the voice of reason right now. You didn’t even know I was fae, and your brain almost exploded when I told you I don’t have any magic.”
The halfling sat back and folded her arms. “And now your brain’s exploding.”
“Of course, my brain’s exploding! I gave up wishing for magic when I found out Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real.”
“That’s a perfect comparison, Em. Holiday mascots for kids and actual magic. Makes perfect sense.”
“Thank you.”
“To an eight-year-old.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “I was five, by the way. My idiot cousin spilled the beans on that one right before bed on Christmas Eve.”
“Ouch,”
“Yeah.”
“Well, my mom didn’t even entertain the idea of letting me believe in stuff like that, so I don’t have anything to compare to that letdown.”
The fae lurched forward with a surprised laugh. “Are you serious? No Santa? No Easter Bunny, leprechauns, Tooth Fairy? Nothing?”
Shaking her head, Cheyenne shrugged. “Nothing.”
“That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. Why wouldn’t your mom play along?”
“Because I have magic, Em.” The words burst out of Cheyenne a lot louder than she’d intended, and Ember leaned away from her a little. “And probably also because Bianca Summerlin’s not the kind of person to indulge in fairytales and make-believe. You know, childish games and all that.”
“But you were a child.”
The halfling shrugged. “Meh. I grew up a lot faster than anyone expected, and that wasn’t because of who my mom is. I’ve got the drow side to thank for that.”
“Unbelievable. Explains a lot, though, if you think about it.”
Cheyenne laughed and slammed her hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly and shaking herself back and forth. “But we’re not talking about me! We’re talking about you and the best discovery of your life!”
“Oh, God.” Ember rubbed the back of her neck again and stared at the entrance to the clinic. “I have magic.”
“The magicless fae has magic! What’s happening?” Cheyenne slammed her hand on the horn. A woman walking toward the clinic jumped and spun around with a glare.
“No, not you. Sorry!” Ember shook her head and waved the woman off as the halfling burst out laughing. “Seriously, cut that out. You’re gonna give somebody a heart attack.”
“I’m freaking out!” Cheyenne whipped her head toward her friend and grinned. “And we have no idea what’s gonna happen. It’s great.”
“Ugh. Only you would be excited by that idea. I’m screwed.”
“No way, Em. You’re just getting started.”
“Shit.”
Tilting her head, the halfling strapped on her seatbelt and shifted into reverse. “You still hungry?”
“If I say no, I’m gonna regret it later.”
“Excellent. Where do you want to go, hypothetically speaking?”
Ember shoved her friend’s shoulder and shook her head, unsuccessful in her attempt to look irritated. “Anywhere that’s not this parking lot, halfling. I need to stop looking at that building.”
With a curt nod, Cheyenne pulled out of the handicap parking spot and headed toward the street. She tapped on the horn and bobbed her head from side to side. “Fae just got her magic back. And I get to drive her around.”
“Stop with the horn. Jesus.” Ember covered her face with her hands and laughed. “Don’t turn this into something it’s not, okay? I can’t ‘get my magic back’ if I never had in the first place.”
“Or did you?”
Ember took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and closed her eyes. “Just drive.”
Chapter Ninety-Three
The Chesterfield Towne Center was only about a five-minute drive from the clinic, and when Cheyenne pulled into the parking lot, Ember laughed and covered her mouth with both hands. “Are you serious right now?”
“Hey, you didn’t give me anything to go on, so I went with the closest selection.” Shifting into park, the halfling turned and raised an eyebrow. “Or did you want me to stop at the McDonald’s back there?”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying.” The fae glanced around the parking lot. “But a shopping mall full of high school kids on a Monday afternoon wouldn’t have made the list, if there was a list.”
“You know what? I think all that magic’s short-circuiting your brain right now.”
Ember unbuckled her seatbelt and raised her hands in surrender. “You’re one of the most infuriating people I know.”
“I get that a lot. Fortunately for you, you’re kind of joking.” The half-drow flashed her friend a brilliant grin that disappeared a second later. Ember clenched her eyes shut with another disbelieving laugh, and Cheyenne opened the trunk to get the chair.
They got Ember into it in record time, then the halfling grabbed the handles and pushed her friend toward the department store entrance. People turned to look at the shiny black Panamera when Cheyenne stuck her hand in her pocket to lock it.
“You’re never gonna get tired of that, are you?” Ember looked over her shoulder. “Watching how many people wish they had your car.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t know anything right now.”
“Just roll with it, Em. Besides, it’s better for people to be staring at my car than at either of us, right?”
“I know why people would stare at you,” Ember said, smirking and readjusting her purse in her lap, “but why me?”
“Oh, you know. Just in case your magic starts leaking out all over the place.”
“Seriously?”
“Hey, I’m in the perfect position to have serious empathy for you here, okay?” Cheyenne choked down another laugh and spoke in her best impersonation of Bianca Summerlin. “I’ve had the rare opportunity to gain personal experience in these types of situations, Ms. Gaderow. I would be more than happy to provide you with some insight if you agree to my conditions.”
“All right, Bianca,” the fae muttered through clenched teeth. “Name your price.”
“Oh, very good.” They laughed. “You got that immediately, huh?”
“Your mom’s the only person I’ve heard you impersonate like that, so it wasn’t that hard.”
Cheyenne cut a straight line through the department store and out into the center walkway of the mall. Groups of teenagers either swerved out of the way at the last second or split down the middle to walk around the Goth chick and her friend. “I guess I need to diversify, huh?”
“You know, Matthew mentioned something about dabbling in trading too.”
“Why am I not surprised?” The halfling peered down the line of shops, searching for the food court she thought was right there. “New rule. I won’t keep taking cracks at
the whole fae magic thing if you don’t talk about Matthew Thomas the dabbler unless it’s immediately before or after we have to deal with him for some reason.”
“Done. Oh, my God. What am I supposed to do about him now?”
Cheyenne snorted and nodded with raised eyebrows at a pair of women in their seventies, arms linked together, who passed the magical friends and couldn’t stop staring at the Goth chick’s getup. “Same thing you were planning to do with him before, I hope. Which is not letting him weasel his way into everything, right?”
Ember leaned over the side of her chair just enough to catch a final glimpse of the gray-haired women scowling at Cheyenne’s back and shaking their heads. “Those ladies have serious judgment issues.”
“That’s nothing. Some guy once told me I was going to hell for worshipping the devil.”
“How insightful of him.”
“I know, right? I tried to ask him what he suggested I do to fix that oversight on my part, and he ran away.”
Ember burst out laughing and turned toward the storefront coming up on their right. “Oh, boy.”
Cheyenne glanced at the Hot Topic sign above the door in thick black letters and leaned down to mutter in her friend’s ear, “Watch this.”
She slowed their pace a little and stared into the store as they passed. Four teenagers stood around one of the clothes racks in the center, all of them decked out in punkier versions of the Goth clothes the halfling had been wearing since 2012. The three girls and one guy looked up from the clothes rack and saw Cheyenne slowly pushing Ember past the storefront. The halfling wiped every ounce of expression off her face and met each of their gazes. Only one of the kids had any piercings—two studs on either side of his bottom lip—and two of the girls had added rainbow glitter to their eye makeup. The third didn’t wear any makeup at all, and she was the only one who didn’t join the others in making faces at the drow halfling staring them down.
Yeah, okay. Cheyenne stopped at the very end of the storefront’s window and stared at the teenagers trying to make the wrong person uncomfortable. The three joking around and making faces caught on pretty quickly that the Goth chick glaring through the window wasn’t going anywhere. Their smirks fell away in seconds, then Cheyenne glanced at the girl without any makeup. A slow, admiring smile lifted the corner of the girl’s mouth, and that was it.
The halfling turned slowly away from the window and pushed Ember down the mall once again. “Amateurs.”
Ember looked over her shoulder and shot the halfling an incredulous smile. “Maybe you should be a high school teacher instead.”
“What, and teach computer lab? No fucking way.” She grinned when Ember threw her head back and cackled. “That one on the end wasn’t so bad, though.”
“The one who smiled at you?”
“Yeah. I think she appreciated the gesture.”
Ember pointed over her shoulder at her friend. “I think she wanted to be you.”
“Oh, to be young and naïve!” They laughed again, and Cheyenne’s gaze settled on a man and his two sons under ten walking toward them. The boys stared with wide eyes, and their dad didn’t set a much better example. The halfling jerked her chin at the man and kept walking. “How’s it goin’?”
The guy tried to return the gesture, but his head twitched away from her instead before he put a hand on each of his kids’ shoulders and hurried them away from the scary lady who said hello.
“Wow. Is this a regular thing for you?” Ember glanced back at the boys and gave them a little wave. They hurried to put their dad between them and the much more normal-looking woman in the wheelchair.
“Absolutely.” Cheyenne winked at the woman in the tailored power suit walking briskly toward them, her heels clacking on the shiny floor. The woman stumbled away from the Goth chick, did a double-take, and hurried toward the opposite side of the mall’s center walkway to avoid passing within arm’s reach.
Ember cracked up again. “People.”
“I know. It’s pretty revealing. Some people don’t care what anyone looks like, and then I get decent conversations in. Like this old guy at Union Hill the other day. Dude was drooling all over my car and gave me his business card.”
“For your car?”
“Yeah, like custom work or whatever. Regular-looking guy, giant white handlebar mustache.”
“What?” Ember stretched her mouth open wide and wiggled her jaw around, trying to get her cheeks to stop hurting after laughing for so long at all the people here.
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll go check out what he can do.”
“You’re gonna Goth out the Porsche?”
“Why not?” Shrugging, the halfling caught sight of the Red Robin at the end of the shops before the next mall exit. “There it is. You good with burgers?”
“I don’t care at this point.”
“Sweet.” They pushed on, and Cheyenne paused when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. “Oh. Hold on a sec.”
“What’s up?”
“Phone call.” The halfling pulled out her cell phone and frowned. “From my mom.”
“The way you said that makes me think that’s not a normal thing.” Ember turned in the chair and glanced at the cell phone and then the halfling’s confused expression. “Everything okay?”
“Who knows? You mind?”
“You don’t need my permission to answer the phone.” Ember scoffed and turned back around.
Cheyenne accepted the call and brought the phone to her ear. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, Cheyenne. I just got off the phone with your finance manager. He called to notify me of a suspiciously high level of activity on your card over the weekend. His words, not mine. It’s none of my business what you do with your finances, but all parties involved wanted to be sure that the activity was authorized. You understand.”
The halfling grinned and forced down the laugh threatening to bubble up. Nobody laughs at Bianca Summerlin during a courtesy call. “It’s all authorized, Mom. Thanks.”
“Good. I’ll give the man another call, and then I’m going to put in a request for him to remove my contact information from your account. You’ll probably have to go in and confirm, but I’d prefer not to be bothered by someone else’s suspicion when you clearly have everything under control.”
“Yeah, no problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
Ember turned again to shoot her friend a confused frown, and Cheyenne just shook her head.
“I’ve already forgotten about it,” Bianca replied. “Where are you? It’s a little hard to hear you over all the background noise.”
Cheyenne bit her lip to pull herself back under control. Ember’s face is gonna get me yelled at. “At the mall with Ember, actually.”
“Oh. Interesting choice for a Monday night.”
“Just to grab dinner.”
“Is this the same Ember you met your first year at VCU?”
The halfling made a surprised face at Ember. A question about my friends. Whole day of surprises. “Yeah, that’s her. My housemate now, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yep. It’s working out pretty well so far.”
“Well, that explains all the charges. Since I can hear voices but no kitchen, Cheyenne, I’m assuming you two haven’t ordered dinner yet.”
Cheyenne shrugged at Ember’s questioning glance as the fae spread her arms and raised her eyebrows. “No, not yet.”
“Well, why don’t you come on up to the house? It’s still early. I’ll tell Eleanor to set two extra places, and then I will finally have a chance to meet your friend. Dinner’s at seven. You’ll get here in time for a cocktail or two before we eat.”
“Tempting. Let me run it by her.”
“Sure.”
Cheyenne pressed the phone against her thigh and wiggled her eyebrows at Ember. “We’ve been invited to dinner at my mom’s. What do you think?”
“I...think I really can’t say no to that.”
Grinning, the halfl
ing lifted the phone to her ear again. “We’ll get back in the car and head on up.”
“Wonderful. See you soon.” Bianca hung up in her usual perfunctory manner, and Cheyenne sniggered.
“Did that just happen?”
The halfling shrugged and stuck her phone into her pocket. “Looks like it.”
“Wow. I’m about to go have dinner with Bianca Summerlin.” The surprised smile faded from Ember’s lips, replaced by a wide-eyed stare.
“Okay, Em. You look like a mouse staring at a chunk of cheese in a mousetrap.”
The fae swallowed. “It’s creepy how well you just nailed the feeling.”
“Look who can read someone like an open book now.” Cheyenne laughed and turned the wheelchair around to head back toward the car. “Relax. It’ll be you, me, my mom, and Eleanor. Nothing fancy. Nothing super-special, just a casual dinner at chez Summerlin. You’ll be fine.”
“Honestly, that was the most surreal thing I’ve heard you say all day. I don’t… I mean, I don’t have a clue how to be around someone like your mom.”
The halfling shook her head and didn’t even bother to glance inside the Hot Topic again as they moved much more quickly past it this time. “Just be yourself.”
“That’s the worst advice you could possibly give me right now, and totally cliché.”
“Okay, okay. How’s this? Don’t try to impress her. Don’t lie to her. Don’t try to filter yourself. Bianca Summerlin’s bullshit detector is worth millions.”
Ember dropped her head back onto the thin edge of the back of the chair. “You’re making it worse.”
Cheyenne pulled a face at her upside-down fae friend. “We’ll make it in time for a cocktail or two before dinner. Those were her words, Em.”
“Oh, now we’re drinking with Bianca Summerlin.”
“Hey, keep your voice down, huh?”
“Sorry.”
Cheyenne glanced quickly at the other pedestrians walking past the storefronts of the shopping center and shook her head. “It’s a good thing. As long as she doesn’t break out the good scotch, everything’s peachy.”
“I don’t know anything about scotch.”
“No problem. She’s got a fully stocked bar all the time. Gin and tonics for Ms. Gaderow. As many as you want.”