by Martha Carr
“There we go.” Still grinning, Cheyenne nodded and left the room, leaving the door open behind her. She’s gonna flip when she sees this. Look at me, using the most advanced magic-enhancing tech in two worlds to do good deeds.
She laughed softly as she crossed the living room. Ember let out a startlingly loud snore and smacked her lips. Cheyenne crept back into her own room and softly closed the door behind her.
The activator came off with another pinch before the halfling set it on her black dresser. She eyed the silver coil for a moment, then climbed into her ridiculously soft bed. I haven’t felt this right about something in a long time.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Cheyenne had no idea what time it was when she woke up the next morning. She blinked slowly and took the time for a long stretch in bed. Doesn’t even matter. I have nothing to do today.
The low drone of the TV filtered into her room, and she snorted. “Way to veg out first thing in the morning, Em.”
She threw the comforter off, pushed out of bed, and drew the covers back up in a semblance of order before snatching the activator off her dresser.
Ember was still on the couch when Cheyenne entered the living room, the remote lying in her lap as she stared at the TV.
“Morning.” Cheyenne tousled her hair, which had dried into a tangled mess of loose black curls.
“Hey, you’re up.” Ember turned off the TV and pointed at the bathroom. “I’ve come up with at least six different scenarios for how you got blood all over your backpack, and, I mean, that used to be a shirt, right?”
The halfling glanced at the rag of shredded shirt spilling out of her open pack beside the bathroom door. “Yeah. The blood’s mine too. Sorry.”
She snatched up the tattered rag and took it to the kitchen trash.
“You know, when Corian stopped by yesterday to tell me you’d left to make the crossing—jeez, just saying it still blows my mind—he forgot to mention the part where you’d come back covered in blood in the middle of the night.”
Cheyenne snorted as she returned to the living room and slumped into one of the leather recliners. “That part can’t surprise you much.”
“No, not really.” Ember shrugged and pushed herself farther up the couch’s armrest. “I’m more surprised that you agreed to go over there. I mean, I know you have to eventually for that coin or whatever, but this came out of the blue.”
“I know.” Running a hand through her hair, Cheyenne glanced at the ceiling. “It was nuts.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine now. Almost didn’t make it back.”
“What?”
“But I did. And I’m totally fine, Em. Promise. And I need to send some kind of thank you basket to Yadje for that darktongue salve.”
Ember stared at her friend, then a grin broke out on her face. “Tell me everything.”
Cheyenne laughed. “In a nutshell, Ambar’ogúl’s fucked. Magicals who can afford living in the capital are being held prisoner in one giant, endless party. And halflings can apparently bring advanced O’gúl tech across the Border.” She leaned forward and wiggled the silver coil at the fae. “Like this.”
“A metal spring. Nice.”
The halfling stood and walked toward the couch. Ember gestured to the wheelchair beside her, and Cheyenne shrugged before sitting down in it. “Doesn’t look like much, right?”
Ember stared at the coil and bit her lip. “Nope.”
“It’s an activator, Em.”
The fae’s eyes widened. “For real?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure this is what got me in trouble last night on our way back, but it’s real. And it works.”
“You’re screwing with me.”
“No, really. I used it last night.”
Ember reached for the silver coil and studied it intently. “I bet it doesn’t work for anyone else.”
“I mean, Persh’al’s the only other magical who tried to use it. Didn’t work for him, and he was pretty pissed about it.”
“I bet.” Biting her lip, the fae lifted the coil with a questioning glance. “You think maybe?”
“Go for it.” Cheyenne sat back in the wheelchair and folded her arms. “If it works for you, it blows a hole right through L’zar’s theory, but it might ramp up your magic.”
“Right.”
“Behind your ear.”
Ember swiped her hair around over her other shoulder and lifted the activator to her head. She grimaced at the sharp pinch and waited. “Now what?”
“You see anything different?”
“No.”
“Yeah, it’s an instant on-switch.” Cheyenne shrugged. “Guess that proves the halfling theory.”
“Damn.” Ember removed the coil and handed it back. “I mean, good for you. That part’s awesome. Just got my hopes up a little, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, Em. We’ve already seen your magic. You keep going the way you’re going, and you’ll be walking again too.”
The fae snorted. “You mean, go into underground magical marketplaces and almost get ripped apart by war machines sniffing my blood? Yeah. A few more weeks of that, and we can throw the chair out altogether.”
“Very funny.” Cheyenne stuck the activator back in her pocket. “That’s not gonna happen again. I promise. We’ll figure out how to jumpstart your magic too.”
“Maybe.”
A loud, urgent pounding came from the front door. The girls shared a curious glance, then Cheyenne stood from the chair. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Eight-thirty, maybe.”
“That’s too early for a surprise visit. I don’t even know anyone who’d drop by the old-fashioned way anymore.”
Ember snorted and turned the TV back on as Cheyenne approached the front door. She stood on her tiptoes to peer through the round peephole and reared back. “What the hell?”
“Who is it?”
Cheyenne blinked and shot Ember a furious scowl over her shoulder. “It’s Rhynehart.”
The fae grimaced. “Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, uh-oh for him.” The halfling unlocked the deadbolt and the lock on the doorknob, then jerked the door open a few inches to glare at him in the hall. “What are you doing?”
Rhynehart grimaced. “We need to talk.”
With an irritated growl, Cheyenne slipped through the door and yanked it closed behind her. She shoved him away from her apartment and shook her head. “You can’t just show up where I live, Rhynehart. This is crossing a serious line.”
He glanced down the hall at the elevators. “You sure you wanna have this conversation out here in the hall?”
“I don’t wanna have this conversation at all,” she hissed. “And you should be up at my mom’s house with your team. You know, guarding that rock and keeping her safe.”
“My guys are still up there, Cheyenne.” He folded his arms. “And apparently, they did what they were up there to do last night. It went active, and they had to fight off a bunch of nasty black things spilling out of an invisible space between those rocks. Huge things. Two tentacles and a giant claw.” Rhynehart mimed pincers with his hands and raised an eyebrow. “But they took care of it.”
Cheyenne frowned. “Yeah, sounds like that was just a baby. And you could have told me all that over the phone, man! You didn’t have to show up at my door. No, you shouldn’t show up at my door.”
“Well, I had to come see for myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to make sure you were here instead of running all over who knows where gettin’ into more trouble than I can imagine.”
The halfling folded her arms and glared at him. “If I was, that’s none of your damn business. Also, I’m fairly sure we all agreed that me working with you people had conditions, like staying the hell out of my personal life and especially out of my apartment.”
Rhynehart glanced down the hall again and shook his head. It took him longer than usual to lift his g
aze to Cheyenne’s. “I saw something else come out of those rocks last night.”
Shit. I should’ve knocked him out harder. She pressed her lips together and didn’t say a word.
“I know what I saw, Cheyenne. My guys briefed me on the things spilling out of that opening because I missed the whole thing. Now, I know I can’t prove shit about seeing you appear out of thin air before my team took action on those weird-ass whatever-they-ares, but I know it was you. This was the first stop I made after waking up.”
Cheyenne studied his deep frown. “Who else knows?”
“Just me. I didn’t come here to bark more of Sir’s orders at you.” Rhynehart snorted. “Frankly, after hearing what my team went up against last night, I don’t think any of my people have a goddamn clue what’s happening or how to handle it on a wider scale, even Sir. But whatever you’re doing, kid, don’t let it get in the way of me doing my job. Got it?”
She stepped back and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not gonna try to pry answers out of me?”
He shook his head and raised both hands. “I don’t even want answers at this point. Look, you obviously know more about what’s happening than we do. It sucks, but I’m not gonna endanger my guys to try playing at your level. Shit just got weird. I mean, weirder than I’ve seen in my entire career of doing pretty weird shit. We don’t have the resources or the leverage anymore to force you into anything. L’zar’s out. You gave us that new opening on your mom’s property, which we now know isn’t just a pile of rocks. It’s not ideal, but I have no problem with the idea that we’ll have to work next to each other from now on, if not together.”
“Huh.” Cheyenne looked him up and down and shrugged. “Gotta say I didn’t expect that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when to throw in the towel and switch to a different tack.” He rubbed his chin and glanced behind her at her front door, looking for the right words. “If anything else comes up that you think we should know, I hope you’ll keep making those calls.”
“I will. Just like I told you about that thing on my mom’s property.” She snorted. “As much as I’d love to, I can’t be everywhere at once.”
“You get pretty damn close, though, don’t you?” The man’s lips twitched into a tight smile. He started to turn away from her but paused, lowering his voice. “You were right about that portal, Cheyenne, so I’m taking a risk and trusting that you’re right about whatever else you think you’re doing. Don’t make me look like an asshole.”
“No problem. You’re good at doing that all on your own.”
They stared at each other for a moment longer, then the FRoE agent grunted a humorless laugh and pointed at her. “Maybe. Is that why you won’t let me inside?”
“Maybe.” No way am I giving him an open invitation to step through those wards just for a talk like this.
He eyed the door again. “You’re not keeping an escaped convict in there, are you?”
“Please. I want him in my apartment even less than I want you in there. And no, I still can’t tell you where he is.”
Rhynehart shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
He shrugged and headed down the hallway toward the elevators.
Cheyenne watched him until he disappeared through the elevator doors. At the same moment, Matthew’s front door opened across the hall, and his face lit up with a cheerful smile when he saw her.
Not now, neighbor.
She jerked the door open again, slipped inside, and leaned against the door to close it. “Shit. That was close.”
“What the hell happened to my room?” Ember shouted.
“Oh.” Cheyenne slid the deadbolt into place and nodded before hurrying across the kitchen toward her friend. “That was me.”
“What?” Ember wheeled backward and stared at the halfling. “It was a mess in here. I mean, I know I’m a heavy sleeper, but I would’ve heard the vacuum. Wait, you didn’t vacuum up tiny crushed pieces of magical spy-bugs, did you?”
Fighting back a laugh, Cheyenne shook her head and leaned through the doorway to grab the trashcan. “No vacuum. An O’gúleesh activator that isn’t supposed to exist over here.”
The fae peered at the pile of metallic dust in the trashcan and swallowed. “Oh. Like, a cleaning spell or something?”
“Or something. I don’t even know what it was. The gear did it all for me.”
“Jesus.” Ember spun her chair around to watch Cheyenne dump the smaller trashcan into the kitchen’s much larger bin. “That thing’s gonna make you unstoppable.”
“You’re not the first person to say that.” Cheyenne returned Ember’s trash can and stopped outside the bedroom door, folding her arms. “Can’t use it all the time, though. Apparently, it’s got some crazy magical frequency that would be way too easy for the wrong people to pick up on over here.”
“Well, yeah, if that’s the only one that exists.” A surprised laugh burst from Ember’s mouth when she looked through her open bedroom door again. “And you made the bed.”
“It felt right.”
“Thanks. I might be able to get into my closet for a change of clothes without freaking out now.” The fae smoothed her hair away from her face. “So, what did your FRoE friend want?”
“To make sure he wasn’t losing his mind, I think.”
“Ha. I’m having a hard time believing you’re the person he’d go to for that kind of reassurance.”
Cheyenne said, “Yeah, me too. But I might’ve had a part in him questioning his sanity.”
Ember turned her chair around and shot her friend a sidelong glance through narrowed eyes. “Well, now you have to tell me the whole story.”
“That’s a given.” Stepping toward the fridge, Cheyenne opened the top freezer door and peered inside. “I need something to eat first. The last meal I had was way too small and tasted weirdly like raw tuna. I couldn’t even eat most of it.”
“The food’s not that great over there, then, huh?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “It had eyes.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
After relaying her entire trip into Ambar’ogúl, Cheyenne set the empty container of her microwavable stir-fry-for-breakfast on the coffee table and sat back in the recliner. “So now everyone’s waiting on whatever L’zar’s next step in the plan is. Which of course, nobody wants to tell me.”
Ember stared at the halfling, her mouth slack. “Oh, man. I can’t believe you’re going back there. Sounds like a shitshow.”
“Yeah, pretty much. But I have to, Em. Whatever putting that giant drow coin on some monarch’s altar is supposed to do for me, that’s what has to happen next—assuming L’zar and Corian know what they’re talking about and the whole thing won’t be a huge waste of time and energy. Not to mention putting a lot more magicals in danger.”
“They have to know what they’re doing.” Ember rubbed her palms down her thighs and shook her head. “There’s a lot at stake in this.”
“I know, and it’s only gonna get worse until we can stop the Crown’s poison from spreading all the way across the Border. I still don’t see how me dropping a coin on some table is gonna make that easier for us.”
“Maybe it’s the halfling thing.” Ember shrugged. “If you can bring something like an activator across and get it to work on this side, there’s probably something you’re bringing over there with that coin, right? Something connected to the human side of you, or whatever.”
“That might be part of it, sure.” Cheyenne sat back in the recliner and frowned at the empty frozen-dinner container. “L’zar knew he’d have another halfling kid the night he left my mom that puzzle box, but he didn’t know about me being able to bring advanced tech into this world until after I did it.”
“So the coin-on-the-altar thing is just a hunch.”
“No. They told me about that part of the plan the minute I opened the box. Apparently, that’s the last step, but I still feel like I’m missing something, like why it’s so important.”
Ember tucked her hair behind her ear and gazed around the living room in thought. “Is taking that coin over there supposed to give you more powers?”
“I don’t know. That’s the way they made it sound. Claiming the rest of my legacy.” With another shrug, Cheyenne stood from the chair and looked at the mini-loft. “Now I’m supposed to wait for someone to call me and fill me in on what happens next.”
Ember chuckled. “I bet you hate that.”
“Yeah, I don’t like sitting around and waiting.” She pulled the activator from the pocket of her sweatpants and grinned. “Which is why I’m gonna go introduce this thing to Glen and see what happens.”
“Uh-huh.” Ember grabbed the remote off the coffee table and aimed it at the TV. “Have fun.”
Cheyenne was already halfway up the metal staircase by the time the background noise of Ember’s newest show filled the apartment. She brought up her drow magic, her skin and hair making the transformation instantly, and stuck the activator behind her ear. Once the initial pinching sync-up faded, she stood in front of her computer and rubbed her hands together.
“Okay, Glen. Time to see how well you handle a little boost in teamwork.”
“What?”
The halfling snorted. “Talkin’ to myself, Em.”
“Right.”
Cheyenne sat in the cheap office chair and powered up her computer. The minute Glen’s fans started whirring and the whole system turned on, everything lit up in her vision with more scrolling lines of code and flashing lights. This is gonna be fun.
The data streams were filled with basic processes she already knew and understood, so she pulled up her VPN and dove into the dark web headfirst. She went straight to the Borderlands forum and stopped when the home page filled her monitor. Holy shit.
The data streamed across her vision, the excess spilling outside the physical confines of the monitor screen to scroll across the desk. Hundreds of back-channel entry points and strings of encrypted data unraveled in front of her. Cheyenne grinned and focused her attention on the most recently posted topic threads. The second she zeroed in on the poster’s username, a flashing line of data rolled out, showing the coded makeup of the user’s VPN, their most recent dark-web browser history, and two different IP addresses used to hop onto the forum. After that came the magical’s name, which she hadn’t seen before, and a physical address labeled Most Recently Confirmed Location.