by Martha Carr
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.” Maleshi rolled her shoulders and grunted. “And I’m still in one piece. I’ll take it with a grain of salt if you don’t mind.”
“Salt in an open wound.” Gúrdu rocked backward as he let out a massive belch. A puff of shimmering green light burst from his mouth and disappeared.
Maleshi leaned toward Cheyenne again. “Did you get all that?”
“Yeah.” The halfling stared at her friend with wide eyes. “What happened to you?”
“I got my prophecy, kid. That was the easy part.”
“And the hard part is…”
“Figuring out what the hell it means.” The Nightstalker slapped her hands down on her knees, nodded, and pushed up off the cushions. “It’s been real, raug. Now we’re even.”
Gúrdu slid a clawed finger through the pile of shattered shell in front of him. “Hardly.”
“Yeah, well, next time I’ll bring payment. What’re you charging for your space-case drivel these days, anyway?”
“More than you can afford to give if you pursue this.”
“I’ve heard that one before too. Unless you prophesy something with my name in it and the words ‘you will die,’ I’ll take my chances. A hunch from you isn’t another prophecy, Gúrdu. We both know that.”
Cheyenne stood and eyed the raug. He knows something.
The Oracle looked up from the shattered pile and glanced at the halfling and the Nightstalker. Then his finger lifted and pointed at Cheyenne. “She should have been the one to offer and ask.”
“Well, she’s not the one calling in the favor, is she?” Maleshi dusted off her pants and stepped carefully between the pillows scattered around them. “And if I can’t afford another prophecy now, I sure as hell can’t pay for the kid.”
“You wouldn’t have to.” The raug lowered his hand again. “This one lies at the center of more than one thread.”
“You don’t say. Only a complete moron couldn’t figure that out. Come on, Cheyenne. I’m feeling creepy-crawly, and the smell in here’s gonna make me sick.”
As the Nightstalker made her way through the mess of cushions and ash and dust and whatever else was probably growing beneath all of it, Cheyenne found herself unable to move. “What does that mean?”
“Really? I’ve got a prophecy hangover, and I’m gonna hurl. How much more transparent can it get?” Maleshi reached the end of the sea of pillows and stumbled before catching herself with a hand against the wall. She looked over her shoulder and glanced wildly around the room before finding that Cheyenne hadn’t moved. “Oh, for crying out loud!”
“That I’m at the center of more than one thread,” the halfling muttered with a shrug. “What is that?”
The Oracle’s orange eyes widened. “Is that your ask, then?”
“Yeah, I’m asking you what that means.” Cheyenne flexed her fingers by her sides. And I’d be threatening him with drow magic again if it wasn’t for this stupid pendant. “You said it, and now you need to tell me what you mean by that. What are all the threads?”
A slow, devious smile spread across the raug’s thick gray lips. “Make an offering, drow.”
Chapter Eighty-Five
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Stop. Cut. Do not pass Go.” Maleshi shuffled back across the sea of pillows, reaching out toward the halfling. She almost fell on her face before she got to Cheyenne and brought a hand down firmly on the half-drow’s shoulder. “It’s time to get outta here, kid. This guy’s brain’s been fried by at least a dozen trees worth of magic sticks by now.”
The halfling scowled at the Nightstalker. “I want to hear—”
“Zip. Zip it. Not another word.” Maleshi tugged on Cheyenne’s hoodie and nodded toward the door into the hall. “I’m serious. We’ll talk outside.”
Cheyenne’s shoulders ached with the tension of her anger and she had no way to let it out. She glanced at the Oracle, who leaned back against the mass of cushions behind him and chuckled. He’s playing me.
That only made it worse. Rolling her shoulders, the halfling followed Maleshi through the scattered cushions and the low round tables dotting the huge room. The Nightstalker wagged a finger at the Oracle, gesturing for Cheyenne to go ahead. “You’re cutting it close today, Gúrdu. If you spent as much time out there in the real world as you do sitting on your ass pretending to know more than everyone else, you’d be reworking that opinion on false honor. Don’t make me remind you again.”
Without waiting for a response, the Nightstalker staggered out of the room. The raug Oracle’s deep, rumbling laughter followed her like a bad dream. She had to steady herself again on the doorframe, shaking her head and letting out a long, slow breath.
“You good?” Cheyenne watched her from this side of the beaded curtain.
“Almost. Get me outside, and I’ll be as good as new. Or something.” Maleshi waved the halfling forward before pushing off. The beads clacked as Cheyenne passed through them. The Nightstalker swiped at the dangling strands to move them aside. She missed half of them and got a face full of dangling beads. “Okay, what…why can’t he just…”
With a hiss, she grabbed two thick handfuls of the dangling strands and ripped them down from the ceiling. The wooden bar holding them all together at the top tore free from its hook and thumped against her back as she ducked to avoid it. After a mad scramble to get the things off her, the whole beaded curtain and the wooden rod clattered to the floor. Maleshi lashed out with a final irritated kick, missed, and almost fell flat on her ass in the process.
“Need a hand?” Cheyenne frowned in concern as the ex-general reeled and finally steadied herself.
“I need a drink. Two. I need—” Maleshi hunched, her eyes bulging, and pressed a hand against her stomach. “Out.”
The halfling didn’t wait to see her friend waving her toward the front door. She jogged down the rest of the hall before opening the door and holding it for the magic-sick Nightstalker.
Maleshi stumbled through, smacking her lips again and scowling. “I hate cranberries. I bet he does that just to screw with me.”
Cheyenne pulled the door shut behind her and gave the ex-general a wide berth. “Yeah, you two seemed pretty close.”
“Ha.” With a deep breath, the Nightstalker straightened and held her hands out in front of her. When she didn’t puke, she nodded and shot the halfling a thin smile. “Some friends are made by necessity, kid. At the time, my choices were to either let one of maybe a few hundred Oracles go down with the rest of his clan or to sneak the seven-foot POW past my men and kick his ass Earthside. Looks like my momentary lapse in brutality worked out for all of us.”
Shoving her hands into her pockets again, the halfling glanced back at the Oracle’s closed front door as she and the Nightstalker headed back down the breezy hallway toward the apartment building’s front door. “He’s been here longer than you.”
“You know, a little stretch of the imagination, and you could say that about every Oracle in existence. But technically speaking? Yeah. By several centuries, give or take.” A silver light flashed at the Nightstalker’s fingertips, and the centuries-old human illusion of Mattie Bergmann replaced the ex-general’s feline appearance.
Cheyenne stepped through the battered door and held it open for her friend. “None of that sounds like a friendship of necessity.”
“Well, it is for him, I guess.” When Maleshi stepped out into the crisp autumn air, she perked up a little more. “Didn’t stop him from trying to lure you into his weaselly little claws, did it?”
The halfling looked as dumbfounded as she had the first day she’d stepped into Mattie Bergmann’s office for a chat about magic.
Maleshi cocked her head. “You almost got roped into a prophecy back there, kid. Anything you said next could have and would have been used against you in that nasty room.”
“Because I wanted him to explain himself?” Cheyenne shook her head as they headed down the short path toward the sidewalk. “I asked hi
m plenty of questions the last time I was here, and hey, not even an accidental prophecy.”
“That’s the way they are. Oracles.” The Nightstalker shook her head, and a little shudder traveled down her spine. “Sounded a lot like he wanted to give you a free reading, kid. Which means if you’d kept pushing him, you would’ve found yourself using up a free ticket for a prophecy you didn’t want. That just muddies the waters, you know?”
“Not really. I’d still have more answers than I got out of him.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” They reached the Panamera, which was parked a full fifteen inches from the curb, and stopped on the sidewalk. “Asking the wrong question with one of those guys is like putting arcade tokens into a vending machine. Only works if you’re still in the arcade. I think.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes and stepped around the front of her car toward the driver’s side door. “I guess the next time I need a real prophecy and have an offering or whatever, I get a freebie.”
Maleshi burped and grimaced, smacking her lips again. “If you do, kid, don’t let him tell you he doesn’t remember saying you don’t have to pay. Raug don’t forget many things. A raug Oracle holds onto every tiny detail before and after it happens. And speaking of the next time, what happened the first time?”
“I brought him the legacy box like you said I should.”
“Oh, yeah.” The Nightstalker chuckled even as her normally healthy color faded. “Way back when you and I only thought we knew each other. How’d he take it?”
The Porsche let out a chirp when Cheyenne unlocked it with the keyless fob and a smile that didn’t feel quite so forced. “Nearly pissed himself and said he wouldn’t touch that box to save his life. Apparently, it’s scarier than a raging half-drow holding an attack spell under his nose.”
A weak, distracted laugh rose from Maleshi’s throat. “Sometimes, it’s better not to know—”
The words cut off as the Nightstalker pressed her lips together and hunched forward again.
Cheyenne shot her a sympathetic frown. “You’re looking a little green over there. You sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be fine. I just need—” Maleshi let out a strangled heave and reached for the handle of the passenger-side door. “Let’s get goin’, kid. I need a six-pack and a whole box of saltines.”
The Panamera’s locks chirped again just before the Nightstalker tugged on the door handle.
She looked at Cheyenne and shook her head. “What are you doing?”
“You’re not getting in my car until you puke or can stand there for two minutes without looking like you’re about to.”
“Come on, Cheyenne. You’re overreacting. I’m fine.” Maleshi swallowed thickly and failed to look fine. “It’ll pass, okay? It’s like reverse car-sickness. I just need to keep moving.”
“Not in the Porsche.” The halfling eyed her friend and slowly raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I’m really into the new-car smell. Not gonna risk it.”
“I’m not—” Maleshi blinked, staggered back, then turned away from the car and vomited on the dry brown grass in front of the small apartment building. It was quick and violent, and then it was over. Sighing, the Nightstalker straightened and turned to give Cheyenne an exasperated look. “There. Are you happy now?”
“I’d be happier if you’d held back your hair.”
Maleshi grabbed a section of thick, wavy black hair resting over her shoulder and snorted in disgust. “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Not when you didn’t give me any warning.”
“Okay, you know what? Fine.” The ex-general could only keep up the ruse of being insulted for so long. A defeated chuckle escaped her. “No, I’m not gonna make you drive me home like this. Just go. I feel loads better, so we’re good.”
“You sure?”
“Do I still look green?”
Cheyenne smirked. “Nope.”
“There you go.” Maleshi glanced up and down the quiet street and lifted her hands. A quickly muttered spell and some hand gestures later, the Nightstalker gestured to a brand-new portal hovering over the sidewalk in front of her. “I’m going home. So should you. Grab some dinner, put up your feet, and as soon as I know what happens next, you’ll be the first person to hear about it.”
“Okay.” Cheyenne let herself smile at the woman who’d started her journey toward controlling a halfling’s drow magic. Even if she’s not who I thought she was. “I guess I’ll...see you tomorrow?”
“Nope. I’ll be teaching my own class, kid. Just check your email and don’t worry too much about standing up in front of a bunch of students who are pretty much your age. You’ll be fine.”
“Sounds like an hour and a half in paradise.”
Shaking her head, Maleshi stepped through the portal into what looked like the inside of her house, then she and the doorway of dark light disappeared with a little pop.
Cheyenne blinked and unlocked her car again before sliding behind the wheel. With the door shut, the engine started, and the seatbelt buckled, she shot one more glance out the window at Gúrdu’s ramshackle apartment building and snorted. “And I thought yesterday was a lot.”
Chapter Eighty-Six
The sun had almost set by the time the elevator doors opened on the top floor of the Pellerville Gables Apartments. Cheyenne’s footsteps dragged down the hall toward the only apartment on the left at the end of the hall. The keys jingled a little longer than normal as she fought to slide the right one into the lock. She smelled the pizza even before she opened the door but didn’t stop to consider what the two chatting voices inside her apartment signified.
“Hey, Cheyenne.” Ember wheeled away from the kitchen island, grinning until she saw the look on her friend’s face. “Woah. Long day, huh?”
The halfling raised her eyebrows, glancing from the fae to their tall, dabbling entrepreneur of a neighbor standing over the island with a pizza cutter in hand. “Something like that.”
She headed toward the black leather couch across from the black leather recliners on the other side of the coffee table. Her backpack was right where she’d left it on the floor, and she only paused after she’d slung the strap over her shoulder. “The couch is new, right?”
“Yeah. That came in after you left this morning.”
“Nice touch, Em.” Nodding, Cheyenne shuffled across the room, now cleared of packing materials and empty boxes, and passed the iron staircase that led to the mini-loft on the way to her bedroom. She looked up at the loft, then shook her head. I can’t even think about computers right now.
With a quick glance at Matthew, Ember wheeled across the huge living room and muttered, “Just give me a sec, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“No problem. This pizza’s not gonna cut itself.”
The door to Cheyenne’s room opened swiftly, and the halfling didn’t bother to shut it before shrugging her backpack off and dropping it on the floor. Her black Vans thumped across the room, and her eyelids drooped as she stared at the purple velvet bedspread and all the pillows piled beneath the draping canopy of black lace and satin. I can’t think about anything.
Climbing onto the bed took the rest of her energy. She flopped over onto her back and stared at the peak of the draping curtains where they connected at the hook on the ceiling. Just then, Ember reached her open door and knocked.
Cheyenne gave a humorless laugh. “That’s new, you knocking on my door this time.”
“Yeah, well, no visiting hours in this place.” The fae girl smiled softly, her nose wrinkling in concern. “Figured I’d check in really quick. You okay?”
“Yeah, Em. Or at least I will be.” The halfling spread her arms across the mattress. “I just need some rest, I think. Rough day.”
“I can tell. You hungry?”
“Not now. You guys go ahead and enjoy it. If there’s any left, I’ll grab it later.”
“I’ll make sure to save you a piece or two. Or should we get a second pizza?”
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They both laughed a little, and Cheyenne pushed herself up onto her elbows to look at her friend. “I’m not in a whole-pizza mood tonight, but thanks.”
Ember nodded, her blue eyes taking in the halfling’s wild black hair, the dirt smudges on her cheeks, and the punctures in the bottom of her left pantleg. “If you need anything, let me know.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell you all about it later, Em. I just can’t even right now.”
“No problem.” Ember glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward and whispered, “I’m kicking Matthew out after we eat, just so you know.”
With a snort, Cheyenne nodded. “Does he know that?”
“Not yet. But almost a whole day with the guy next door reminded me why I chose to live alone in the first place.”
“Let me know if you need someone to muscle him outta here.”
“Yeah, okay.” Ember wheeled backward out the door, then deftly spun the chair and headed back into the kitchen, laughing. “Who taught you how to cut a pizza?”
“What? You mean it’s not an inherent skill?”
“For most people, probably. Oh, come on. You—” The fae laughed again. “How hard is it to cross the lines in the middle?”
“Oh, okay. Next time I’ll break out the ruler and find dead-center.”
Cheyenne rolled off the bed and lumbered toward the door to gently close out all the noise.
“I don’t need dead-center, Matthew, but that’s halfway between the middle of the pizza and the crust—”
The door shut with a soft click, and the halfling pressed both hands against the wall to hang her head between her arms. As long as she’s having a good time, I can ignore the noise. No problem.
She slid her hands off the door and turned back toward the bed. Her gaze fell on her backpack, and she paused.