by Martha Carr
L’zar lifted the vial and wafted it back and forth under his nose. “That’s tillhorn powder.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
The potion waved back and forth under her face, and Maleshi hissed. “And rattlebrim.”
“Ah. Yes, that’s the undertone that threw me off.”
“Whoever this Inolu is, she couldn’t have brought these ingredients across the Border with her.”
L’zar scowled at the vial as he lifted it to the overhead lights and studied the liquid inside through the purple glass. “Indeed. The half-life for both of those is what, three days?”
“That’s a generous estimate.” Maleshi folded her arms. “So how the hell did she get her hands on something like that Earthside?”
“If I knew the answer to that, General, I would have cooked this up myself.” L’zar tapped the vial’s cork, which lit up with a white glow before removing itself from the vial and hovering two inches above it in the air. Then he dipped his pinky into the glass and dabbed a drop of deep-blue liquid on his tongue. “Fuck it. This is as good as it’s gonna get.”
“Okay.” They headed back to the foot of the grand central staircase. “And we have our answer, kid. Take the potion.”
Cheyenne’s drooping head wove from side to side between her shoulders. “Will it get this shit out of me?”
“We can’t promise that, no. But it’ll keep the poison at bay long enough to buy us the time we need.”
“You mean, the time we need to make the crossing with Bianca, right?” Cheyenne’s voice was weak now, her entire body drooping like she was talking in her sleep instead of having the life drained out of her by Ba’rael’s blighted poison.
“Maybe,” L’zar said. “Maybe not. But you need to.”
“If you don’t know, I’m not taking it.”
L’zar glared at her, and the floating cork dropped to the floor and bounced across the polished hardwood. He slowly walked to the foot of the stairs and lowered into a crouch in front of his daughter. “I know why you don’t want to take it. Because if the bane-breaker was telling the truth about this, it makes everything else she told you true as well. I can assure you, I don’t want Bianca to be a part of this any more than you do.”
“You made her a part of this.” Cheyenne’s breath came in slow, shallow bursts. “You made all of this. Just because you couldn’t keep your hands out of the fucking Weave, right?”
He blinked and dipped his head to get her to look at him. “I might have manipulated the Threads in the past to get what I thought I wanted, Cheyenne, but I have no reason to lie to you about this. Not when you’re fading right in front of my eyes.”
“Like you give a shit.” Cheyenne’s lips felt swollen now, her words stumbling awkwardly through them as if they were numb. She couldn’t get her gaze to settle on anything, and nothing made any sense. I don’t even know what he’s talking about.
“Don’t say that,” L’zar whispered.
What am I talking about?
“Suck it up, kid,” Maleshi said sharply. “Now isn’t the time to push that grudge.”
“I’m not fucking drinking that.”
Ember took a sharp breath. “Something’s wrong.”
“I think everyone’s aware of that, Ember.”
“No, I mean she’s not hearing us.” The fae floated over to the stairs. When L’zar saw her, he stood and held the potion vial out to her. “She’ll listen to her Nós Aní.”
“I’m not so sure.” Ember bent down in front of her friend. “Cheyenne, can you hear me? I don’t know what’s happening right now, but I can see it. You need to fight it.”
L’zar rolled his eyes at Maleshi. “What is she talking about?”
The general ignored him and stared at Cheyenne, who still swayed where she sat on the stairs but now snarled with every exhale.
Ember lowered herself to her knees, held up by her magic, and dipped her head even lower. “Cheyenne?”
“Fuck off.”
“You need to snap out of it!”
“Get the fuck out of my face!” Without warning, Cheyenne’s hands lashed out with incredible speed to shove Ember forcefully away.
Ember flew toward the front door but stopped herself with a flash of violet light and slowly lowered herself to the floor.
“Cheyenne!” L’zar snapped.
Her head whipped up to fix him with a burning glare, and she hissed. For a fraction of a second, L’zar couldn’t think or move. The sight of his daughter’s eyes glistening pure black above the snaking lines of black poison trailing up her neck from beneath the collar of her shirt made everything else cease to exist.
“Fuck, we took too long,” Maleshi whispered. “She’s already gone.”
“No, she’s not.” Ember reached out to her friend with both hands. “Sorry in advance.”
Cheyenne roared and leaped from the stairs toward the fae. A stream of blinding yellow light shot from Ember’s palms and struck the blighted drow in the chest. Tendrils of thick golden light wrapped around Cheyenne’s body a second before her back and head hit the staircase, pinning her arms at her sides. The drow screamed, unable to move beneath her Nós Aní’s spell. “You fucking bitch!”
“Jesus.” Maleshi’s mouth popped open.
“We need to do something.” L’zar eyelids fluttered as his panic overtook his ability to think.
“I got it.” Ember floated swiftly to him and held out her hand. “Give me that.”
“What?”
“L’zar! The potion!”
“Yes.” He handed it over, his mouth working soundlessly as Cheyenne hissed and spat on the staircase.
Ember raced to the stairs and hovered beside Cheyenne, kneeling on the step by her friend’s head in another flash of violet light. “One way or another, right?”
The golden light flashed behind Cheyenne’s eyes again, warring with the blackness that hadn’t completely taken over. “Ember, don’t.”
“We’re out of options.”
“I’m not gonna!”
Ember pointed at Cheyenne’s mouth, and violet light forced the drow’s jaws open and held them there. “You don’t have to thank me as long as you don’t die.”
She brought the potion over Cheyenne’s open mouth and poured a thin, trickling stream of it down her throat.
Cheyenne choked and coughed, held down by the fae’s spell, but almost immediately, the blackness filtered out of her eyes. The fury behind them was almost worse.
Ember floated upright again and backed away, waving her hand to release her spell. Cheyenne sat up with a gasp, coughed again, then stared at the fae in disbelief. “What the fuck, Em?”
“Someone had to get you to take this, and you were too much of a stubborn asshole to get that through your drow head before we ran out of time.”
Cheyenne tried to stand, but her feet slipped out from under her, and she crashed to the stairs, sliding down until her shoes squeaked against the hardwood floor. “You held me down and drugged me. How is that…”
Maleshi pressed her knuckles to her mouth. “Is it gonna work?”
“It looks like it already is.” Ember stared at her friend. “At least she sounds like herself.”
Cheyenne’s eyelids fluttered as she struggled to push off the stairs. What the hell’s wrong with my body? “This is how we do things now? We’re forcing who the fuck knows what down each other’s throats to see what…what is…”
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she dropped against the stairs again. This time, she didn’t move.
L’zar inhaled sharply through his nose and pushed his long white hair away from his face with both hands. “Ember.”
“I didn’t do it for you, but I guess you’re welcome.”
Maleshi folded and unfolded her arms, too shocked to know what to do with them. “She’s not gonna be happy with you when she wakes up.”
Ember turned slowly to look at the general, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I can live wi
th that. So can she.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
When Cheyenne woke up again, her first thought was to wonder who the hell had poured sand down her throat.
No, not sand. Just that damn potion.
With a groan, she rolled over and blinked heavily. Her vision still swam with multiple versions of everything, but she managed to pull her focus together and found herself staring at the rug on the floor of her old bedroom in Bianca’s house. They couldn’t have put me in the guest bed?
Cheyenne tried to push up and managed a half-hearted jerk before she flopped back onto the mattress. She heard movement in the room and looked at Eleanor sitting in an armchair she’d brought in. “Eleanor.”
“Hey, sweetheart.” The housekeeper slowly stood. “How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty.”
“Of course. Here.” Eleanor hurried to the desk below the window and poured a large glass of water. By the time she reached the bed, Cheyenne had succeeded in pushing herself all the way up to sit back against the headboard.
“Thanks.”
Eleanor stared with wide eyes as the drow downed the whole glass in ten seconds.
“Do you mind refilling it?” Cheyenne had to force herself to meet the woman’s gaze as she held out the glass. If they told her and Mom what happened, that would explain the awkwardness.
The housekeeper grabbed the pitcher and filled the glass again without taking it out of Cheyenne’s hand. Once the drow had downed that too, she leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“Not right now.” Cheyenne grimaced. “Are Ember and Maleshi still here?”
“Maleshi. What a name.” Eleanor took the empty glass with a weak, humorless chuckle. “They’re still here, sweetheart. I’m a little surprised Ember didn’t want to sit with you, but she told me she had a feeling you wouldn’t want to see her first thing when you woke up.” The pitcher and glass clinked down on the desk, and the housekeeper stuck both hands on her hips. “Want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really.”
“Fair enough. I just pulled a rack of lamb out of the oven, and I’m going to fix you a plate.”
“Eleanor, I don’t want anything.”
“Don’t even try to talk me out of it, Cheyenne. I wasn’t asking if you wanted to eat. I’m telling you you need to. You look a lot better than the last time I saw you, but you’re still alarmingly pale. Even for you.”
Cheyenne laughed.
“I’ll be right back.” Gently patting the drow’s thigh, Eleanor nodded with a sympathetic smile, then left the room and softly shut the door behind her.
Cheyenne swallowed. I look better, huh? So the potion worked?
She pulled her shirt collar down and glanced at the poisoned wound in her left shoulder first. “Holy shit.”
The dark, snaking lines of the blight had almost entirely retreated, though the wound was still dark and open, surrounded by angry red flesh. Moving quicker, she checked the other shoulder, then slumped against the pillows to pull down the waistband of her pants and check her hip.
“Jesus. It worked.”
Running a hand through her hair, Cheyenne stared at the opposite wall of her childhood bedroom, then took a deep breath. Better test it out.
She moved slowly at first, anticipating pain flareups, but in comparison with how she’d felt when Maleshi ported them into this house, she was practically pain-free. “No way.”
A small laugh escaped her when an experimental lift of her arm told her the same thing. The potion had worked, at least when it came to reversing the damage. The wounds still weren’t healing, but that felt pretty irrelevant at this point.
They were right. Shit. Cheyenne sank back down onto the edge of the bed and closed her eyes. They were right.
A brief knock came on the bedroom door, then Eleanor stepped back inside, looking pale and worried.
“What’s wrong?”
The housekeeper wrung her hands and couldn’t look the drow in the eye. “Well, I know I said I’d bring you food, but I’m confused.”
“Something wrong with the food?”
“Not at all. Only that it might be on its way to getting cold.” Eleanor cleared her throat. “Everyone’s downstairs at the dining table, Cheyenne, and they all refuse to eat anything until you come down to join them.”
“What?” Cheyenne squinted. “They’re staging a dinner strike.”
“It would seem that way, yes.” Eleanor patted the back of her head and the graying bun there. “It’s highly unusual, and I hardly think insulting me and my cooking is going to be of much use to anyone.”
“Jesus.” Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne pushed up off the bed and approached the housekeeper to set a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It was Mom’s idea.”
“Oh, most definitely.”
“She knows how to push both our buttons. You can go tell them I’m coming if you want.”
“Absolutely not.” Eleanor scowled at the open bedroom door and the staircase’s banister beyond. “I’m not stepping foot in that room again until everyone’s eating what I cooked. Do you know how often we have six people sitting down for a meal in this house?”
“Hardly ever, I know.”
“That’s right. Way too much work to let it all go to waste.” Eleanor snorted and folded her arms. “I’ll come down with you, and when I hear forks and knives clinking on plates, I’ll take my seat.”
Fighting back a smile, Cheyenne nodded and headed into the hall. “Sounds good to me.”
The sound of low muttered conversation rose up the stairwell as the drow made her way carefully down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she stared at the last three stairs where she’d sat, jumped up, and been laid out flat by Ember’s magic. So, I lost control but still remember the whole thing, huh? How the fuck is that fair?
She flipped a middle finger at the stairs as she stepped down the last of them before turning around the banister to head to the back of the house. If Eleanor saw it, she didn’t say a word.
Even before Cheyenne passed the sitting area to enter the open room where the dining table sat under the wide staircase, L’zar heard her coming.
“I think we got what we wanted,” L’zar said. “Bianca, I have to say that housekeeper of yours is a gem. Where did you find her?”
“That’s none of your business. And if you think so highly of her, I can’t imagine why you insist on continuing to terrorize her.”
“Terrorize?” He chuckled. “That’s a little overstated, don’t you think?”
Bianca didn’t give him a reply, and when Cheyenne rounded the corner, she expected to see her mom staring at the drow thief, her eyebrow raised in as much contempt as Bianca Summerlin was apt to show outwardly.
“And here she is.” L’zar sat back in his chair and spread his arms, grinning at his daughter. “You look well, Cheyenne. How do you feel?”
Cheyenne glanced at Ember, who was staring at her with her lips pressed tightly together. The fae looked away and lifted her drink to her lips. “Better.”
“That’s good news.” Maleshi sat back in her chair at the head of the table closest to L’zar and nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Yeah.” The only two available seats at the table were on opposite sides, one next to Ember, the other beside L’zar. I can’t force Eleanor to sit next to him. Gritting her teeth, Cheyenne took the chair beside her dad and nodded at Ember. “Eleanor’s coming, but she said we should start without her.”
“And now we can.” L’zar grinned at the four different dishes laid out on the table. “What do we start with?”
“Whatever’s closest.” Ember reached for the platter of lamb and served herself. “You know how to pass food around a table, right?”
He eyed the fae in amusement. “Why, yes, Ember. I believe I have an acceptable level of experience.”
Ember glanced at Cheyenne and raised an eyebrow but didn’t say
anything.
Cheyenne grabbed the salad bowl and dropped a pile of it on her plate with the tongs. She passed it to L’zar, then turned to look at Bianca. Her mom sat as primly as usual in the dining chair, supported by the cushion she’d used on the veranda. She met Cheyenne’s gaze and offered a small nod as Eleanor stepped slowly around the corner past the sitting area.
“Oh, good.” The housekeeper approached the last empty chair between Ember and Bianca. “I hope our guests are pleased with dinner.”
Bianca pursed her lips in not-quite-a-smile and looked at her friend. “Anything else would be impossible, Eleanor. Thank you.”
“Hmm.” Eleanor looked sharply at Cheyenne, then brushed down the sides of her teal cardigan and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
When Ember passed along the lamb, Eleanor remained standing to serve Bianca, loaded her own plate next, then walked around her employer to hand Cheyenne the platter.
“Thanks.” Cheyenne tried not to frown as she set the platter on the table between her and L’zar. Since when does Mom not serve herself?
As dishes were passed around and no one bothered to start the conversation they all knew was coming, Cheyenne studied the place settings. No one’s drinking, either. Not even Mom. Weird, but I’ll call it a good sign, I guess.
Bianca leaned forward to lightly pinch the straw sticking up out of her water glass before placing it between her lips. When she lifted her fork to start eating with agonizing slowness, her forearm didn’t touch the table once.
Cheyenne took a long drink of her own water and stared at her mom. That explains the straw. How can she sit here in that much pain and not even wince?
“You’re staring, Cheyenne.” Even as she said it, Bianca didn’t look away from the gilded centerpiece. Her fork slipped slowly into her mouth.
“Sorry.” Cheyenne set her water down and reached across the table to take the asparagus dish from Eleanor.
“And you’re reaching across the table?”
“Mom, I’m not gonna make Eleanor play musical chairs all night. She’s already done enough.”
Eleanor blinked furiously. “I have no problem with it.”
“Well, I do.” Cheyenne spooned the asparagus onto her plate, set down the dish, and looked at her mom again. This time, Bianca had turned her intense gaze on her daughter. “How bad is it?”