by Martha Carr
“So, what? It lights the Drow Signal, and you come racing to my side with your super-speed?”
“It opens a portal on command.”
She frowned. “How’s that?”
L’zar studied the tiny pin in his palm. “Nightstalker blood in this little trinket, kid. Corian doesn’t like it, but it’s an old drow trick.”
A paper wrapper crinkled loudly in the warehouse, and Cheyenne looked up to see Corian sitting at the corner of Persh’al’s table, another of his damn sandwiches raised toward his open mouth. He paused to give her a shrug, then buried his teeth in his mid-morning lunch.
“Nightstalkers are the only magicals who can open portals like he does, aren’t they?”
“Inherently, yes.” L’zar extended his open palm toward her. “But not for someone who has one of these.”
I bet that’s how all those skaxen loyalists summoned the portals they thought they could drag me through.
“Okay, so what do I have to do?”
L’zar’s thin smile twitched. “The same thing I’m about to do.” He switched the nalís into his opposite fist, then held his other palm toward her. “Hold my hand.”
“Seriously?”
“Don’t be a child.”
“But hold your hand like a child?”
The drow took a deep breath through his nose, his nostrils flaring as he stared Cheyenne down. “I’ll wait.”
She glanced at the ceiling and slapped her hand into L’zar’s. A flare of the warm, tingling magic she’d felt when he’d healed the black-magic sores in her shoulder raced up her arm and across her back. The halfling stared at her pale hand, clenched in his slate-gray fingers.
L’zar’s eyes widened. “There it is.” After another deep breath, he closed his other hand around the nalís and muttered, “Abdur orzj.”
The tingling warmth of their magic buzzed between them again, and he turned toward her to offer the nalís. His grip on her fingers didn’t budge.
Cheyenne opened her hand to accept the cold, surprisingly heavy metal of the nalís pin. She swallowed and stared at the thing. He’s gonna cut off my circulation with that grip.
“Your turn.”
She shot him a playful grimace. “Sorry. What am I supposed to do?”
“Say the incantation.”
“Um.”
At Persh’al’s table, Corian snorted and shook his head, chewing fervently.
“Can you say that one more time?”
L’zar closed his eyes, fighting to maintain his composure. The pressure of his fingers around her hand increased slightly, and the halfling almost laughed through the pain. Good. Something needs to get under his skin.
“Abdur orzj,” he muttered.
“Right. Got it.” She curled her fingers around the nalís and blew air out through loose lips. “Abdur orzj.”
Though he tried to hide it, she caught the quick, precise movements of his free right hand casting some other spell beside his thigh.
“Should I be doing that too?” she asked. “Because, to be honest, the hand gestures pretty much elude me.”
L’zar looked at her in surprise. Corian chuckled and bit into his sandwich again. Persh’al spun around in his office chair and folded his arms to watch the show.
With a grunt, the drow released his daughter’s hand, his jaw working beneath his slate-gray skin. “Do you enjoy being this irritating?”
Cheyenne grinned. “That’s a family trait, isn’t it?”
“Ha!” Persh’al’s chair lurched forward with the force of his laughter, then he quickly spun back around and started furiously typing on his keyboard.
Corian licked his lips and set the second half of his sandwich back on the wrapper with a crinkling thump. When he wiped his mouth with a hand, Cheyenne was sure it was also meant to wipe off a smile.
“That’ll work now.” L’zar stood from the couch and headed quickly across the warehouse toward the private office at the opposite end.
“So, no finger spells?”
“No.” Before he got halfway across the room, Cheyenne’s phone buzzed again in her pocket.
She took it out and closed her eyes when she recognized Sir’s number. Again?
“Are you going to answer that?” L’zar drawled.
“I don’t want to.” The halfling declined the call and shoved the phone back into her pocket. “Not while I’m in the same room with any of you, honestly.”
“Not offended at all,” Persh’al added with a chuckle.
“Who was it?”
Cheyenne looked at L’zar, all traces of his irritation wiped away by insatiable curiosity. “The FRoE official who’s gonna give himself an aneurism yelling at me about why you left Chateau D’rahl.”
“Well.” The corner of the drow’s mouth twitched upward. “Don’t keep him waiting too long. You can keep playing the clueless token half-drow for a bit longer with those idiots. We don’t want them getting in the way of what we’re trying to do. Just don’t tell them where I am.” He winked at her, then spun again and marched toward one of the back offices before disappearing inside.
“Yeah. ‘Cause I needed a friendly reminder about that one.” Cheyenne shook her head and stood from the couch, holding the apparently activated nalís in her open palm. “How does this thing work?”
“You’ve seen Star Trek, right?” The nightstalker laughed when she answered with a deadpan stare. “Stick it on your jacket or shirt or wherever. If you need him, just tap it and say his name. Thinking it will work too. The nalís won’t keep you hidden like the pendant did, so expect a little more action. Only use it if you really have to.”
“Great advice.” Cheyenne pinned the nalís to the hem of her maroon shirt and shrugged. “Here I was, thinking how great it would be to summon L’zar through a portal just for fun.”
“All right.” Corian slid the open Cuil Aní with the marandúr into her backpack and handed it to her by the straps. “Go do what you have to do. We’ll reach out when we’ve come up with the next steps, yeah?”
“Sure. Assuming the FRoE doesn’t lock me up first, just for being his kid.”
“They won’t.” Corian smiled as she took the pack from him, then cast a new portal behind her. “They need you too much.”
“True. Honestly, I’m amazed they realize that.” Cheyenne turned halfway toward the portal and nodded at Persh’al. “See ya.”
“Later, drow.” The blue troll lifted a hand in farewell before turning back to his computer.
“Are the goblins still outside?”
Corian glanced at the warehouse’s back door and shrugged. “We made a new rule. If they bitch at each other for longer than a minute, they gotta take it outside.”
“Good rule. See ya.”
* * *
The nightstalker nodded, and Cheyenne stepped through his portal. In the split second it took her to realize he’d ported her right back into the elevator of her apartment building, the portal had closed behind her. “Portal jokes. Awesome.”
Her back pocket buzzed again, and as she took it out to glare at Sir’s number one more time, the elevator doors opened.
“Oh. Hey, Cheyenne.” Matthew Thomas smiled at her from the other side of the doors, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his navy slacks. “How’s it goin’?”
“Swell.”
“Do you need to get out?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together and lifted her phone, giving it a little shake. “Thought I left my phone until I found it, so we’re good. Going down?”
“Yeah.” Her neighbor chuckled and stepped into the elevator with her.
Cheyenne leaned against the wall and punched the button for the lobby. The doors closed, and the elevator descended.
“You headed to class?”
She looked at him for a second before staring at the wall over the button panel. “Not today.”
“Oh, okay. I just thought, you know, with the backpack?”
“Yeah, it’s just a
big purse. On my back.”
Matthew nodded slowly and stared at the elevator wall on his side. “How’s Ember?”
Of course. “She’s fine, I guess. You haven’t stopped by to ask her yourself?”
“No. Had a full morning of conference calls, and now I’m needed in person for more meetings, apparently.”
“About dabbling, right?”
He chuckled again. “Something like that.”
The elevator reached the ground floor with a little ding and opened onto the huge lobby of the Pellerville Gables Apartments. Cheyenne gestured for the guy to step out first, and he gave her a crooked smile.
“See ya, neighbor.”
She forced herself not to roll her eyes. “Have a good one.”
Matthew shot her the winning smile that apparently worked very well on Ember. Not so much on the half-drow.
That guy’s got way more going on than he’s told either of us. Welcome to the club, I guess.
Cheyenne waited for the elevator doors to close, then her phone buzzed again. With an irritated jerk, she snatched it out of her pocket and accepted Sir’s call. “Is somebody dying?”
“Keep ignoring my calls and it might be you, halfling. You need to get down here.”
Stepping slowly out of the elevator, Cheyenne glanced around the empty lobby. “What happened?”
“What happened? Are you kidding me right now? L’zar Verdys is on the loose, running around doing only Eleanor Roosevelt knows what, and you’re the only goddamn person I know who can make sense of the steaming pile of rhino shit spewing from that bastard’s mouth. You’re coming in for questioning, and I mean now. If your ass isn’t down here in an hour, I’ll be knocking on your front door.”
“Fine, but you really need to stop with all the yelling.”
“If I feel like yelling, Cheyenne, I’ll goddamn yell as much as I want to! I’ve got a fucking drow thorn in my ass, and you’re gonna come pull it out for me. Go sob to someone else about your sensitive little halfling ears. I don’t have time for that shit.” The receiver slammed down and ended the call.
Cheyenne fought the urge to throw her phone across the parking lot the second she stepped out of the lobby and shoved it back into her pocket instead. Great. I get to go be interrogated by the FRoE’s finest raging lunatic. This’ll be fun.
Chapter Seven
Forty minutes later, Cheyenne parked the Panamera beside the long line of black FRoE Jeeps and vans and utility vehicles at the base. Despite her reasons for having been called here, when she pressed the automatic lock button on the key fob and her car let out that soft, high-pitched chirp, the halfling smirked. It’s the little things.
She stalked up to the front doors and wasn’t surprised to find the lobby empty. When she headed right toward the short hall leading into the common room, someone cleared their throat on her left and made her stop.
Sheila stood there in her full six-foot-ten ogre glory, her mop of yellow hair hanging down between her eyes until she tossed it aside. “This way.”
“Right.” Cheyenne shot a final glance at the empty hall and the disturbingly quiet common room, then crossed the lobby full of empty cubicles to join her apparent chaperone through the base. “We’re not having this meeting in the training room, are we?”
Sheila cast her a sidelong glance and smirked. “He wouldn’t last ten seconds in a padded room with you.”
“That’s what I thought.” They headed quickly down the hall, and Cheyenne squinted at the closed doors of the training room when they passed it. I don’t want to get shut up in there again anyway.
The ogre woman led her down more corridors in the huge FRoE compound and past a long row of smaller offices until they stopped at double doors at the end of the hall. “It’ll be faster if you just tell them what they want to know.”
Cheyenne spread her arms. “I’m an open book.”
Sheila glanced at the ceiling before opening both doors at once. She stepped inside and held one door open for Cheyenne to step through while the other one swung closed again beside her. Then the ogre woman took two sharp steps sideways and stood against the wall, her hands clasped behind her back in a way that looked eerily like Rhynehart’s go-to stance.
The halfling gazed at the huge conference table that took up most of the room. In it sat four FRoE officials she hadn’t met yet, and of course, Sir was there too. He glared up at her, swiping his hand across his salt-and-pepper mustache before sitting back in his chair and folding his arms. “Sit down already so we can get this over with.”
The other door closed softly behind her, and she glanced at Sheila. The ogre woman stared straight ahead and didn’t move. Without a word, Cheyenne took the empty chair at the head of the table and scanned the faces and hands of the four other officials. No rings. No masks. They’re all human and at the top of the FRoE chain. Here we go.
A middle-aged woman with long auburn hair pulled back in a tight bun nodded at the halfling. “Thank you for coming, Cheyenne.”
Cheyenne glanced at Sir, whose scowl hadn’t softened one bit. “No problem.”
The woman didn’t offer her name or the names of the other officials sitting with them before she grabbed a recording device in the center of the table and slid it toward her. She made a big show of making sure Cheyenne saw the thing, then she pressed a button and folded her hands in her lap.
“Are you aware that this conversation is being recorded?”
The halfling frowned at the device. “Yeah.”
“Do you consent to the recording of the conversation we’re about to have?”
Glancing at Sir, Cheyenne bit her bottom lip and got comfy in the desk chair. He’s playing everything by the book ‘cause it’s his ass on the line this time. “Yeah.”
“Thank you. Please state your name.”
“Cheyenne Summerlin.”
“Tell us what you know about L’zar Verdys.”
The halfling smirked but quickly got rid of it. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”
Sir’s fist thumped on the table, garnering disapproving glances from the other officials. He cleared his throat and leaned forward. “You know damn well what we wanna hear.”
Cheyenne met his gaze and stared the man down. “I know he’s my father, and I know he’s been a prisoner at Chateau D’rahl for the last, I don’t know, fifty years?”
The woman questioning her looked slowly from Sir to Cheyenne. “Seventy-five, to be exact. His sentence was for one hundred years on Cell Block Alpha. Are you aware that L’zar Verdys, also identified as Inmate 4872, disappeared from his cell at that same high-security facility?”
“You mean, he escaped?”
The other officials shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Sir clenched his fist even tighter on the table, and Cheyenne’s drow hearing picked up the otherwise inaudible creak of his knuckles.
“Are you aware of the situation, Ms. Summerlin?”
“Yeah, I’m aware. Major Carson called me this morning to tell me.”
The officials’ eyes widened at both the use of Sir’s real name and the fact that he’d called an unaffiliated third party about such classified information.
Looks like someone else is keeping secrets.
Sir’s face bloomed a dark shade of red, his mustache twitching and his beady eyes never leaving the half-drow’s face.
The woman with the auburn bun cleared her throat. “Do you know where L’zar Verdys is at this moment?”
He could be anywhere. Cheyenne met the woman’s gaze and shook her head. “No.”
“Bullshit,” Sir hissed.
“Major.” All it took was one glance from the woman, and Sir flung himself back into his chair again.
Sir’s got his own Sir. Look at that.
“Ms. Summerlin, have you had any contact with L’zar Verdys outside of your approved visits to Chateau D’rahl in the last few weeks?”
“Yeah.”
More shifting in seats. The three officials
exchanged excited glances and Sir’s eyes narrowed even farther, making him look like he was about to sneeze.
“Where and when were these instances?”
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose and spread her arms. “This might come as a surprise, seeing as none of you have stepped into the whole drow experience, I’m guessing. One of L’zar’s many endearing qualities is his ability to show up in my head. That’s where I’ve seen him.”
Sir lurched from his chair. “We’re not fucking around, halfling!”
“Neither am I,” Cheyenne muttered.
“I swear to Abe goddamn Lincoln, Cheyenne, if you don’t cut this shit out—”
“Major Carson.” The woman barely raised her voice, and Sir turned his wide-eyed stare on her instead.
“She just told us the drow talks to her in her head. Are you seriously putting stock in that?”
The woman glanced at Cheyenne, tilted her head, then slid one finger toward the recording device and paused it. “I’ve spent my entire career questioning witnesses and suspects, Major, both human and magical. I’ve gotten pretty damn good at spotting a lie even before it’s finished being told.”
Sir scowled, his mustache bristling against his nostrils. Cheyenne had to scratch her nose, just looking at it.
“There’s no way that’s possible,” he muttered.
“Really?” The woman blinked slowly and lifted her chin toward him. “Until 1999, it wasn’t possible for an incarcerated inmate to break out of Chateau D’rahl. Until yesterday, it wasn’t possible for a new Border portal to erupt in the middle of Henry County, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. And for the majority of people in this world, magic and other realms are not and will never be possible. Unless you have any evidence to directly disprove Ms. Summerlin’s claims, Major, I strongly suggest you take your seat and keep your mouth shut. Understood?”
The man swallowed thickly, sniffed, and gave the woman a stiff nod. “Sir.” Then he sat, his fingers clawing the armrests of the chair. The protesting groan of the wood in his grip was loud enough for everyone to hear.
Cheyenne stared at the center of the table so she wouldn’t end up provoking him even more with the laugh threatening to burst out of her. Looks like everyone’s getting a taste of their own medicine today. And I get to be right in the middle of it.
