“You’re gonna love it.” Bryl’s high voice cut the tension in the slowly descending elevator. “Really, really love it.”
The halfling couldn’t keep from chuckling a little. “Can’t wait.”
“Well. Time to slip out of these.” Yadje pulled a thin silver ring from her index finger, and her human-illusion mask fell away in an instant. She tossed her long scarlet hair over her shoulder and smiled at her daughter. Her scarlet fingers twisted in a quick spell, and Bryl’s illusion fell away.
R’mahr pushed up his shirtsleeve to remove a thin metal band from around his wrist, then he stood there in the elevator with his natural purple skin and scarlet hair and eyes.
All three trolls watched Cheyenne expectantly.
“Oh. Right.” The half-drow went to her happy place and found the door locked. Corian can’t be pissed at me for this. Gotta do it if I wanna learn those spells. She reached up to untie the knot in the thin silver chain supporting the Heart of Midnight pendant. It slithered away from her neck, and she pocketed it before slipping into her drow form.
“Ah.” R’mahr’s smile widened as the Goth chick’s pale skin darkened to purple-gray, the tips of her pointed ears reappearing through stark white hair. “I don’t believe I’ve seen that yet.”
Cheyenne stretched her neck from one side to the other. Locking this up feels like I’ve been in a cage. “Well, now you have.”
Yadje nodded at the halfling’s pocket. “You found yourself an illusion charm.”
“Sort of.”
Bryl stared shamelessly at the half-drow and slowly nodded. “I like you much better like this.”
“Bryl.”
“It’s true.”
“Thanks, kid.” Cheyenne gave the troll woman a reassuring smile. “I like it too. Still me, though, right?”
“Yeah, but better.”
When the halfling chuckled, the troll couple loosened up a little and offered weak laughs in return. Then the elevator shivered to a stop below the streets of Richmond, Virginia, and the doors opened.
“Yes!” Bryl darted out of the elevator, her mother racing after her.
R’mahr stepped out slowly and waited for the halfling to join him. “You leave it to us, Cheyenne. Your other friends might have thought carousing in an O’gúleesh tavern was the best way to honor you, but they were wrong. Stick with us, huh? We’ll show you the true value of what can be found here from back home.”
“Thanks, R’mahr.” Cheyenne nodded. “That’s why I asked you to join me.”
“Good.” For the first time since she’d met him, the troll man puffed out his chest and strutted down the wide avenue lined with shopfronts and vendor stalls, his confidence buoyed by the drow halfling walking beside him.
Cheyenne caught sight of Yadje tightly clutching her daughter’s hand as Bryl tried to jerk away, pointing at something behind a brightly-colored booth. This’ll be interesting.
Chapter Sixty-One
Peridosh was still a busy place, but it had a different ambiance in the middle of the day. Definitely not like a Tuesday night with off-duty FRoE agents getting into drunken barfights.
The vendors selling their wares to the hidden magical community scattered through Richmond were a lot happier and much more inviting. Some tried to smile at the half-Drow as she followed R’mahr and his family down the avenue. Most just stared, but it was in curiosity this time instead of wary disapproval.
“So, what do you need to find, Cheyenne?” R’mahr nodded amiably at a skaxen woman in a long-sleeved dress and way too much makeup.
“Ingredients for spells, mostly. Maybe some potions.” She rubbed her forearm absently through her black hoody. These cuts itch like hell when I’m thinking about ‘em. “Some healing salves—”
“Oh! Don’t worry about that last one. Yadje keeps everything you could possibly want in that little bag slung over her shoulder. But yes. Spells and potions. You’ll find everything you need in Bryl’s favorite shop.” The troll man chuckled and gestured toward his wife and daughter.
The girl tugged on her mother’s sleeve now, still anxiously trying to pull out of Yadje’s grip on her wrist so she could step into the potionmaster’s shop on this side of the Empty Barrel. Yadje, though, used her other hand to examine more of those glowing blue vegetables they’d tried to feed Cheyenne earlier that week.
“Maji, Maji, Come on! There’s only one calver fin left. What if someone gets it first?”
“Well, you’d just have to wait until there’s more, wouldn’t you?” Yadje didn’t even look at her daughter, but she replaced the blue vegetable and nodded at the vendor behind the cart. “Settle down. I’m coming.”
Chuckling, R’mahr followed them into the shop. Cheyenne paused when she caught a whiff of something cooking farther down the avenue. Barbequed sausage and…oranges? Fortunately, the din of customers, window-shoppers, and vendors was loud enough to drown out the grumbling of her stomach. Too many errands and not enough food.
“Cheyenne? Are you coming?” R’mahr’s head poked back out of the potionmaster’s shop, and the halfling nodded.
“Yep. Just smelled something cooking.”
“Ah, yes. Nothing like the fare they make down here, is there?” He stopped when Yadje turned around to shoot him a warning look, and the troll man cleared his throat. “Excluding my dear Yadje’s homecooked meals, of course.”
His wife rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide a small smile beneath her exasperation.
“Oh, look.” Bryl darted toward a shelf of different-sized vials, all of them filled with what looked like sand in every color imaginable. “It’s still here.”
Yadje nodded in feigned surprise when her daughter picked up the last vial of black sand and thrust it in the air above her head. Then the girl scampered around the shop, touching things here and there, peering into glass cases or open crates of who knew what.
“R’mahr.” Cheyenne pulled her gaze away from the girl and leaned toward the troll man. “You remember what I told you the other day about keeping an eye on what Bryl brings home, right?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, yes.” He lowered his voice and dipped his head.
