“Took you long enough.”
Cheyenne shot the Nightstalker a warning glance. “Well, last time, there was a lot of nagging and a bunch of chickens running around. Plus, I wasn’t tricked into driving through a portal.”
“I didn’t trick you, kid.” Maleshi waved her off and headed down the short cement walkway toward the apartment building’s front door. “I just know how attached you are to that car already.”
“We could’ve done that in the parking lot.” When Maleshi opened the dented front door, Cheyenne grabbed it and raised an eyebrow.
The Nightstalker chuckled. “You really want to listen to Corian go on about how reckless I am? That one’s a stickler for covering his tracks, I’ll give him that. I alleviated that headache and got us out of there where he couldn’t see.”
“What if someone follows us here?” The door shut with a creak and a metallic bang as the women walked down the dusty hallway, which was still littered with leaves and pebbles. Chicken feathers fluttered on the floor when Cheyenne stepped past them.
“Wow. You’ve known the guy for...what, maybe a week? And you’re already starting to sound like him.”
Rubbing her forehead and trying not to shout, Cheyenne muttered, “It’s not that hard to answer a question directly, you know.”
“We’re fine, kid. If anyone picked up a portal trail in the middle of the road and decided to follow it, they’d have to be looking for trouble.”
“Most magicals are when they show up in front of me.”
Maleshi gave the halfling a dismissive wave again and stopped at the Oracle’s apartment door on the right. “Then we agree that most of those magicals are idiots. If the lack of intent in my portal didn’t turn them off, showing up at a raug’s front door definitely will. Or they’ll step through anyway and get exactly what they deserve. Either way, not a big deal.”
The Nightstalker rapped briskly on the apartment door and waited, smacking the edge of the beetle carapace against her palm.
Cheyenne stared at the woman and stuck her hands into her pockets. “It’s amazing no one found you for four hundred years.”
“Not really. But the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?” Maleshi rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Now I’m making cat jokes. I’ve spent four hundred years casting limited spells and shoving all this brilliant magic into a tiny little box in a dusty corner of a forgotten room, kid. Corian still found me, so why not live a little, huh?”
“That’s not a good reason to—”
The door jerked open with a creak, and Gúrdu’s huge gray head and glowing orange eyes appeared from within the darkness of his apartment. “What do you want?”
“Damn. Has everyone forgotten how to greet an old friend these days?” Maleshi glanced quickly up and down the hall before a silver light flashed at her fingertips. Then the black-haired, green-eyed university professor shimmered into the Nightstalker ex-general. “Good to see you too, Gúrdu.”
The raug’s eyes widened, and he made a grotesque sticky sucking sound with his tongue before fully opening the door. “I don’t have all day.”
“Well, neither do we. That’s why we’re here.” Maleshi slipped inside the apartment and waited for Cheyenne to join her before Gúrdu shut the door with a massive hand tipped in red claws.
The Oracle blinked vacuously at the Nightstalker, then his gaze drifted toward the halfling and the Heart of Midnight pendant dangling from the neckline of her hoodie.
Cheyenne quickly stuffed the necklace beneath the fabric and raised her eyebrows. Gotta stop leaving this thing out for every pissed-off magical to see.
“If you’ve come about that drow trinket of yours again, feel free to piss off.”
The halfling glared at him, and Maleshi laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? We’re not here about Cheyenne’s legacy. Not directly, at least.”
The raug’s orange eyes drifted slowly back toward General Hi’et and narrowed. “You’re the one who sent her here.”
“Who else would send a friend to you, Gúrdu?” The Nightstalker grinned.
“Someone who thinks the name ‘Mattie’ is enough to hide her behind false honor and the lie of claiming exile.”
Sensing the building tension, Cheyenne stepped back against the wall of the entryway, her nose wrinkling at the rotting-orange smell she’d caught on the Nightstalker woman just over a week ago. Mixed with the sickly-sweet scent of what the Oracle burned in his pillow-laden living room on the other side of the entryway, the odor made her a little dizzy.
Maleshi’s smile vanished. “My honor and my exile are mine to claim, Gúrdu. I came here for your sight, not your opinion.”
“I don’t give opinions. They don’t pay nearly as well as prophecies and smoke.”
“Well, today, you’re not getting paid for any of it.” The Nightstalker thrust the beetle-thing shell toward the raug’s chest. “You still owe me for Felagtrok.”
The Oracle grunted. “I should have paid you in kind that day.”
“And I’m sure the thought entered your mind until you reached out into the cosmos and saw how much more I’d end up doing for you. I’ve spent too much time on the past today, Oracle. I want to see the future. Either let me cash your IOU or quit flinging around insults and calling ‘em insights.”
Gúrdu glanced at the black shell in her hand, which glistened even in the low light of his apartment and blinked. “Are you done?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
Slowly, those glowing orange eyes drifted toward Cheyenne again. “You were more entertaining.”
The halfling lifted her chin and stared right back at him. “You were a pain in the ass.”
The Oracle grunted. “Let’s get this over with, General.”
He turned and stalked down the hall toward the draping curtain of beads
