“Yeah, I know, but they are just about magic. I promise.”
“Then fire away. Not literally.”
With a playful roll of her eyes, Cheyenne readjusted the strap of her backpack and shifted her weight to the other hip. “Based on what little you know about drow in general and drow halflings specifically—”
“Ha, ha.”
“How much do drow magic and Nightstalker magic have in common?”
Mattie’s lips opened in surprise, and she blinked. “In regards to those spells I gave you? They’re accessible to everyone.”
“No, I mean inherent abilities. You know, like my purple sparks or something stronger.”
“Oh, yeah. The cute ones.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Very funny. I mean, if you knew more about all the abilities I have, which may or may not still be on the surprise-magic list, would you say they’re like what you can do?”
“Huh. Well, your magic isn’t like what an orc or a troll can dish out. Maybe even a faery—”
“A faery?”
Mattie shook her head and gave a dismissive wave. “If there are any of them left. Probably not. But I honestly don’t know enough about drow magic to be able to say it’s much like anything but drow magic.”
Very helpful. The halfling took a deep breath. “Can you move super-fast? Or aim lightning bolts across the ground?”
Her professor raised an eyebrow and eyed her sideways. “What gave you that idea?”
“Just pulling it out of my head. This is all hypothetical.”
“Uh-huh.” The woman chewed the inside of her bottom lip for a second, still frowning at her student. “For a Nightstalker, and that’s all I can speak to when we’re talking inherent abilities, that kind of power comes from a lifetime of intense training and honing one’s skills. Most of my race don’t get that far before they give up and settle for what they can already do.”
“Which group do you fall into?”
“That’s another question to stick on the ‘don’t ask again’ list, Cheyenne.”
The halfling raised her hands in surrender and stepped back. “I get it. Not trying to push. But say you were at that level with your magic.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Would you know enough to train someone else to get to the same place?”
“If I were working with another Nightstalker, kid, I’d only be able to say maybe. There’s a lot more to the equation than the level of my powers. Seeing as we’re talking about one very specific drow halfling, hypothetically, I still don’t know.”
“Right.” Cheyenne sniffed and hiked the strap of her backpack up on her shoulder. Still no idea if Corian can deliver on his promise. “Okay. Thanks for not running away from me this time.”
Mattie burst out laughing and brought a hand to her forehead. “Is that the first thing that goes through your head every time you come to my office now?”
“Kinda, yeah.” With a snicker, the halfling started to turn toward the door again and stopped one more time. Now that I caught her in a good mood… “Hey, just for fun. You ever run into any magicals wearing a bull’s-head pendant around their—”
“Stop.” All the humor had drained from Mattie’s face, and she lifted a warning finger without quite pointing it at her student. “Don’t go down that road, Cheyenne.”
“So you know what it is.”
“Not trying to push. You tried to get me all loosened up before you brought out your secret weapon of a question, didn’t you?” A quick light flashed behind Mattie’s glittering green eyes. “Real sly, halfling.”
“I’m trying to fit the pieces together—”
“I can’t imagine a single scenario where all the different pieces you bring up in my office belong to the same puzzle. Look, I told you to stay away from the FRoE, and you clearly had your own ideas about listening to me, but this is a serious warning. Whatever you think you can find out from whoever you saw wearing those pendants, don’t. It’s not worth it. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that if I had to choose between the bull’s head and the FRoE, I’d pick the FRoE any day of the week.”
Cheyenne pressed her lips together and watched Mattie’s raised finger tremble almost imperceptibly before the woman dropped her hand. She’s serious. “Okay.”
“Just ‘okay?’ You’re not gonna chase me down and try to pry it out of me?”
The halfling shook her head. “No. I believe you. I was just curious, and now I’ll back off.”
The professor shook her head. “I’d say I was relieved to hear that if I thought you meant it.”
“You can think whatever you want.” Cheyenne shrugged and finally headed toward the door. “Don’t worry about me, though. Seriously. I’m not trying to hunt those people down or anything.” It’s the other way around.
“You know what? If you keep coming by my office every day, I’ll believe you.”
“Okay. Thanks for the copy of your book.” She shot the woman a thumbs-up as she stepped out of the open doorway, and Mattie returned the gesture with not even half as much enthusiasm. The halfling felt her mentor’s eyes on her as she stepped out of view and headed down the hall.
Chapter Twelve
Cheyenne didn’t waste any time getting back to her apartment after the strange Monday meeting with Professor Bergmann. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she dropped her backpack by the half-wall and crouched to take out the huge stack of copied spells. She brought the whole thing to her desk, dropped it, then paused and went to take a quick peek through her open bedroom door. The puzzle box was where she’d left it on her bed, no lights, no buzzing, no spinning like a possessed toy. Don’t get paranoid.
When she returned to her desk, the halfling dropped into her chair and scooted forward to start flipping through the pages one at a time. An illusion spell would be great. So would a table of contents.
Sighing, she skimmed the names of the spells at the top of each page, which were fortunately written in
