“What the hell was that?” She braced herself on all fours, blinking away the pain until she saw two of her purple-gray hands again instead of four.
“A close call. That’s what it was. Too close.” The Nightstalker stooped beside the circle of white candles, the flames already snuffed out, and swept them all aside toward the empty cardboard box and the metal shelves.
“Yeah, I picked up on that part.” Slowly, the halfling pushed herself up onto her knees and sat back on her heels. “I’m talking about the other portal. And the voice.”
“I thought we had more time.” Corian leaped to his feet and returned to the shelves, rummaging around in all the piled junk again while everything he didn’t want clattered to the floor.
“Who tried to open the portal?” She watched him moving quickly down the shelves. “The voice was inside my head. What did they want?”
The Nightstalker lifted a shiny black lump of charred wood and shrugged.
“Corian!”
He spun toward her, silver eyes flashing. “There are certain forces that don’t want you to succeed with this, Cheyenne. Now that you’ve started the trial, those forces will find it a lot easier to hunt you down. We have to be careful.”
Dropping to the floor again, the Nightstalker started scribbling a bunch of symbols with the charred wood, his hand moving in large circles.
“Hunt me down? Are you serious?”
Corian hissed in frustration, focusing on his drawing. “It wouldn’t be this way if your father were around to help, so we just have to make do with what we’ve got.”
“My father?” The halfling let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I met L’zar, and he’s not a very helpful guy.”
The charred wood clattered to the floor, and the Nightstalker jerked his head up to stare at her, his tufted ears twitching. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“In person. It was seriously underwhelming.”
He looked her over, and a small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Can you get back in there again?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne grimaced. “But I still haven’t decided if I want to—”
“You want to, kid. Trust me.” Corian surveyed his work on the floor, then stood and brushed off his hands. “Get another visit with L’zar and tell him we’ve started. He’ll be able to give you pointers on how to fast-track the trial so you can open the box as soon as possible.”
“He didn’t answer any of my questions the first time.” Cheyenne pushed to her feet and swayed a little. “I don’t think much has changed for him since yesterday morning.”
“But it’s changed for you, Cheyenne, and that means things have changed for L’zar.”
She snorted. “The guy’s locked up in a cage.”
“By choice.” Corian walked quickly across the basement and picked the copper legacy box up off the floor. Then he held it out to her and nodded. “Your father wants you to master the trial and claim your legacy as much as you do. Maybe even more.”
“Right.”
“L’zar doesn’t give anything away for free, Cheyenne. But if you tell him we’ve already started and we need to speed up the process, he’ll tell you what you need to know.”
The halfling’s nostrils flared as she stared at the Nightstalker. “Because there’s something in it for him.”
“Yes. At this point, kid, what’s good for one of you is good for both of you. Set up another meeting. I’ll make sure we’re more prepared on this end next time.”
Great. Everyone’s giving me secret missions with L’zar.
She snatched the box from Corian’s hand and went back to the card table to jam the thing back into her backpack. Then she slung the thing over her shoulder and grimaced. “You really beat me up out there, you know?”
The Nightstalker smirked. “Everybody gets their ass kicked sometimes, kid. That’s how we learn.”
“Oh, yeah? When was the last time someone kicked your ass?”
“Been a long time.”
“Yeah, I bet.” She looked him over from head to toe and slipped her other arm through the second backpack strap. “Don’t worry. That’ll change.”
Corian chuckled as she headed toward the door, shaking his head as he knelt by his charcoal drawing on the floor and got back to work.
The halfling paused by the metal door out of the basement and turned back over her shoulder. “Did you know you’d give the Nimlothar seed to me the whole time you kept it in the ring?”
He looked slowly back up at her. The small smile looked a lot less predatory on his feline face. “No. Just that I’d be forcing it down some young drow’s throat to help them with their trials. But I’m glad it’s you.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks for being there to kick my ass.”
Corian dipped his head. “Any time.”
Cheyenne turned quickly around and jerked open the metal door. It shut behind her with a bang, and then her black Vans were crunching over the dried leaves in the stairwell and up the damp cement steps. She sighed, then she slipped quickly out of her drow form as she reached the top of the stairs. “Everybody wants something,“ she said aloud.
A pile of leaves rustled in the grass beside her, then a head the size of a navel orange, covered in a bright shock of ruby-red hair, burst from the top of the pile. “That’s when you know you’ve got more bargaining chips.”
The three-foot-tall man—he was orange—sitting under all the leaves lifted his hand and brought a huge pinecone to his mouth before taking a quick, crunching bite out of it like it was an apple.
The halfling narrowed her eyes at him. “Weren’t you at the landfill?”
“What? Me? No way. My palate’s way more refined than that.” The pinecone crunched around in his mouth, sharp crumbs spilling back into the pile of leaves around him. “I’m into compostable trash.”
She fought back a laugh. “I wouldn’t call pinecones trash.”
“Yeah, tell it to the trees.” The man raised a grubby finger and pointed behind him at the row of pine trees between the rental houses.
Wrinkling her nose, Cheyenne nodded at the little
