Cheyenne pounded on her chest and gasped for breath. “Jesus, how much worse is it if you drink it slowly?”
“It isn’t.” Tate lifted his cup and took a much smaller drink. Bhandi and Yurik snickered and the troll lowered the cup again, smacking his lips. “Fellwine’s for sipping.”
“Shit!” Sniffing back the burn in her nose, Cheyenne wiped the stinging tears from the corners of her eyes and let out a little chuckle. “I think I get step three now.”
“Yeah, you do.” Yurik lifted his tankard in another toast for the drow halfling. “If you survive tonight, Cheyenne, you’re, well…” He laughed and shook his head. “You’re gonna wish you were dead in the morning.”
Cheyenne grinned and toasted him right back with her copper cup. “You’re on.”
“Here.” Bhandi filled the last empty tankard with grog and slammed it on the table in front of the halfling. “Have a chaser.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Wait, a minute. Wait.” Cheyenne stuck her hand out and leaned over the table. “None of you made the Border crossing?”
Tate puffed out a breath through loose lips. “Are you kidding? That’d be like, I dunno. Driving down the wrong side of the street.”
Bhandi grunted into her tankard and quickly lowered it. “That’s the stupidest analogy I’ve ever heard. Wait. Not including Sir’s.”
“But you’re all, you know…” Cheyenne took another long drink of foamy grog to cover her cluelessness. Is there even a word for it?
“Purebloods?” Yurik’s head wobbled in an imitated of superiority. “Genuine G-class?”
Tate snorted. “You’re the only goblin at this table, man.”
“Right. Not human.” Cheyenne nodded, the room jerking up and down. She widened her eyes and put a hand on the table to steady herself in the chair.
“You think every single magical Earthside crossed over the Border? Shit.” Bhandi slung her arm over the back of her chair and pointed at the halfling, her finger swinging from side to side. “Don’t tell me you’ve never met a magical who was born in this world?”
“No, I have. A friend of mine is a…fourth-generation fae over here. No, wait. Third-generation.” She shook her head, then glanced over her shoulder at the bar. “They serve water here?”
“Did you just say ‘fae?’” Yurik’s yellow eyes bulged in his blue-green face. “For real?”
“Uh, yeah.” Don’t talk so much. Leave Ember out of it.
“Woah.” Tate rubbed the top of his tattooed head. “Didn’t know there were any left.”
“Except for ones who made it Earthside and kept having little fae babies.” Bhandi shivered and wrinkled her nose.
“You should hook us up, Cheyenne.” Yurik nodded and wagged his finger at her. “Having a fae on the team might be useful.”
“Not gonna happen.” The halfling leaned toward him and held him in a steady gaze. Yeah, that sobered me right up. “No.”
“Okay, okay. Found the drow’s weak spot. Sorry.” Yurik leaned back in his chair, chuckling.
“We don’t bring in magicals from the other side,” Tate added. “I mean, we bring in magicals all the time.”
“Yeah, in cuffs.” Bhandi snorted and took another long drink.
“Just not on the team. You know?” Tate gave the halfling a conspiratorial nod.
“Is that word off-limits in here too?” Cheyenne asked, looking from one of the off-duty agents to the next.
“Not unless we wanna fight our way outta here.” Bhandi swung her tankard to the side, sloshing more grog onto the table. “Same kinda hush-hush as you walking around looking like that instead of the H-word.”
Cheyenne frowned. “human?”
“No. The other one.”
“Oh. Right.”
“The magicals coming in from the other side bring their expectations with them when they pop across the Border,” Yurik added. “I heard the higher-ups tried to take some off the rez and put guns in their hands, but it apparently caused problems.”
Tate nodded. “So now they pull from the pool of us who’ve never stepped foot off this Earthen realm.”
“What are you, an Oracle now?” Bhandi laughed and leaned over the table. “Who says that? ‘Earthen realm.’”
“That’s what it is,” Tate shot back. “And you wouldn’t know an Oracle if it narrated your little escapade last month down to every nitty, gritty detail.”
“Hey.” Bhandi slammed her elbow on the table and flipped the other troll the middle finger. “Unspoken pact, man. What happens in Peridosh stays in Peridosh.”
“Huh.” Tate spun and glanced at the bar and the rest of the tables, which had filled up in the last hour. “Are we somewhere else?”
Cheyenne took a small sip of fellwine and felt a tingle spread across her shoulders. Yeah, I think I’m done with that. She grabbed the tankard of grog instead. “What happened last month?”
Yurik burst out laughing, leaning so far back, the front legs of his chair left the ground. He flung himself forward again and reached for the table. “Shit.”
“No.” Bhandi flipped middle fingers at both other agents this time. “No one says a goddamn word.”
Tate winked at Cheyenne. “We’ll tell you later.”
“You little—” Bhandi lunged across the table and sent a ball of churning red magic at the other troll’s head. She missed by at least a foot, and the spell smashed into the wall at the back of the tavern.
“Hey!” Ogsa pounded a fist on the bar, then pointed at their group. “We had a deal, Bhandi. Don’t make me throw you out. I do not want a repeat of last month.”
“We’re good!” Bhandi tossed both hands up beside her head and sat back in her chair. “No problem over here, Ogsa.”
“I’m watching you, Bare-Ass Bhandi.”
Yurik and Tate lost it and erupted into howling laughter. Bhandi thumped against the back of her chair and folded her arms. One scarlet eye twitched as she glared at them. “It’s not even a little funny.”
Cheyenne tried to wipe a grin off her face. “Did you really—”
“That’s enough outta you too.” Bhandi pointed at her and shot her a sidelong, warning glance. “I like you, Goth drow. But not that much.”
With a shrug, Cheyenne just returned to drinking her grog, the fellwine left safely half-full in the abandoned copper cup.
