“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word on that.”
Man, those magicals on the other side must be seriously ruthless assholes if this is the first conclusion she jumps to.
“Fine. You can believe whatever you want.” The half-drow ruffled her black-dyed hair and slapped her hand on her thigh. “Guess I misjudged you too.”
“How’s that?” Mattie’s voice was a lot lower this time, and softer.
Sliding her hands into her pockets, Cheyenne turned halfway toward the door. If I’m wrong about this, it might be the last time we ever talk. “You need to relax, Mattie. They don’t have any records in their system of a Nightstalker anywhere near Richmond. You’re not even on their radar.”
Mattie’s knees buckled, although the hand she’d been pressing on the desk this whole time kept her from crumpling to the ground right there. Her sharp breath sounded more like a hiccup as she turned just enough to lean back against the edge of the desk and prop herself up. “How did you—”
“Figure out what you are?” Cheyenne nodded. “I told you I was good at finding information. And I know they weren’t just making shit up about their system, either. They only brought it up when they thought I wasn’t listening.”
“You… I’m not sure I follow.”
“It’s hard when you don’t have all the pieces. I can tell you what happened if you want. What I was doing with those people in the first place.”
“Please don’t.” Mattie swallowed heavily, and her next exhale ended in another wheeze. “I don’t want the details, and I’m sure you don’t really want to share them with me. I’m more confused now than anything else.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne eyed the woman. Mattie was still trembling, and her perch on the edge of her desk didn’t seem all that stable, so the halfling nodded toward the armchairs on the other side of the office. “Maybe we should sit.”
“Maybe.” In a daze, Mattie slowly pushed herself away from the desk and took two hesitant steps forward. Cheyenne considered offering her arm, but then her professor blinked, straightened, and spun a smart ninety degrees before booking it toward the closest armchair. She dropped onto the frayed, slightly charred upholstery before Cheyenne’s hand closed around the strap of her backpack to bring it with her. Then both confused magicals were sitting down, facing each other, trying to figure out where to go from there.
Silence was likely to piss off the half-drow faster than anything else, so Cheyenne folded her arms and dove in. “We should probably make sure we’re on the same page again first, right?”
Mattie cocked her head in apathetic acknowledgment, staring blankly at nothing a foot or so to Cheyenne’s right.
“Okay. So, full transparency, I guess. I heard you talking to yourself in the hall on your way here.” Still no real response from Mattie. “Something about ‘they can’t possibly know’ and that you’re just being paranoid.”
“Hmm.”
“Who’s Maleshi?”
That snapped Professor Bergmann out of her funk, just like yelling her name in the classroom had that morning. Mattie took a sharp breath, centered her renewed focus on Cheyenne, and slowly licked her lips. “That name is not for you. Don’t use it again.”
“Sure.”
“So, despite clearly misinterpreting the signs, I’m not getting into my background with you, Cheyenne.” Now she looked and sounded like the Mattie Bergmann the halfling had been calling her trainer for the last week, just like that. “I will say I’m ridiculously relieved to know I was wrong. Thanks for setting me straight on that one.”
“No problem.” Cheyenne’s nose wrinkled as she let out a chuckle. “Thanks for not being a completely insane person. I thought maybe you were broken.”
“Ha. No, just overly confident in my assumptions.” The woman pressed her hands together, laced her fingers, and set both hands on her lap. “I guess ignorance is only bliss without the delusion that you can’t possibly be ignorant of anything.”
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
Mattie tried not to smile but couldn’t help it. “Quoting religious texts in casual conversation. Very nice.”
Cheyenne shrugged. “I’m just cultured like that.”
Shaking her head, the professor let out another chuckle of relief and self-criticism. “It’s good to be reminded that I don’t know everything. I needed that.”
“Happy to help.” The halfling said it with a deadpan expression, although there was plenty of humor there too. But they still hadn’t gotten to the main reason she’d stormed into the other woman’s office for a confrontation that had turned out nothing like Cheyenne had expected. “What the hell happened with your magic this morning?”
There was definitely a new kind of warning in Mattie’s gaze now, but the woman pushed past it and realized Cheyenne wouldn’t stop without getting most of her questions answered. “I was overly distracted.”
“You mean, you panicked.”
The professor’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was panic, but fine. Yes. I’d received the signs last night and this morning. Call them messages if it makes it easier. I assumed they had more to do with you and your adventure with the FRoE—no, I don’t want more details—than was appropriate. Apparently.”
Wrinkling her nose, the halfling couldn’t decide whether she was amused by that twisted logic or if she hadn’t been suspicious enough of her professor turned magical trainer. “So…what? You thought I was more involved, and the best way to deal with that was to summon a spell in the middle of class? What were you gonna do, blast me unconscious right there in front of everyone?”
“No. But I’m starting to think maybe I should have.” Mattie’s lips twitched into a smirk, then she dipped her head toward her student. “I’d been trying to respond to these messages since last night.”
“Magical messages.”
“Well, I don’t use spells with my Gmail account.”
Cheyenne barked a laugh, then pulled herself together. “Who sent you the messages?”
“That’s none of
