The illusion armband came off easily enough, and she stuck it into the outside pocket of her backpack beside the FRoE burner phone, which she’d remembered to put on silent this time. Sir had said he wouldn’t call her until later tonight, but she wasn’t about to trust anything he told her. Not that she had before she found out about the tracking device.
Running a hand through her now-black hair, the halfling tuned out the droning monotony of Hersh’s voice and resigned herself to another agonizing day of listening to a bunch of computer science crap she’d learned years ago. Gotta get legit credentials somehow.
* * *
The only other marginally interesting part of her day was right before her second class started. A small group of students was gathered out in the hall, speculating in low voices about the half-assed attack on campus earlier that morning. Cheyenne picked up on all the speculation without trying—“terrorist attack” and “gunshot” and “bomb” were tossed around. She just shoved her hands in her pockets, trying to ignore the burning ache that had returned to her shoulder, apparently to stay.
Once all her classes were over at two and she’d gone through the obligatory motions of barely pretending to care, the halfling took off across campus again. Her teeth ground together as she took the exact same route for the second time today. This back and forth is getting old way too fast.
But while she carted herself and her backpack across the grounds one more time, she might as well stop in on Mattie Bergmann’s office hours and check about that name. Her professor hadn’t sent her an email yet with the name of that Raug who might know about the drow puzzle box. Cheyenne figured she’d check in and give the Nightstalker posing as a college professor a nudge in the right direction.
Mattie’s door was open as usual, and the woman was pretty deep in her work, grading papers or planning lessons or whatever she did during office hours when she wasn’t trying to train her first half-drow.
Cheyenne knocked on the door and stepped inside. The professor’s head jerked up, and she let out a surprised laugh. “Just when I stopped expecting you to show up, you’re back. What can I—oh. What time is it?”
“Little after two, I think.”
“That’s right. I knew I forgot something.” The woman peeled a sticky note off the top of the stack and scribbled furiously.
“I hope that doesn’t include the name of that Raug you were gonna pull up for me.”
“Well, yeah, actually.” Mattie waved her off and kept writing. “I got in touch with the guy and completely forgot to email you about it.”
“Hey, no big deal. It’s not like I wanted to talk to him for anything important.”
Mattie finished writing, glanced up at her student, and smirked. “I hear the sarcasm, Cheyenne. It’s not misplaced, but I promise I wasn’t trying to avoid you. This time.”
At least she admits it. The halfling approached Mattie’s desk, readjusting her grip on the strap of her backpack over her good shoulder.
The professor’s pen toppled onto the desk, and Mattie pushed herself to her feet before peeling the sticky note off another piece of paper. “Here you go. The Raug Oracle Gúrdu.”
Cheyenne took the sticky note and squinted to make out Mattie’s handwriting. “This is an address.”
“Good job. Oddly enough, Gúrdu apparently doesn’t want phone calls, emails, handwritten letters, magical summonings, or any other form of communication from magicals he hasn’t met first. So the first meeting has to be face to face.”
“And he can tell me more about the drow box?”
Mattie’s lips twitched to the side of her mouth, and she tilted her head from side to side. “Maybe. I wasn’t about to spill all your secrets over the phone, kid. But for as long as I’ve known him, Gúrdu has had answers for everything. Most of them are completely convoluted and require a massive amount of caffeine and uninterrupted focus to even begin to comprehend. In my experience.”
“Oh, great.” The halfling folded the sticky note and stuffed it into her pocket. “So I’m going to a magical I’ve never met to listen to a bunch of riddles.”
“If you’re lucky. If he’s even willing to talk once he gets a good look at you.”
“What?” Cheyenne leaned away from her professor and scowled.
“What? Oh. No. I’m not talking about your face.”
“Good to know that’s the first assumption you made.”
Mattie scoffed. “It has nothing to do with the way you look, Cheyenne. I’m sorry. That came out wrong. You could show up covered in week-old spaghetti and smelling like a fishery, and that wouldn’t make a difference to this guy.”
The halfling snorted. “Gross.”
“Just an example. Gúrdu sees through the extra layers of whatever we want the rest of the world to see. So he’ll either agree to talk to you, or he’ll send you on your way. I put in a good recommendation for you, and hopefully that’s worth something.” Mattie bumped her fist playfully against the halfling’s shoulder and drew back immediately when Cheyenne sucked in a hiss.
“Wrong shoulder.”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even— You covered that pretty well today.” The professor studied the barely noticeable outline of the new gauze bandage beneath Cheyenne’s black London After Midnight shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves. “You get that looked at yet?”
“Had a doctor in there yesterday, yeah.” Grimacing, the halfling rubbed gently below her shoulder and forced herself to leave the damn thing alone. “I had something stuck in there, he took it out, and apparently that made things worse.”
“Huh.” Mattie tapped her fingers on her lips, then her green eyes darted around her office. She shook a finger and turned back toward her desk. “You know, I might have something that could help with that. Maybe.”
Cheyenne let out a dry
