The half-drow, hands tucked through the straps of her backpack, stared out into the hall. Students and professors and instructors passed by the open doorway, and for the first time in a long time, all the chaos and everything Cheyenne would normally have tried not to notice stayed out of her head.
“Seriously?” She lifted a hand to her ears, which still felt round and human beneath the tight binding of her braided hair. Yet, the professor had looked right at them before Cheyenne burst out of the classroom as if the woman had expected to see dark peaks popping up from beneath her hair. And the rest of the changes, she was pretty sure, had happened in the hall.
“How the hell did she know?”
She realized she’d been standing there like an idiot when she had another class to get to. Hissing through her teeth, she tightened her grip on her backpack straps and hurried into the hall. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time, then shoved it back down again.
“Great. Four minutes to get across campus.”
Somehow, it felt pointless to be rattled by being late to class in the second week. It wasn’t like she was going to miss anything important in the first five minutes. Something felt like it was about to crash down around her all the same.
* * *
Although most of the other students seemed to take Advanced Social Media Network Analysis and Security seriously, to Cheyenne, it was a joke. The instructor was some old bald guy with patches of gray fluff sprouting from the sides of his head and ears.
Cheyenne stared at his mouth as he droned on.
Looks like he cut off the end of that beard and glued it over his ears.
The thought made her snort, which earned her a glance from the professor.
For an hour and a half, the man lectured. Everything went in one ear and out the other. Oh, man. Cheyenne rubbed her hands down her cheeks and stifled a yawn. Everything’s about ears now.
She almost missed it when the instructor excused them at the end of class and said something about them needing to prepare for a pop quiz this week, maybe next week.
Her backpack felt heavy as she headed outside to cross the campus one more time. She had two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, giving her the rest of the afternoon to do whatever. Ten minutes later, she found herself in line at the food court in the Student Center. She didn’t remember walking inside and getting in line, but her stomach’s growls convinced her she’d been on autopilot.
Don’t get lazy, Cheyenne. Three hours of sleep isn’t an excuse.
The guy standing behind the counter nodded at her. “What do you need?”
“A nap.”
He chuckled. “I hear most college kids get their beauty sleep in the library, but you’re up next to order, so…”
“Sorry.” Cheyenne shook her head, then pointed at a plastic container in a triangle shape. “Just one of those.”
“Chicken salad sandwich. You got it.”
She paid the guy and turned away with her boxed sandwich before he could ask if she wanted a receipt. She slumped in a chair at the closest unoccupied table and popped open the container.
The sandwich went into her mouth, and she didn’t taste a single bite.
I don’t need some hippy-skirt professor telling me how to hide. I need to sleep. I need to go home and check my search. I need to find the orc asshole who brought a gun to a…
The chicken salad sandwich stuck in her throat. She forced down the dry, painful lump and coughed. “Magical fight.”
Can a girl get a glass of water?
Cheyenne glanced around when she realized she’d said that last part out loud, then shoved the sandwich container across the table and unzipped her backpack. Professor Bergmann’s syllabus was in one of the three unmarked manila folders, clean and stapled neatly together with the woman’s office hours on top: 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
“Control the parts of me I don’t want anyone else to see, huh? Yeah, she probably wouldn’t still be so willing to help if she’d seen me last night.” Cheyenne coughed again on the bread stuck in her throat and wished she’d thought to buy a bottle of water.
But if I knew how to control myself, maybe Ember wouldn’t be in the hospital. Maybe she wouldn’t have been shot.
That thought sent Cheyenne to her feet again. The chair behind her lurched back with a grating shriek against the floor, and her hand whipped out to catch it before it fell over. She scooted it in with her foot, strapped on her backpack, and snatched up the rest of her sandwich before heading to the IT building to find Professor Bergmann’s office.
As she wove her way through the throngs of college students with enough money—or a big enough budget on their meal plan—to spend on the food court, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the notifications screen through the earbud cord wrapped around it. No phone call from the hospital. No texts or alerts. If Ember was already recovering and headed home, she would have called or texted or something.
I can spare some time for an IT professor who thinks she knows what I am. Then I’ll stop by for their stupid visiting hours.
Chapter Eleven
The door to the professor’s office was closed, but even through the frosted glass window, Cheyenne could tell the lights were on. She’d made it to the office of Matilda Bergmann—typed right there on the removable paper card beside the door—at two minutes past 1:00 p.m. At least she’s not late to her own office hours.
Cheyenne knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
This was a “pull-in” kind of door, or at least it would have been if Cheyenne were standing on the inside of
