The beaded dart burst when she squeezed it between her fingers. Green veins of spreading static shimmered across the pad of her thumb, then the light disappeared and left nothing behind.
“Did you do that on purpose?” Rhynehart asked.
“Sorry. Did you want it back?”
“Enhanced speed, Blakely. Is that an ability you can execute on-demand, or did you let your irritation get the better of you?”
The drow halfling sighed and blinked her golden eyes. “If my irritation got the better of me, you’d be on your back.”
Rhynehart dipped his head in acknowledgment, yet he appeared neither disappointed nor impressed. “How about dropping the drow face?”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened. “Come again?”
“Back to human. Go ahead.”
She took a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. He’s a little more stoic than Mattie, but it’s the same thing all over. Think about the deer and the woods. Here we go.
She heard Rhynehart release his hands from behind his back to lift one of them. What she didn’t hear was that the man had raised three fingers toward the window this time. Mechanisms in the padded walls simultaneously unleashed several beaded darts.
Cheyenne was halfway through returning to human form. The first and second darts found a home dead-center in the back of her head, one after the other. The third came from up higher on her left, and she jerked sideways to avoid the green projectile that would have hit her shoulder. The drow halfling opened her eyes to glare at Rhynehart as the rest of her purple-gray skin faded into her pale human flesh. “See? I can handle my irritation—”
Five more tiny dart guns within the walls fired their next rounds from different angles in quick succession. Cheyenne ducked beneath the first two, but the rest were too swift for her to avoid without returning to drow form.
Which she did since the stupidity of this test pissed her off.
“Cut it out!” Purple and black sparks flickered and hissed at her fingertips, and her hands raised by her sides as she began breathing more heavily. “I’m not in the habit of being the target during target practice. If you want to see what I can do, it’s probably a good idea not to—”
Three more projectiles shot from the wall behind her next to each other, one after the other. Cheyenne whirled and sent purple sparks from one hand and a churning ball of black energy from the other. Both spells hurtled toward the small dart guns and charred the tiny mechanisms into crisps. Then the section of padded egg-carton wall caught fire with a muted roar. Something inside the wall—or maybe the wall itself—reacted to the damage and expelled a froth of white steam that wasn’t quite fire-extinguisher foam. The flames extinguished, and the charred foam wall repaired itself in under five seconds like nothing had happened.
“Look at that.” Cheyenne gave the wall a half-hearted shrug and glanced at Rhynehart. “Built-in damage control. Cool.”
“We have things pretty well covered here.”
This guy doesn’t flinch.
“Good to know.” The halfling pulled back on her magic until the sparks receded from her fingertips. “Can we move on to something else? I don’t have all day to get spit on by tiny pellets.”
“You do, actually.”
She released a humorless chuckle. “I don’t. And if you people couldn’t find anything about me in this system of yours, you have no idea what I do with my time or what my schedule looks like. I’m a busy halfling.”
Plus, if people noticed I disappeared, I’m gonna be an exposed halfling.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rhynehart turned around and walked toward the opposite side of the gymnasium. “I’m sure you think you knew what you were doing,” he said over his shoulder, “when you showed up to a meeting my undercover guy spent months setting up.”
He stopped at the wall and snapped his fingers, and a portion of the padded black foam slid out like a giant freezer drawer. The man dug into it and pulled out a helmet, a bulletproof vest covered in the same foam as the walls, and thick gloves. He dropped everything but the vest, and the drawer shut on its own. “I saw a lot of power coming out of you Thursday night. Unrefined. Unrestrained. Fueled by what I’m guessing is rage. Maybe a little fear. Who knows?”
Cheyenne snorted. Thanks for the psych eval.
Rhynehart dropped the vest over his shoulders, pulled the gloves on, and picked up the helmet. Tucking that under his arm, he came to stand a few yards from the halfling. “That was all spontaneous, though. Erratic. Reactionary. This room offers more stability. This is a safe space.”
Is this guy for real?
With a snort of disbelief, Cheyenne shook her head. “I prefer my safe spaces without tiny blowguns shooting spit wads from the walls.”
Rhynehart pulled on the helmet, which had some sort of grated mesh across the face. Cheyenne expected him to pull out a fencing foil next and challenge her to a duel. He clapped his thick gloves and spread his arms. “I’ll be fine. Go for it.”
“No.” The halfling spun on her heels and headed toward the sparring gym’s double doors.
“You can’t leave yet, Blakely.”
“Watch me.” She reached the double doors and wrapped her purple-gray fingers around one of the vertical bars. The door didn’t budge.
Come on!
She grabbed the other bar and gave both doors a sturdier pull. Nothing.
First manacles, now a locked door. Not the best way to win someone’s trust.
She dropped her hands and turned around. “Okay, I get what you’re trying to do. Bring in the halfling nobody can find in the system. Test her, train her, hope you can teach her something new so she’ll be grateful and wanna give back to the organization that taught her so much. It’s a good plan. Except you’re trying to do it with me.”
“You think a lot of yourself,” said Rhynehart in a tinny voice from within the mesh mask. He clasped his gloved hands behind
