Cheyenne pushed to keep up with the guy as he led her through the lobby with all the desks. None of the magicals stationed around the room acknowledged the operative or the limping halfling. “Are you trying to convince me drow lack consciences?”
“No.” Rhynehart stopped at an empty cubicle at the end of the row and paused. “All the ones I’ve met, though.”
“How many have you met?”
“Enough.” He picked up a tablet that resembled the one Dr. Cheery had carried and tapped on the touch keyboard. “Before you ask, no, we don’t keep any drow on the compound, and we don’t enlist them for our operations.”
“Cool. So I can go home.”
“Not yet.”
“What?”
When he finished typing, Rhynehart set the tablet on the cubicle desk and gestured at the other side of the lobby and the common room. “We still have to figure out what to do with you.”
“You said you don’t keep drow at your beck and call.” The halfling gritted her teeth as she matched the man’s pace. “Which, to be clear, I’m not interested in anyhow.”
He stopped and turned halfway toward her. “You have an alternative in mind?”
Careful, Cheyenne. This might be the part where they decide whether to leave you alone or pack you up and ship you off to somewhere you don’t wanna be.
She blinked. “Letting me go would be awesome.”
Rhynehart studied her and narrowed his eyes. “Not looking like that.”
A glance at her purple-gray hands reminded her of her necessary return to human form. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and thought of the woods outside her childhood home way out in Henry County. Her skin prickled with the change, and that was it. When she opened her eyes, Rhynehart was stalking off down the short hall toward the common room.
“You’re still hangin’ around for a little longer, halfling.”
What the hell do they want from me?
She took off after him. The limp was still there, but the pain in her hip had receded to an annoying but otherwise dull ache.
When they reached the common room, the place was almost empty. One female troll in black—she had deep-purple skin with scarlet hair braided tightly to her head and spilling down her back—sat at one of the round tables at the far end of the room. She didn’t look up from a thick stack of paper bound with plastic rings when Rhynehart headed toward the side with the TV mounted above the fireplace.
“What’s next, then?” Cheyenne stopped as Rhynehart bent toward the empty fireplace and snatched something off the wide stone hearth wrapping all the way around the wall. “Now you know I’m not trying to kill you, so, test complete?”
“Yep.” The man dropped onto the closest couch in the half-circle of lounge furniture facing the fireplace. “The results were inconclusive, so we’re gonna try something else.”
“Inconclusive? Because I broke your toy?”
“You like Stranger Things?” Rhynehart lifted the remote toward the giant TV and turned it on. “I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but I’ve heard good things.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna watch Stranger Things.” He nodded toward the other couch, then returned his attention to the TV and scrolled through the menu. “Take a seat. We have at least an hour to kill. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find we have something in common.”
Cheyenne folded her arms. “You want me to watch TV with you?”
“It’s not a requirement. Feel free to pace around the room or meditate or pick your black fingernails for all I care. But you can’t leave this room until we have our last meeting, and that’s scheduled for thirteen-hundred hours. Up to you.” The TV settled on one show, and while the volume wasn’t particularly loud, the sound still filled the common room enough for everyone to know what was playing.
To Cheyenne, it sounded like the thing was on full blast.
I’m not sitting here doing nothing for an hour.
She turned around and headed back toward the lobby, which had to have some kind of exit. When she got within three yards of the short hallway leading from the common room, purple light flared in a shimmering wall ahead of her, held in place by the female troll’s outstretched finger.
“I wouldn’t.” The troll didn’t look up from her massive stack of light reading.
Cheyenne scowled at her. “Yeah, I bet.”
“Come on, halfling.” Rhynehart waved her back as he stared at the giant TV. “It’s starting.”
With a last glance at the troll, Cheyenne limped four tables down. That put two rows of round tables between her and the mental FRoE operative with his arm slung over the back of the couch. Not close to enough personal space, but I’ll deal with it.
She pulled out a chair and sat, folding her arms. The TV droned on and on, and the half-drow stared at the chipped edge of the table. Two o’clock on Tuesday. I’ve missed three days of classes, and who knows what else. Now I’m sitting here while Mr. TV binges his soap opera. This meeting better be important.
* * *
Fifty minutes later—Cheyenne was keeping track with the digital clock on the wall above the vending machine—Sir marched into the common room and thumped the armrest of Rhynehart’s couch. “You called, I answered. Let’s go, Rhynehart.”
“Sir.” The operative glanced over his shoulder as his superior kept walking, wrinkled his nose at the TV and the end of his show, then sighed and turned off the screen. The remote clattered onto the stone hearth, and Rhynehart stood.
“Blakely.” Sir stopped at Cheyenne’s table and pulled out a chair. “Let’s make this quick. I’ve got another debriefing in half an hour, and I could be combing my mustache right now instead.”
The halfling frowned as he sat. Everyone here is nuts.
Rhynehart joined them and grabbed his own seat, leaving an empty chair between him and the others
