“Yeah. Gross, right?” Cheyenne smiled and pulled her hands out of her pockets. “So, where we left off?”
“Sounds good. Slipping into your drow form long enough to cast a spell and back into a dreary Goth human again.” Mattie nodded. “Let’s see it.”
“Any specific thing you want me to blow up this time?”
“Ha. At this point, take your pick. Not the computer.”
“I’d be doing you a favor with that piece of junk.” Cheyenne nodded at the old desktop monitor beside her professor’s scattered paperwork. “It would give you an excuse to upgrade.”
“No, you’d be giving the university an excuse not to pay for a replacement. I don’t think accidental drow destruction is covered in the warranty.” With a dry chuckle, the professor folded her arms. “Sounds like you’re stalling.”
“Nope.” I’m glad to be having a conversation with someone I know isn’t trying to squeeze something useful out of me. At least not for her own agenda. Cheyenne spread her arms and gave her professor an exaggeratedly mocking bow. “Observe.”
She focused on the glass jar of pens sitting on Professor Bergmann’s desk next to the computer monitor.
I can make that shot, no problem. Thanks, Rhynehart, for the target practice.
An image of the FRoE operative’s giant magical rifle flashed through her mind, and Cheyenne gave herself over to the flare of heat shooting up from the base of her spine. It washed over her in a second, revealing the drow form she’d spent her whole life suppressing. She pointed at the jar and sent two hissing sparks arcing from her fingertip. By the time the purple drow magic fell into the jar and rattled the pens inside, Cheyenne had let go of her drow happy place and returned to her unhappy-looking human form.
Mattie pushed herself off the edge of her desk and jumped toward the glass jar of pens. With a quick flick of her fingers and a smokey yellow light flashing in her hand, she snuffed out Cheyenne’s bottled sparks and froze. The woman glanced between the jar and her computer monitor with a surprised chuckle, then grabbed the pens from the jar and turned to dangle them in front of her student. “Neat trick. Now I’m out of pens.”
The bottom half of every pen in the jar had melted, blue and black ink smudged around the already-cooled plastic.
“I didn’t hit your computer,” Cheyenne smirked. “And I haven’t seen you use a pen once.”
“Fair point.” Mattie reached around the corner of her desk to drop all the destroyed pens into the small wastebasket. When she snapped her fingers, a penny launched from the tray of loose change on the shelf and darted toward Cheyenne.
The halfling snatched it from the air and tossed it at her professor. “I think I’ve gotten a handle on things since Thursday.”
“Huh.” Mattie turned the penny over, then stuck it in the pocket of her high-waisted purple skirt with pale white daisies printed all over it. “That might be the most convincing thing I’ve heard you say.”
“Well, maybe I should give my mentor some credit, right?” When Cheyenne smiled, she hoped it looked genuine. I’ll take Mattie over Rhynehart any day, but it seems like I don’t have a choice. I get both.
“And unsolicited flattery. Now I have to know what you spent the last five days getting yourself into. Any tips you can offer for a Computer Science professor who’s making it up as she goes along?”
“Don’t shoot me.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Cheyenne thought it was funny, but Mattie clearly didn’t.
“You’re not making a strong case for yourself when you say stuff like that. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” The drow halfling closed her eyes and sighed. “Sorry. I’m making it up as I go, too.”
“Clearly.” Mattie pressed a finger to her lips again, her hazel eyes glinting in suspicion and concern. “You know, for how eager you were to squeeze all the information you could out of me last week, I expected you to be cutting right to the chase today.”
“Waiting for you to tell me I’ve mastered shifting in and out so we can move on to the next level.”
“Uh-huh. You’ve mastered deflection pretty well, too. Let’s have a seat.” The professor gestured toward the armchairs behind Cheyenne, and the halfling turned to the one she’d blown holes through before Mattie could protest.
They sat in silence, and Cheyenne propped her arm on the left armrest and leaned to take some weight off her sore hip. The gesture wasn’t lost on Mattie; the woman eyed her student’s right side, biting her lip, but she didn’t push for more information. “All right. We’re moving on to the next level. Ask your questions.”
“What are the reservations?”
Mattie blinked and sat back with a small laugh. “You didn’t even pretend to think about it.”
“I had time to put my thoughts together.”
All lies. But it might explain some of the questions I’m about to ask her, and maybe she won’t freak out as much.
Chapter Forty-Three
“The reservations, huh?” Mattie took a deep breath and glanced at the blank wall beside the armchairs in thought. She puffed up her cheeks and exhaled again. “Simply put, Cheyenne, the reservations are pockets of safety for magicals who’ve crossed the border.”
“‘Pockets of safety’ doesn’t tell me anything.”
“I keep forgetting I have to work from scratch with you.” Mattie chuckled and shook her head. “Think of them as sanctuary cities, more or less. A little more advanced than anything calling itself a sanctuary city for humans on this side. Less well-funded and stocked than what magicals leave behind when they cross the border.”
Cheyenne frowned. “Refugees seek sanctuary somewhere else when they’re leaving worse conditions behind them.”
“True. And some of them are. I’d like to say most of them, but I have a feeling that would be inaccurate.” The professor folded her hands in her lap.
