* * *
“Cheyenne.”
The harsh whisper made the halfling roll over in her brand-new bed.
“Cheyenne, you need to wake up.”
She groaned, grabbed a pillow, and tossed it toward the voice.
“Hey! Get the hell up!” A loud clap echoed through her room.
It jolted Cheyenne the rest of the way out of her sleep, and she pushed up onto her elbows, blinking sleepily. When her eyes adjusted to the low light coming from the lamp she hadn’t turned off, she bolted upright and jerked the velvet comforter to her chin. “Shit! What… You…”
“Quit stuttering and listen up.” L’zar Verdys glanced at the blackout curtains over her window, then took a step closer to the foot of her bed.
“What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?”
“I’m not. Technically. It’s the Don’adurr Thread. We did it once, and now that we opened the channel…” He clicked his tongue and shot another quick look at her window. “I can only do this so many times, so you need to pay attention.”
“Don’t tell me what I need—”
“Shut up.” The drow’s shoulders hunched as he glanced around a room Cheyenne couldn’t see. “I need you to get this message to Corian. There’s been a breach. Unregulated. My guess is the Crown’s behind this, but we need to be sure. Tell him to grab whoever he thinks is up to the job and take them out there ASAP. Today would be good.”
“Today?” The halfling gestured around her perfect Goth bedroom, now tainted by L’zar Verdys’ astral form or whatever standing in the middle of it. “I just ended yesterday.”
“Trust me, Cheyenne. You don’t want to wait on this one. It’s not— Shit!” He ducked his head again, golden eyes darting back and forth before he crouched even lower. “We don’t… Left… Until the cycle…”
His image flickered in and out of existence with the rest of his words, then he was gone.
Breathing heavily, the halfling searched her room for any sign of her incarcerated father popping back into her personal space uninvited. After about a minute, she dropped back onto the bed and stared at the center of the canopy above her. Fuck. No more sleep tonight.
She tossed the covers off and leaped out of bed. Grabbing two of the skull knobs to open the drawers only brought a brief, tense smile. Didn’t even have a chance to enjoy this. The drawer jerked open, and she found an oversized t-shirt folded neatly on top. An image of some burly guy in the same uniform as the ones who’d stepped out of her apartment flashed through her head—some dude laughing as he folded Cheyenne’s clothes, put them in drawers, and went to collect his tip.
“Stop it.” She shook out the t-shirt, yanked it over her head, and headed quickly toward the iron staircase up to the mini-loft. Her bare feet were a lot quieter going up those stairs, and she hardly felt the metal mesh digging into her soles.
The office chair up there wasn’t nearly as comfortable as hers, but it didn’t matter. She turned on her monitor, followed by a quick systems check before setting up the VPN one more time and diving into the dark web. Once she’d reached the Borderlands forum, she scanned quickly through the most recent topic threads and hissed. Nothing new. Nothing about a breach.
Cheyenne growled in frustration, then glanced over the side of the loft in the direction of Ember’s bedroom. Nothing moved in the apartment. “It’s an adjustment period. We’re fine.”
She pulled up a private message to Corian, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
Shyhand71: Just got an unexpected visit. And a direct message for you straight from his mouth.
Slumping back in the office chair, she drummed her fingers on the armrests and stared at the open chat box. No way he’s still awake. He wouldn’t hear the rest of that house fall down around him—
gu@rdi@an104: Don’t say anything else here. Meet me at this address at 8:00 a.m.
And that was it. He sent the address, the chat box closed from his end, and Cheyenne glanced at the clock at the bottom of her screen.
Three o’clock. Great. I get an hour of sleep and have to wait three more.
She logged out of the dark web, killed the VPN, and turned off the monitor. Then she moved quietly down the metal staircase and back into her room. She put on the first thing she pulled out of that chest of drawers without thinking about it—a pair of black skinny jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt with the neckline cut wide to drape over her shoulders. “Whatever. What am I supposed to do for three hours?”
* * *
The latest episode of a show she’d never heard of ended and the halfling snatched the remote off the coffee table to find something else. “Well, that was a waste of a whole hour. Just one more to go.”
Her personal phone dinged from where she’d wedged it beneath her thigh on the gray couch. Cheyenne pulled it out and read the text from Ember.
Any chance you’re up?
Dropping the remote, the halfling texted back. Yeah. You need some help?
That would be awesome.
Cheyenne swung her legs off the couch from where she’d stretched out to binge-watch not-so-binge-worthy shows and stood. When she reached Ember’s bedroom door, it was second nature to knock first.
“Oh, do come in, won’t you?” Ember joked.
The halfling slowly opened the door and tried to smile. “Good morning.”
“Whoa. Apparently not.”
“Yeah, My sleep was interrupted.”
Ember cocked her head. “Dreams?”
“More like visions. A visitor from Chateau D’rahl.”
“Did he escape again?”
“Nope.” Cheyenne approached her friend’s bed and held out her arm. Ember reached for the halfling’s shoulders, and they worked quickly to transfer her into the wheelchair. “Apparently, that little drow-astral-projection trick made it super easy for him to project himself into my bedroom.”
“Oh, creepy.”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne straightened and waited for Ember to get adjusted. “You good?”
The fae nodded. “Bathroom break. Just gotta go
