“I don’t even feel it,” Ember said dreamily, gazing out across the sweeping valley below them.
Glancing at her wristwatch, Bianca nodded. “Dinner will be ready soon. Ember, can I make you another drink?”
“Uh, yeah. That would be great. Thank you.”
“I’m more than happy to do it. And please don’t feel obligated to thank me for every individual thing tonight. Once before you leave will suffice.” The woman headed toward the open double doors without another word.
Ember blushed again and stared up at Cheyenne. “Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No, Em. That had nothing to do with you.”
“I’m gonna take your word for that one. She just kinda flipped a switch, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. Never a dull moment with Bianca.” Looking away from the outline of her mom standing at the bar again, the halfling glanced at her fae friend and grinned. “She likes you.”
“Seemed like it until she told me to stop thanking her.”
“Nah. That’s just her version of hospitality. She’s trying to…” Cheyenne scrunched her face.
“Trying to what?”
“Well, level the playing field, I guess.”
Ember laughed. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Honestly, I think you’re the first person in a long time who’s made her think about who she was and what she was doing with her life before all this happened.” The halfling gestured at her face with a flick of her wrist. “She was a little older than we are, but I know she wasn’t ready to give everything up and steal away to the countryside to raise a half-drow on her own.”
“And I remind her of that.” Ember frowned and wrinkled her nose. “That’s a little weird.”
“Not really. I mean, you and I weren’t ready for what’s going on with either of us right now either. Different situation, same feeling, I think.”
The fae blinked up at her friend and opened her mouth with a sharp breath. It took her another try before she could get out what she wanted to say. “You’ve spent a long time analyzing your mom, haven’t you?”
“Well, there weren’t a whole lot of options up here.” Cheyenne laughed. “Run through the woods, sneak onto the dark web and learn to hack into pretty much anything, and spy on Bianca Summerlin so I could maybe one day figure her out.”
“Sounds like you got there.”
“Possibly.” The halfling lifted her glass toward Ember in a toast and dipped her head. “Just wait. If she doesn’t give you an open invitation to the Summerlin estate before we leave tonight, I’ll bake Matthew Thomas a cake.”
Ember barked out a laugh. “That’s on you. I don’t know what I’d do with an open invitation.”
“Whatever you want, really.” Cheyenne took a long drink of bourbon and nodded toward the open double doors. “We can—”
A huge crash split the air from the other side of the valley. The halfling turned and scanned the tree line at the edge of the manicured lawn below them. “You heard that, right?”
“Sounds like a tree fell over, yeah.” Ember peered through the stone pillars beneath the rail and frowned. “I don’t see anything.”
“Me, neither.” Cheyenne squinted and studied the trees a little longer. “Must’ve just been a dead one finally breaking free or something.”
That tingling buzz passed across the halfling’s shoulders and the back of her neck again. She glanced quickly at Ember and found that her fae friend had lifted one hand to the back of her neck. “Cheyenne?”
“Yeah, I know.” With a final glance out over the balcony, the half-drow nodded toward the doors again. “We’ll just keep paying attention, right?”
“Kinda hard not to when it feels like my back just turned into an anthill.”
“Nothing we can do about it until something happens.”
Ember blinked and slowly turned her head to meet her friend’s gaze. “You spend half your time feeling like this, don’t you?”
“You mean, feeling like something’s about to happen and not knowing what the hell it is or when? Pretty much, yeah. At least the other half of the time, I get to fight asshole magicals and train toward completing the trials. Still working on the balance.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“Me, neither, Em. Come on, I think your next cocktail’s ready.”
They headed back inside. “Your mom’s gonna get me wasted.”
“It’s actually an honor.”
Chapter Ninety-Six
“Eleanor, this looks amazing.”
“Oh, it’s not all that.” The housekeeper waved off Ember’s compliment as she passed the salad bowl to Bianca. Even so, she couldn’t hide a proud smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. “But thank you. I hope you enjoy it.”
“I know I will.” The fae scooped another helping of the braised vegetables—Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, onion, chunks of fennel, carrots, and cauliflower.
“There’s a warm beet salad too,” the housekeeper added. “Goat cheese, candied pecans, and a balsamic reduction. Where did that one go?”
Bianca offered the smaller bowl of bright-red beets with a small smile without turning to look at her friend the housekeeper.
“Thank you.”
Cheyenne loaded her plate and smirked as the dishes were passed around. “Whose idea was it to have dinner without any meat or bread?”
Eleanor looked at the halfling with a deadpan expression and dipped her chin. “Take a wild guess.”
The halfling chuckled, and beside her, Ember grinned.
“You know perfectly well why I made the decision,” Bianca added, pointing toward Eleanor with the tines of her fork turned down. “We’ve always been healthy, keeping good food in mind. But there’s a lot of evidence to support wheat and gluten adding to joint inflammation and, of course, putting more carbs in our bodies than we need.”
“We’ve been having this conversation for months now,” Eleanor added, waving her hand toward her employer and shooting the young magicals an exasperated glance. “I told her I’d restock that kitchen and change the entire menu if she finally admitted that time might be catching up with her a little.”
Cheyenne laughed. “You mean, she’s trying to deny it?”
Bianca reached for her second vodka soda and took
