Staring after her, Persh’al took a full ten seconds before he spun and stalked toward Cheyenne and Nu’ek. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The golra nodded and took off down the tunnel, summoning another handful of fire to light their way. Cheyenne fell in beside Persh’al and cleared her throat. “So, Elarit, huh?”
Persh’al shot her a wide-eyed stare, then shook his head. “Should’ve known you’d pick up on that.”
“I think everyone’s picked up on it.”
“Yeah, well, everyone can mind their own damn business, can’t they?” His raised voice echoed down the tunnel, though Nu’ek acted like she hadn’t heard. Persh’al scratched the back of his head and muttered, “You can keep what you saw to yourself, kid. The crew Earthside doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure.” He snorted. “If they knew, they wouldn’t have sent me across with you.”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened, but he wouldn’t look at her. “That’s a shitty reason to make you stay behind.”
“Not when they think I’m over here following orders.”
“What? He ordered you to—”
“Drop it, all right?” Persh’al looked at her with a creased brow, his jaw clenching in the flickering light of Nu’ek’s fire in front of them. “Now’s not the time.”
Cheyenne swallowed and stared straight ahead. So, L’zar sticks his fancy drow nose in everyone else’s business too. Okay. That’s one more thing to set straight when the time is right. Whenever the hell that is.
Chapter Fifty-One
Nu’ek led them down the tunnel for another hour at least before luminescent panels lit up overhead. The golra snuffed out her flames and turned to nod at Cheyenne and Persh’al. “We’re getting close.”
“Close to what?” Cheyenne gazed at the flickering lights and couldn’t tell if they were powered by magic or the return of working technology down here.
“A transport station.” Nu’ek pointed down the dark tunnel, which slowly illuminated as their presence activated the overhead lights. “The Crown’s blocked most of the portals around the city. Fortunately, she’s got about as much control over the portals as she does over us. But the ones she either can’t touch or doesn’t care about are at least as far out as Oronti Valley, if not farther.”
The halfling grimaced. “So we have another, what? Four hours or more to go?”
Persh’al grunted. “Nah, kid. We’ll be moving a lot faster on the way back.”
Five minutes later, the tunnel opened into a wide rectangular room. Directly across from them was a heavy metal door with a circular window, and the entire wall curved away from the room’s entrance. Cheyenne studied the corners of the room and frowned. “That’s not a wall, is it?”
“Good work.” Persh’al strode across the room and gave the curving metal wall a quick slap. “More like taking the subway, kid, without the crowded seats and the smell.”
Nu’ek raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand half of what you say anymore.”
“It’s another Earthside thing, golra. I’d say you should visit sometime, but there’s even less room for you there than there is here. Unless you’ve been brushing up on your transformation spells.”
“That would be a waste of my time.”
“Right. Well, good thing you’re staying here while we light this baby up and get the hell out of the city.” Persh’al pressed the door of the O’gúleesh shuttle, but nothing happened. “Oh, come on.”
He pressed a few more times, ran his hand over the metal from side to side and top to bottom, then pounded it with a fist. “Nu’ek!”
The golra’s thick jaw clenched and unclenched as she stared at the agitated troll. “It was fully functional the last time I was here.”
“Which was when? Right after I left?”
Her apologetic shrug was even more awkward coming from a magical her size.
“Shit.” He scowled at the door and tossed his arms in the air. “Now what, huh? L’zar’s expecting us to report back before dawn over there, and we’re not taking another fell-damn skiff to the Outers. That’s not gonna happen.”
“Tell him the station went dead.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll just pop back into the wanted drow’s hiding place hours late and hand him excuses. The guy freaks out when you bring him the wrong beef jerky flavor. How do you think he’s gonna react when his kid goes missing for hours and he can’t find her?”
“I’m not missing,” Cheyenne muttered.
“Yeah, and he won’t know that ‘til we get back to tell him, will he?”
“I’m sorry.’” Nu’ek dipped her head toward him and spread her arms. “We can try another station.”
“And risk that one being dead too? Don’t screw with me, golra. If this one’s dead, the others are dead too. Damn. And here I was, thinking these things had a few hundred years left until they cut us off.”
The troll ranted on, but Cheyenne tuned him out when her fingers closed around the coil of Elarit’s activator in her pocket. She pulled it out, frowned at the metal lines of the first device spreading across her hand, and peeled that one off. The minute she slipped the chains off her fingers, they withdrew with a metallic clink until the pieces had folded themselves back into the metal tube of the activator’s original shape. She stuck it in her other pocket and studied the Elarit’s coil. Worth a shot, right?
“Hey, are we still inside the wards? The ones for all the tech?”
Persh’al stopped mid-sentence and shot her a quick glance before scowling up at Nu’ek again. “You’d better hope you have a useful answer to that question.”
The golra let out a low growl and stomped toward the entrance to the station.
