At least she’s safe and has no idea what just happened. And I need a shower.
Once Cheyenne had washed the day in Ambar’ogúl off her body and temporarily out of her mind, she threw on an oversized Van Halent-shirt and a pair of loose gray pajama bottoms and sat on the purple velvet comforter on her bed. She glanced at the throw pillows and snorted at the black one throwing her a white middle finger in the soft light of her chandelier-shaped lamp. “I need rest, huh? That’s not happening right now.”
She stood and scooped up her bloodied, torn pants to dig the silver coil out of the front pocket. Turning it over in her hands, she paced across her room. My whole apartment’s covered in wards. If nobody’s getting in, magical frequencies sure as shit aren’t getting out.
With a quick nod, she slipped into her drow form and stuck the activator behind her ear under her slightly damp hair. The pinch and tingling buzz burst through her, and her eyelids fluttered as the device synced with her magic and her brain. Then she gazed around her room and chuckled. “Holy shit. The wards in here make the warehouse look like a joke.”
Thick, shimmering lines of orange and red outlined the edges of her room. Cheyenne stepped quietly into the living room, gazing at the north-facing wall of windows and the blinking magic illuminated in her vision. The O’gúleesh hornet’s web dangling from the edge of the mini-loft pulsed with red and black light like a beacon.
A command for taking down the wards lit up in her vision, and she choked back a laugh. That’s the only recommendation this thing has, huh? Nope.
She moved slowly through the rest of the apartment, catching thin, spaced-out lines of tech data from the TV hidden in the long black table by the door and in the clock over the kitchen stove. Then she glanced at Ember’s room, where green light pulsed through the crack beneath the door. Cheyenne peered at the couch to make sure Ember was still asleep, then headed to her friend’s bedroom.
Time to check out what I can do with this thing Earthside.
The green light blazed in her vision when she opened Ember’s bedroom door, but it quickly dimmed. The shattered fragments of the destroyed beetle-machines were still strewn all over the room, untouched from the night before. Every shard and metal speck glowed green.
The least I can do is clean this place up a little.
The minute she thought it, the commands flashed in her vision one right after the other, giving her access to spells she would have spent a lot of time trying to learn and probably failing to cast. Cheyenne grinned. “If I played videogames, I’d say this is as close as it gets to VR but better.”
She waved a hand toward the activator’s first suggested command, and the pile of crushed war-machine at her feet lifted from the ground, swirled into a pillar of tiny pieces, and hovered there, waiting. “Oh, yeah.”
The trashcan beside Ember’s bed shot toward her after another wave of her hand, and she directed the spinning column of O’gúl metal parts into it. The pieces pinged against the metal can, and Cheyenne grimaced at the sound. Easy and quiet. Just let it happen.
She pointed at the scattered shards on the bed, and they raced across the room at her activator-synced command before dropping lightly into the trash.
It took her fifteen minutes to magically shove all the broken bits into the trash and thoroughly scour Ember’s bedroom for any remaining green glows. When she was satisfied with the cleanup, she set the trashcan against the wall beside the door and pointed at the bed. The unmade sheets and rumpled comforter jerked into place, followed by the huge pillows and the second gray throw blanket folding itself at the foot.
“There we go.” Still grinning, Cheyenne nodded and left the room, leaving the door open behind her. She’s gonna flip when she sees this. Look at me, using the most advanced magic-enhancing tech in two worlds to do good deeds.
She laughed softly as she crossed the living room. Ember let out a startlingly loud snore and smacked her lips. Cheyenne crept back into her own room and softly closed the door behind her.
The activator came off with another pinch before the halfling set it on her black dresser. She eyed the silver coil for a moment, then climbed into her ridiculously soft bed. I haven’t felt this right about something in a long time.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Cheyenne had no idea what time it was when she woke up the next morning. She blinked slowly and took the time for a long stretch in bed. Doesn’t even matter. I have nothing to do today.
The low drone of the TV filtered into her room, and she snorted. “Way to veg out first thing in the morning, Em.”
She threw the comforter off, pushed out of bed, and drew the covers back up in a semblance of order before snatching the activator off her dresser.
Ember was still on the couch when Cheyenne entered the living room, the remote lying in her lap as she stared at the TV.
“Morning.” Cheyenne tousled her hair, which had dried into a tangled mess of loose black curls.
“Hey, you’re up.” Ember turned off the TV and pointed at the bathroom. “I’ve come up with at least six different scenarios for how you got blood all over your backpack, and, I mean, that used to be a shirt, right?”
The halfling glanced at the rag of shredded shirt spilling out of her open pack beside the bathroom door. “Yeah. The blood’s mine too. Sorry.”
She snatched up the tattered rag and took it to the kitchen trash.
“You know, when Corian stopped by yesterday to tell me you’d left to make
