Cheyenne studied his deep frown. “Who else knows?”
“Just me. I didn’t come here to bark more of Sir’s orders at you.” Rhynehart snorted. “Frankly, after hearing what my team went up against last night, I don’t think any of my people have a goddamn clue what’s happening or how to handle it on a wider scale, even Sir. But whatever you’re doing, kid, don’t let it get in the way of me doing my job. Got it?”
She stepped back and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not gonna try to pry answers out of me?”
He shook his head and raised both hands. “I don’t even want answers at this point. Look, you obviously know more about what’s happening than we do. It sucks, but I’m not gonna endanger my guys to try playing at your level. Shit just got weird. I mean, weirder than I’ve seen in my entire career of doing pretty weird shit. We don’t have the resources or the leverage anymore to force you into anything. L’zar’s out. You gave us that new opening on your mom’s property, which we now know isn’t just a pile of rocks. It’s not ideal, but I have no problem with the idea that we’ll have to work next to each other from now on, if not together.”
“Huh.” Cheyenne looked him up and down and shrugged. “Gotta say I didn’t expect that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when to throw in the towel and switch to a different tack.” He rubbed his chin and glanced behind her at her front door, looking for the right words. “If anything else comes up that you think we should know, I hope you’ll keep making those calls.”
“I will. Just like I told you about that thing on my mom’s property.” She snorted. “As much as I’d love to, I can’t be everywhere at once.”
“You get pretty damn close, though, don’t you?” The man’s lips twitched into a tight smile. He started to turn away from her but paused, lowering his voice. “You were right about that portal, Cheyenne, so I’m taking a risk and trusting that you’re right about whatever else you think you’re doing. Don’t make me look like an asshole.”
“No problem. You’re good at doing that all on your own.”
They stared at each other for a moment longer, then the FRoE agent grunted a humorless laugh and pointed at her. “Maybe. Is that why you won’t let me inside?”
“Maybe.” No way am I giving him an open invitation to step through those wards just for a talk like this.
He eyed the door again. “You’re not keeping an escaped convict in there, are you?”
“Please. I want him in my apartment even less than I want you in there. And no, I still can’t tell you where he is.”
Rhynehart shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
He shrugged and headed down the hallway toward the elevators.
Cheyenne watched him until he disappeared through the elevator doors. At the same moment, Matthew’s front door opened across the hall, and his face lit up with a cheerful smile when he saw her.
Not now, neighbor.
She jerked the door open again, slipped inside, and leaned against the door to close it. “Shit. That was close.”
“What the hell happened to my room?” Ember shouted.
“Oh.” Cheyenne slid the deadbolt into place and nodded before hurrying across the kitchen toward her friend. “That was me.”
“What?” Ember wheeled backward and stared at the halfling. “It was a mess in here. I mean, I know I’m a heavy sleeper, but I would’ve heard the vacuum. Wait, you didn’t vacuum up tiny crushed pieces of magical spy-bugs, did you?”
Fighting back a laugh, Cheyenne shook her head and leaned through the doorway to grab the trashcan. “No vacuum. An O’gúleesh activator that isn’t supposed to exist over here.”
The fae peered at the pile of metallic dust in the trashcan and swallowed. “Oh. Like, a cleaning spell or something?”
“Or something. I don’t even know what it was. The gear did it all for me.”
“Jesus.” Ember spun her chair around to watch Cheyenne dump the smaller trashcan into the kitchen’s much larger bin. “That thing’s gonna make you unstoppable.”
“You’re not the first person to say that.” Cheyenne returned Ember’s trash can and stopped outside the bedroom door, folding her arms. “Can’t use it all the time, though. Apparently, it’s got some crazy magical frequency that would be way too easy for the wrong people to pick up on over here.”
“Well, yeah, if that’s the only one that exists.” A surprised laugh burst from Ember’s mouth when she looked through her open bedroom door again. “And you made the bed.”
“It felt right.”
“Thanks. I might be able to get into my closet for a change of clothes without freaking out now.” The fae smoothed her hair away from her face. “So, what did your FRoE friend want?”
“To make sure he wasn’t losing his mind, I think.”
“Ha. I’m having a hard time believing you’re the person he’d go to for that kind of reassurance.”
Cheyenne said, “Yeah, me too. But I might’ve had a part in him questioning his sanity.”
Ember turned her chair around and shot her friend a sidelong glance through narrowed eyes. “Well, now you have to tell me the whole story.”
“That’s a given.” Stepping toward the fridge, Cheyenne opened the top freezer door and peered inside. “I need something to eat first. The last meal I had was way too small and tasted weirdly like raw tuna. I couldn’t even eat most of it.”
“The food’s not that great over there, then, huh?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “It had eyes.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
After relaying her entire trip into Ambar’ogúl, Cheyenne set the empty container of her microwavable stir-fry-for-breakfast on the coffee table and sat back in the recliner. “So now everyone’s waiting on whatever L’zar’s next step in the
