Ember stared at the halfling, her mouth slack. “Oh, man. I can’t believe you’re going back there. Sounds like a shitshow.”
“Yeah, pretty much. But I have to, Em. Whatever putting that giant drow coin on some monarch’s altar is supposed to do for me, that’s what has to happen next—assuming L’zar and Corian know what they’re talking about and the whole thing won’t be a huge waste of time and energy. Not to mention putting a lot more magicals in danger.”
“They have to know what they’re doing.” Ember rubbed her palms down her thighs and shook her head. “There’s a lot at stake in this.”
“I know, and it’s only gonna get worse until we can stop the Crown’s poison from spreading all the way across the Border. I still don’t see how me dropping a coin on some table is gonna make that easier for us.”
“Maybe it’s the halfling thing.” Ember shrugged. “If you can bring something like an activator across and get it to work on this side, there’s probably something you’re bringing over there with that coin, right? Something connected to the human side of you, or whatever.”
“That might be part of it, sure.” Cheyenne sat back in the recliner and frowned at the empty frozen-dinner container. “L’zar knew he’d have another halfling kid the night he left my mom that puzzle box, but he didn’t know about me being able to bring advanced tech into this world until after I did it.”
“So the coin-on-the-altar thing is just a hunch.”
“No. They told me about that part of the plan the minute I opened the box. Apparently, that’s the last step, but I still feel like I’m missing something, like why it’s so important.”
Ember tucked her hair behind her ear and gazed around the living room in thought. “Is taking that coin over there supposed to give you more powers?”
“I don’t know. That’s the way they made it sound. Claiming the rest of my legacy.” With another shrug, Cheyenne stood from the chair and looked at the mini-loft. “Now I’m supposed to wait for someone to call me and fill me in on what happens next.”
Ember chuckled. “I bet you hate that.”
“Yeah, I don’t like sitting around and waiting.” She pulled the activator from the pocket of her sweatpants and grinned. “Which is why I’m gonna go introduce this thing to Glen and see what happens.”
“Uh-huh.” Ember grabbed the remote off the coffee table and aimed it at the TV. “Have fun.”
Cheyenne was already halfway up the metal staircase by the time the background noise of Ember’s newest show filled the apartment. She brought up her drow magic, her skin and hair making the transformation instantly, and stuck the activator behind her ear. Once the initial pinching sync-up faded, she stood in front of her computer and rubbed her hands together.
“Okay, Glen. Time to see how well you handle a little boost in teamwork.”
“What?”
The halfling snorted. “Talkin’ to myself, Em.”
“Right.”
Cheyenne sat in the cheap office chair and powered up her computer. The minute Glen’s fans started whirring and the whole system turned on, everything lit up in her vision with more scrolling lines of code and flashing lights. This is gonna be fun.
The data streams were filled with basic processes she already knew and understood, so she pulled up her VPN and dove into the dark web headfirst. She went straight to the Borderlands forum and stopped when the home page filled her monitor. Holy shit.
The data streamed across her vision, the excess spilling outside the physical confines of the monitor screen to scroll across the desk. Hundreds of back-channel entry points and strings of encrypted data unraveled in front of her. Cheyenne grinned and focused her attention on the most recently posted topic threads. The second she zeroed in on the poster’s username, a flashing line of data rolled out, showing the coded makeup of the user’s VPN, their most recent dark-web browser history, and two different IP addresses used to hop onto the forum. After that came the magical’s name, which she hadn’t seen before, and a physical address labeled Most Recently Confirmed Location.
A surprised laugh burst from the halfling’s lips, and she scrolled down the forum’s home page. Every single username brought up the same personal data no one else was supposed to see. Grinning, Cheyenne took it all in and had to sit back in her chair at the realization. Her hand went up to the activator behind her ear.
This thing breaks human tech wide open. I could hack into anything with this. Not like I couldn’t before, but now it’s too easy.
She glanced at the wall on her right and brought up the image of their friendly neighbor’s huge smile when he’d stepped out of his front door that morning.
I could hack into Matthew Thomas’ database too, and I’d bet my entire rig that it’d be as easy and untraceable as—”
The buzzing of her phone on silent caught her enhanced hearing and ripped her right out of that train of thought. “Crap.”
She lurched to her feet and ran down the stairs.
“You okay?” Ember called after her.
“Phone’s ringing.” It was still shoved into the back pocket of her blood-stained pants from last night, but she pulled it out and quickly answered Corian’s call. “Hey.”
“Why do you sound out of breath?”
Cheyenne forced herself to breathe slowly. “I’m not. I ran down the stairs to get my phone. What’s up?”
“We’ve moved up the timeline a little.” Corian paused, presumably to step away from Lumil and Byrd, who were bickering about something in the background. “We’re holding the Nós Aní ceremony today.”
“Wait, what?” Cheyenne turned to look through her open bedroom door at Ember, who was thoroughly engrossed in her show.
“After what Persh’al told us about your quick trip over, we’ve all decided that is the next thing on the list. It’ll help you and Ember both, as I’m sure she already told you.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“Good. I’ll be at
