Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “We’re talking way foreign. Like, not-Earth foreign.”
Their neighbor blinked rapidly and shifted in the loveseat. “I don’t know where you’re trying to go with this.”
“Yeah, you do.” The halfling narrowed her eyes. “You know, it always creeped me out that you never had a problem looking me in the eye until now, but it’s a pretty dead giveaway that you’re hiding something.”
“Also a dead giveaway that he wasn’t hiding anything before,” Ember added, turning to give her friend another pointed stare.
Cheyenne ignored her and focused on Matthew. “You know about magicals, Matthew. Don’t you? The O’gúleesh refugees coming across the portal from that other world. The weird tech they’re bringing with them. And you’re the one who helped them figure out how to get that tech to work over here when it’s not supposed to.”
He laughed and tilted his head, opening his mouth but unable to find anything to say.
Turning to look at Ember, Cheyenne shrugged. “I’d say that looks like an admission of guilt, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s an admission of something.”
“Okay, just take a step back for a second and listen to what you’re saying.” Matthew leaned forward in the loveseat and propped his forearms on his thighs, clapping his hands together. “You’re trying to convince me that there are people from some other world who can use magic. That magic’s even real. I know you’re smart enough to get into my files, but all this makes you sound like crazy.”
“Or crazy smart.” Cheyenne grinned. “I never said anything about magic.”
“What?”
“O’gúleesh magicals, man. That’s as far as I went. You pulled out the ‘magic is real’ thing all on your own, so can we finally agree to be on the same page for two minutes? That’s about as much patience as I have left.”
Ember cleared her throat and fiddled with the silver band on her wrist. “What do you guys think of my bracelet?”
Cheyenne snorted. “For real?”
“What?” Matthew scrunched up his face and shook his head. “Are you guys on something right now?”
He stopped when Ember slipped the illusion charm off her wrist and wiggled it in front of her. Her human appearance faded, revealing her fae-pink skin, violet-streaked hair, and luminous purple eyes as the air around her glowed with that faint pink aura. The small pointed tips of her ears poked out from beneath her straight hair, and she raised her eyebrows at Cheyenne.
The halfling spread her arms and slipped into drow form. “So either we’re all crazy, you’re on something, or we can quit fucking around and start talking to each other like adults. Up to you.”
Matthew’s jaw dropped as he took in the revealed magicals sitting in his living room. “You?” Then he threw his head back and bellowed with laughter.
Cheyenne and Ember exchanged glances, and the fae set the thin silver band in her lap. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”
“Yeah, kinda hard to gauge.” The halfling folded her arms and stared at their neighbor as he fought for breath in the loveseat.
“I can’t believe it!” Matthew pointed at them and barked another laugh. “You. Both of you!” His laughter dwindled into nonstop chuckling, and he dipped his head to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes, sniffing as he tried to get control of himself again.
“You know, there’s a fourth option I didn’t think I had to mention,” Cheyenne muttered, her golden eyes narrowing. “Wanna guess what that is?”
“Cheyenne.” Ember frowned at her and shook her head. “Last resort.”
The halfling’s nostrils flared. Good first resort too. But she’s right.
“Wow. I’m sorry.” Matthew cleared his throat and blinked back the last of his tears. “That was just the last thing I expected. And I’m not laughing at you, to be clear.”
“Do enlighten us,” Cheyenne said flatly, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s ironic.” He took a quick drink of his latte. “That’s all it is.”
“That’s not even close to a good enough answer.”
“Okay, okay.” Lifting a hand to gesture for them to wait, Matthew ran his other hand through his hair with another chuckle. “Honestly, this whole week, I thought I was neighbors with a couple of VCU grad students doing their thing. I mean, you guys aren’t normal grad students.”
“Clearly.” Ember’s face wore a surprising copy of Cheyenne’s scowl now.
“No, I’m trying to explain how weird this is.” Matthew blinked quickly and shrugged. “I didn’t think to look past what you guys show the rest of the world. And this whole time, two magicals are living next door to me. Hell, I’ve spent plenty of time in the elevator with Cheyenne.”
“What?” Ember’s eyes widened.
Cheyenne grimaced and shook her head. “Just…standing in the elevator.”
“And I had no idea that either of you is this.” He grinned at them and took another long drink of his latte.
The halfling stared at him and fought to bring her annoyance levels down to bearable. Either he’s about to attack us, or we just broke our neighbor.
“Em.”
“Yeah?”
“How do you feel bout continuing this conversation my way now?”
Ember folded her arms and wasn’t at all amused when Matthew fell into another fit of awed laughter. “Well, I won’t stop you.”
Chapter Seventy
Cheyenne summoned a burst of crackling purple sparks in her palm and stared at their war-machine-dabbling neighbor.
“Whoa, whoa.” Matthew leaned back in the loveseat, lifting both hands and eyeing her warning magic. “What are you doing?”
“Something I’ve been wanting to do since you showed up at our apartment to introduce yourself.” She shrugged. “Trust me, this is on a small scale.”
Ember shot her a sidelong glance and shook her head a fraction of an inch.
“Okay.” Matthew squinted at the purple sparks bouncing between Cheyenne’s fingers. “I’m not sure why you’re threatening me with that stuff.”
“Because you’re the one making things much harder than they have to be.”
“Hey, I just found out the two of you are part of this whole different world, okay? Not as much of a shock as it could’ve
