“I see.” He gazed at the door one more time, then stepped away from the couch. “Then I’ll get back to my phone, if everything looks good.”
“It looks good. Just go check it out.”
“I’ll send Byrd and Lumil to take care of it. Maybe I’ll join them. That way, there won’t be any confusion over what we find.”
“Great.” Cheyenne gave him a tight smile and nodded. “Good luck.”
“Mmhmm. Enjoy the rest of your night.” The nightstalker’s fingers moved quickly until a new portal shimmered open in front of him. He shot Ember one last sidelong glance, then stepped through the oval of dark light and disappeared before the portal closed.
Ember asked, “What was that?”
“I think we gave our neighbor away by talking about the alarm.” Cheyenne rubbed the side of her face. “Sorry, Em. I guess it’s easy to let something like that slip when I’m focused on keeping him from tearing this whole building apart.”
“He’s not going to. He’d better not.”
“And the info on Syno had better be legit.”
The apartment was silent until Ember chuckled softly.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
“No, seriously. What?”
“You just stopped a nightstalker from pulling a Cheyenne Summerlin.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “I’m not that bad. I mean, it didn’t take much to get him to calm down.”
“Right.” Ember chuckled and covered her mouth with a hand. “That’s the funny part. When you get riled up, you’re much worse than that.”
“No, I’m not. For real?”
Ember burst out laughing, nodding as she leaned over.
Cheyenne thumped her head back against the recliner’s cushion and grinned at their apartment’s vaulted ceilings. “I’m getting better, though. Only left one hole in Matthew’s furniture.”
“That is a plus. I guess we’ll see how long it lasts.”
“Your support is always appreciated, Em.” Cheyenne picked up her phone and glanced at the time. “Okay, it’s after ten. Wanna watch another episode of that stupid show you’re so into?”
“Ha. Which one?”
“I don’t care.”
Ember wheeled around the couch to take up her TV-watching spot at the far end of the coffee table. “But you are into watching TV. Maybe I am rubbing off on you too.”
“Sure. Don’t get too excited about it.” Cheyenne pushed out the recliner’s leg rest and stuck her hands behind her head. “I just want to stop thinking about all this, because tomorrow’s Friday, and I’m not excited about stepping into a classroom in front of a bunch of undergrads to pretend like nothing more important is happening.”
“Education is important, Cheyenne.” Ember shot her a sidelong glance, then returned to scrolling through the selection on their giant TV.
“I never said it wasn’t. Stopping these loyalists running the show behind all the war machines is just more important, and pretty much the only thing we can do until L’zar figures his shit out so we can make the crossing again and finally end this craziness.”
“Well, who knows? Maybe teaching a class of undergrads will be a good distraction.”
“Probably not.” They both laughed, then Cheyenne picked her head up off the laid-back recliner. “Hey, you think you could make me kind of a reverse illusion charm?”
“Hmm.” Ember squinted at the TV and kept scrolling. “For the halfling who can slip in and out of looking like two different people?”
“Yeah. Just in case something else happens while I’m teaching and I need to go full drow without freaking out my entire classroom.”
“Oh, you mean like what that necklace did for you?”
“Kind of, but instead of turning off my magic, I need something that’ll keep me looking like a human if I have to use magic.” Cheyenne widened her eyes and thumped her head back down on the cushion. “I don’t think I can convince them to close their eyes and meditate again just so they don’t see me looking like a drow.”
“You made them meditate?” Ember dropped her hand with the remote into her lap and stared at her friend. “In an Advanced Programming class?”
“Hey, I had to come up with something. It was either that or let that spy-fly thing buzz right out of there again to take what it saw back to its masters. Obviously, whoever’s controlling the machines knew enough about me to look for me on campus. I have a hard time believing they won’t try it again.”
“Huh. Yeah, I can make you a charm for that.”
“Thank you.”
“Any objections to Modern Family?”
Cheyenne chuckled and waved a hand at the massive flatscreen. “Do your thing. I’ll just veg out with you.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
The next morning, Cheyenne shuffled out of her bedroom, rubbing her cheeks and trying to focus her vision on her way to the bathroom. She stopped when she saw Ember sitting at the end of the coffee table with three different pages of the spellbook laid out in front of her. “Have you been sitting there all night?”
“What? Oh.” Ember yawned, shook her head, and blinked quickly. “Nope. Woke up early for a head start, I guess.”
“On that illusion charm for me?”
“Yep. I’m pretty sure if I stick all these spells together, it’ll pretty much do what you want.”
Cheyenne shook her head and continued toward the bathroom. “I don’t know how you can look at that stuff and put it together in your head.”
“Are you serious? It’s just like adding a few layers of code to something, or extra levels to a stylesheet. Just with magic.”
“Agree to disagree. But I seriously appreciate that you know what you’re doing.” The halfling stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
The second she stepped back out again, Ember grinned and lifted her hand. “Tada!”
“What?”
Ember wiggled the earrings dangling from her fingers and raised her eyebrows. “Your custom illusion charm.”
Cheyenne barked out a laugh. “And you chose those earrings?”
“What? Come on, they’re fun.”
“I thought purple was your color, but okay.”
Ember playfully rolled her eyes and looked at the two-inch earrings, which sparkled when she shook them again. “Well, I turned them into the charm you wanted, so this is what you
