Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, it’s for real. I saw one up close and personal last night.” They don’t need to know about the one before that. Not yet.
“Man.” Bhandi jerked her head back in disbelief. “How does something like that even happen?”
“I have no idea.”
From the hallway behind Cheyenne came the echoing slam of a door, followed by another string of curses from Sir and what sounded a lot like a shiny leather shoe hitting a wall.
“We’re still on duty. Technically.” Yurik leaned forward to glance across the empty lobby. “Wanna meet up tonight and tell us all about it? Peridosh at like six or something?”
“Sure.” Cheyenne walked backward toward the front doors of the compound and shot her FRoE-agent friends a thumbs-up. “Good luck gettin’ outta here alive.”
“Nah.” Tate waved her off. “Plenty of room to hide in this place.”
Bhandi raised her eyebrows at him and looked him up and down. “Speak for yourself.”
The troll man rolled his eyes and turned back toward the common room. Bhandi chuckled as she followed him, and Yurik jerked his chin up at the halfling. “Meet you at the elevator.”
“Sounds good.”
Sir’s stomping footsteps came down the hall faster, and Cheyenne playfully hunched over to mime creeping out the door. Yurik laughed, stole another wary glance across the lobby, then made himself scarce.
The halfling hurried across the parking lot toward her shiny new car, hitting the unlock button for that little chirp that made her smile. I passed that test with flying colors. I seriously hope those guys can handle more than one new portal if they keep showing up, but I guess it’s out of my hands.
She slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Okay, twelve o’clock, and I have nothing to do.”
Strapping herself in, the halfling drove across the huge FRoE parking lot and ran through her mental list of things to check. I’d call Maleshi if I had her number. Her office hours are at one.
The thought made her laugh as she sped between the gate towers on either side of the road onto the base. “There’s an image. Ambar’ogúl’s greatest war general sitting behind a desk at VCU. Guess there’s only one way to test that theory.”
Cheyenne slung her backpack over her shoulder and locked the Panamera, then headed quickly out of the student parking lot at Virginia Commonwealth University and made her way toward the Computer Sciences building. Near 1:00 p.m., the campus was buzzing with students either just finishing or just starting their lunch breaks.
The halfling picked up the pace across the huge lawn of the quad, ignoring the noise from so many college kids running around during their free time. It’s a lot weirder to be here on a Tuesday with no classes. Now I’m the one teaching them, and none of these people can tell.
The Computer Sciences building was thankfully fairly empty at this time of day, and Cheyenne approached the office of Professor Matilda Bergmann with a skeptical wariness. When she reached her old professor’s office, she found the door wide open, like it usually was when she stopped by for office hours.
Double lives is right. She went right back to her regular human-looking life after everything we saw the other day.
The halfling stopped outside the open door and knocked gently.
Maleshi—Cheyenne couldn’t unsee what she’d seen or forget what she knew about the nightstalker woman now—glanced up from her desk. She looked like Mattie all right, black wavy hair, shining green eyes, some weird wardrobe combination of black gaucho pants, a black shawl with tiny, multicolored flowers crocheted all over it, and a hot-pink shirt underneath that matched the hot-pink laces of her running shoes. The nightstalker grinned when she saw the half-drow in her doorway. “Just like old times, right?”
Cheyenne snorted and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “Kinda. I honestly wasn’t sure you’d be here today.”
Maleshi sat back in her chair and shrugged. “Even when shit hits the fan, kid, you gotta keep going the best way you can. A little bit of normal is all it takes to keep from losing what’s left of your sanity. Which, by the way, I fully expect you to keep a tight grip on after this too. You’ve got classes to teach.”
“How could I forget?” When she reached the desk of the O’gúl-war-general-turned-low-key-IT-professor, Cheyenne slipped her backpack off her shoulders and set it gently on the edge. Maleshi raised an eyebrow. “Thought I’d update you on the good news.”
“Good news?” The nightstalker laughed wryly. “Who are you, and what have you done with the halfling?”
“Minor good news, I guess. What happens after this, well, it’s probably more bad news wrapped up with a stupid bow of destiny or something like that, but I’m trying to look on the bright side.” Cheyenne pulled out the still-open Cuil Aní with the marandúr coin inside and set it down beside her backpack.
Maleshi’s gaze settled on the open drow legacy box and her eyes widened. Then that fierce grin lit her features, and the inhuman light Cheyenne had seen so many times behind the woman’s green eyes flashed again. “You did it.”
“Yeah. I did it.” The halfling pointed at the box. “There’s my great drow legacy—a coin I can’t spend on this side. Apparently, it took almost dying at a newly erupted portal ridge to activate the rest of my magic and get this thing open. Who knew?”
Those green eyes flickered up toward Cheyenne’s face. “You haven’t lost your flair for the dramatic.”
“That’s the least dramatic I could be about it.”
“What?” Maleshi pressed her fingers on the surface of her desk and slowly stood, leaning forward to get a closer look at the open box and Cheyenne’s unassuming prize inside. “There’s a new portal?”
“That’s what caught your attention?” The halfling folded her arms and took a step back from the desk. “I was more focused on the ‘almost dying’ part,
