L’zar appeared beside her at the couch’s armrest. “Cheyenne.”
“Oh! Shit.” She leaped away from him and scowled. “You can’t do that!”
Ember looked up from her backpack. “What?”
“I can, actually.” L’zar’s smile widened, his golden eyes flashing as he raised his eyebrows. “Packing for our final stand, I see.”
“Wow. You’re so perceptive.”
“Cheyenne?” Ember spread her arms. “What are you doing?”
“I’m talking to—” Cheyenne gestured at L’zar and frowned. “You don’t see him, do you?”
“Who?”
L’zar chuckled. “Did I open the Don’adurr at the wrong time?”
“Yes. It’s always the wrong time for that. Stop talking.” Cheyenne held up a finger toward the vision of her father he’d projected into her living room and met Ember’s gaze. “L’zar’s pulling his super annoying jump-into-my-head trick.”
“Oh. Tell him to cut it out.”
Trying not to laugh, Cheyenne looked at the image of L’zar and raised an eyebrow. “Corian said we’re ready to go, and we’re packing. What do you want?”
“Simply to remind you of one more important item.” He gazed around whatever portion of her apartment he could see and narrowed his eyes. “By ‘we,’ you’re referring to you and Ember, correct?”
“No, I thought I’d bring a few more friends along to spice things up.”
“At least your thinking is sharp this morning. Do you have the nalís?”
“The tree pin?”
L’zar closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It has a name, Cheyenne, but if that’s how you think of it, then yes. The tree pin.”
“Yeah, I have it.”
“Make sure you bring that with you. I’m glad you haven’t had to use it before now, or maybe even that you never thought to use it. We can add that to our list of last resorts.”
“I have it, I said.”
“Excellent.” L’zar smiled at her, his golden gaze roaming over her face.
Dark Smiling Weaver, all right. She looked away from him, then glanced back and raised her eyebrows. “Anything else?”
“Hmm. No. I’ll see you soon.” He vanished.
Cheyenne snorted and returned her attention to stuffing the rest of the extra clothes into her backpack before zipping the whole thing up. “Of course he couldn’t have just picked up a phone and or let Corian send a message.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to bring this charm he made me. The nalís.”
“Ooh. Haven’t read about that one yet.” Ember leaned forward with an eager stare. “What does it do?”
“It opens an insta-portal to me from where L’zar happens to be. Emergency backup, I guess.”
“He doesn’t think you guys will be separated over there, does he?”
“I have no idea. I think he just doesn’t want me to forget I can summon him whenever. Like, he’s trying to convince me I need him or something. I mean, the nalís only works once.”
“Maybe I can find something in Maleshi’s spellbook to do kind of the same thing.” Ember zipped up her backpack. “That would be awesome. Instant portals? Are you kidding?”
“I’m fairly sure you’re not gonna find that charm in her spellbook, Em. Apparently, it’s a drow thing, powered by nightstalker blood.”
“Oh.” Ember grimaced. “Okay, maybe not. Really?”
“Yeah. That’s what powers the portal, ‘cause nightstalkers are the only magicals who can summon portals.”
“I know that part. It’s just creepy that you carry around nightstalker blood in a charm with you.”
Cheyenne chuckled. “I don’t carry it around with me. I don’t think it’s that much anyway. Not nearly as much as the blood-tracking bombs the loyalists smuggled over here.”
Ember shook her head. “That’s taking it too far.”
“Well, it sounds like Corian and the others took care of the issue with the war machines. That’s what had to happen before we could make the crossing again. There’s no way they just said, ‘Screw it, we’ll deal with those guys later.’”
“Huh. Fingers crossed.”
“Okay, I’m gonna go get that pin.” Cheyenne headed into her bedroom and searched her previously worn clothing scattered across the floor. She finally found the shirt she’d worn when L’zar gave her the pin and held it up to the light. I’d completely forgotten about this thing. See? There’s a plus side to not keeping up with the laundry.
She removed the pin from the hem of the old shirt and attached it to the one she was wearing. “Guess I’m prepared now.”
“Oh, wow.” Ember’s surprised voice came from the living room.
“Em?” Cheyenne shut her bedroom door behind her and stopped when she saw Maleshi standing between the coffee table and the wall of windows. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Maleshi turned and gave her an eager smile. “You ready?”
“I think so.” Walking slowly toward the couch and her backpack, Cheyenne eyed the nightstalker. “Nice suit.”
“You don’t have to pretend to like it, Cheyenne.” Maleshi rolled her shoulders back and smoothed down the front of her black and gray uniform jacket with a high, stiff, collar and two silver stripes slashed across the chest. Two patches with O’gúleesh symbols were sewn to the shoulders, and a line of smaller metals in various colors shimmered down the right side. “I know it’s not like anything you’re used to seeing over here. But where I come from, this uniform means something, so this is how they’ll see me when Maleshi Hi’et returns to Ambar’ogúl.”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened. “Wait.”
“Yes, I’m coming with you. Most of us are.”
“Right. It’s a party, then.”
Maleshi turned her gaze to Ember and smiled. “The whole shebang. I’m glad you decided to come with us too, Ember.”
The fae girl let out a wry laugh. “Not sure I have much of a choice.”
“That’s a load of shit. Give yourself more credit.” With a firm nod, the general shook out her hands and lifted them in front of her. “Shall we?”
“Nothing else to handle before we head out.” Cheyenne slipped into her trench coat, then grabbed her backpack and slung the straps over her shoulders. “Speaking of handling things…”
“Yes, Cheyenne, the information your terrified neighbor gave us was accurate, and yes, we did what had to be done in the last twenty-four hours to clean up that war-machine mess before we head
