“You’re welcome.” Corian picked her backpack up from the seat of the wheelchair and rejoined the group. “Keep your focus on that for now, okay? We’ll see what happens if you have to use any of your other magic once we make the crossing. But Cheyenne will need you, so try not to get carried away.”
She took her bag from him and laughed as she slid the straps over her shoulders. “Not possible. Nobody has to carry me, and that wheelchair can kiss my ass.”
Lumil let out a startled guffaw as she doubled over, then straightened quickly and choked back more laughter with such force that her green face darkened.
L’zar rubbed his temples. “Someone open a portal so I can get out of this fell-damn warehouse.”
“Need some fresh air?” Cheyenne narrowed her eyes at him when his golden gaze met hers.
Her drow father blinked slowly and looked away. “Something like that.”
Corian eyed them both before summoning their portal.
L’zar looks like crap right now. I don’t know, maybe I would too if I hadn’t been home in a few hundred years.
The portal opened, and Corian gestured for the others to step through. L’zar stormed through first, anxious to finally leave the confines of another building holding him inside. Byrd and Lumil went next, followed by a grinning, floating Ember. Maleshi nodded at Persh’al before she disappeared.
“Give’ em hell, kid.” Persh’al raised his hand toward Cheyenne in a gesture she didn’t recognize, middle finger curled into a loop with his thumb with his ring finger crossed over his pinky.
Despite the weird gesture, she nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Corian gave the blue troll a final nod as well before he followed the halfling through the portal and it disappeared behind them.
Persh’al spun to deliver a swift kick to the side of one of the broken war machines. Two blue sparks popped inside the mostly empty shell, and he leaped back, hissing. “Don’t even start. You think I wanna be here with a pile of old-school junk? Lucky for me, I still have something to focus on.”
Chapter Eighty-Six
“This looks a hell of a lot better than the last time.” Lumil cracked her knuckles as the group made their way across the clearing toward the towering portal ridge of black stone. “Who cleaned up?”
“No idea.” Maleshi brushed invisible specks of dirt off the sleeve of her uniform. “Whoever it was stopped by before Cheyenne and Persh’al went through last time.”
“And it wasn’t us?” Byrd asked.
“Yeah, idiot.” Lumil punched him in the shoulder. “We cleaned up all the cargo crates and all the bodies and took ‘em back to the warehouse.”
“Well, where are they?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Not at the warehouse.”
“General.” L’zar turned toward Maleshi and gestured at the spires of black stone. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Apparently, this is my new specialty.” Maleshi stepped forward and extended her hands toward the veil of shimmering pink light reaching into the sky from the center of the portal ridge.
Ember floated toward Cheyenne, staring at the tall columns in front of them. “This thing is huge.”
“Yeah.”
“Makes the one at your mom’s place look like a baby.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Maybe it is. This one’s definitely been around a little longer.”
“And you fought the crazy-ass monsters coming out of this thing?”
“I had help.”
Lumil smashed a fist into her other hand, throwing up a shower of bright-red sparks. “And man, wasn’t that a wild ride!”
Ember smiled. “Looks like you enjoyed it.”
The goblin woman shook out her hand and chuckled. “More than you know, fae. I’m getting pumped for this one.”
The pink wall of light flickered, then disappeared. Maleshi lowered her arms and turned around. “Well, there you go. The shield is gone. The portal’s open. Time to get the hell off Earth, huh?”
Corian stepped past L’zar, thumping the drow on the back before he headed toward the portal ridge. “We walk through, and we keep walking until we’re through the doorway on the other side. Don’t stop. Don’t change direction. And stay close together. Let’s go.” He waved them forward, and the group followed.
Ember exhaled quickly and shook out her wrists. “I’m actually doing this.”
Cheyenne cast her a sidelong glance and smiled. “You’ll be fine. Whatever’s on the other side of those rocks is a hell of a lot easier to take down than last week. The rest of us can fight. You just keep floating.”
“Ha-ha. I can fight too. I think.”
“Well, if that’s what’s in your heart in the moment, go for it, Em.”
They laughed softly before stepping up behind the magicals in front of them. Corian moved through the columns of shiny black stone first, and the rest of the group stayed close on his heels. Brushing her fingers against the thick silver band on her wrist, Cheyenne let her magic burn through her and slipped into drow form.
Cheyenne braced herself for the feeling of an elephant sitting on her lungs, but it didn’t come. She kept walking, her gaze focused on the back of Lumil’s yellow-haired head, and waited for the shift.
“Shit.” Corian stepped through the other side of the stone columns where the woods started at the other end of the clearing and turned.
“Oh, come on!” Byrd thumped his fist against the last pillar as he passed it and stomped across the grass on the other side. “You get all hyped up, and this bastard portal rips all the fun right out of it.”
Ember and Cheyenne passed through the ridge after the others. The fae girl looked at the rising black stone. “Let me guess: this isn’t supposed to happen.”
“No. It’s not.” L’zar stroked his chin and looked at the spires.
“Maleshi?”
“I had nothing to do with this one.” The general folded her arms. “Just a shield. On and off. The portal was working just fine two days ago.”
“And now it’s not.” Corian stepped back through the stone columns, but he came out on the other side just
