“Dammit!” Byrd stomped around the edge of the portal ridge to join Corian on the other side. “Giant stone towers shooting up out of the ground. Roadblock. That would’ve been hilarious if I wasn’t so pissed off right now.”
“Hmm.” Corian’s nose twitched as he scowled at the portal. “Doesn’t do us any good to be pissed about it now. We need an alternative.”
“Yeah, to a lack of a climax.”
Lumil snorted. “Don’t pretend like you have plenty of the opposite on a regular basis.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Can it, you two.” Maleshi walked back through the portal ridge, and Cheyenne and Ember followed her. Only L’zar remained on the other side. “Our alternative is another portal. Which ones do we know?”
“Rez 19, to start.” Corian folded his arms. “They’ve had a huge influx recently, so we’d be walking into a swarm of agents itching to see one of us screw something up.”
“Rez 22 leads right into Ki’uali,” Lumil offered. “Not where we wanted to end up, but it’s something.”
L’zar reached out and slowly tapped the closest column of black stone. A hollow, metallic ring came from it, and he frowned. “We’re not going through a reservation portal.”
“What?” Byrd whirled around to stare at him between the columns. “This is the only other one we know of.”
“There’s one more.”
Cheyenne clenched her fists and stared at her drow father, who was suddenly and weirdly much more interested in studying the dead portal than in solving their problem. Don’t even think about it.
The second she had the thought, L’zar’s golden gaze flickered toward her. “In Henry County.”
“No.” Cheyenne shook her head. “No, we’re not taking a field trip to the Summerlin estate. No fucking way.”
“We don’t even know where that one leads.” Corian stared at L’zar as the drow moved slowly through the shiny black columns, brushing his fingers over each one he passed.
“It leads to Ambar’ogúl.” L’zar stepped out of the stone columns and dusted off his hands. “Cheyenne proved that much.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t come out in the same place as everyone else. Maybe something weird happened in the in-between, or maybe that portal at my mom’s house is a fluke. That’s where I came out after Persh’al and I got separated.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m talking about that. That’s not the point. We are not going out there.”
L’zar turned his gaze on his daughter again. “If we don’t go to that portal, Cheyenne, we don’t get to Ambar’ogúl. Are you ready to throw it all away so soon?”
“There are hundreds of other Border portals all over the world. Pick one!”
“Ah, yes. Which reservation seems the most suitable for walking through the gates and saying, ‘Hello. We’ve brought the fugitive your superiors are tracking down, plus seven magicals you don’t have in your fell-damn system. Please let us through the portal you think you own.’”
Byrd snorted.
Cheyenne cocked her head, clenching her jaw as she tried not to lose it on the drow. “You walked out of Chateau D’rahl all on your own, L’zar. Twice. Don’t tell me you can’t figure out how to get past a few dozen rez guards who aren’t looking for you there.”
His cheeks twitched in distaste when he gave her a tight, unamused smile. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Are you serious? A reservation full of FRoE guards is too much for L’zar Verdys to handle?”
Corian stepped toward her. “Cheyenne.”
“Seriously? You guys show up at my mom’s house and use the portal in her back yard? How the hell do you think that’s gonna go over?”
“Well, we’d start by asking nicely.” L’zar grinned, though the usual mischief didn’t quite show through this one.
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Cheyenne folded her arms. “Besides, there’s a team of FRoE agents at that portal ridge too. Not reservation guards, but if they see L’zar Verdys strolling across the lawn, they’re not gonna stop to ask questions.”
L’zar spread his arms. “Then they won’t see me.”
“You don’t take anything seriously, do you?”
“Hey.” Maleshi nudged Cheyenne’s arm and nodded at the other end of the clearing. “Can I have a minute?”
Cheyenne shot Ember an exasperated glance, then followed the general across the clearing for a private conversation. Except L’zar will be able to hear all of it. Corian too, probably. No such thing as privacy.
Maleshi stopped and faced the halfling. “I get what you’re trying to do, kid.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Protect your mom. And I don’t mean from in-between monsters or magical earthquakes or war machines. From him.” The general nodded at the group of magicals. L’zar had sat on the grass with his legs crossed beneath him.
“He’s meditating. Great.” Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m trying to protect my mom. She loses it any time magic or magicals are mentioned. And she drank almost an entire bottle of scotch on her own the day she showed me the Chateau D’rahl video of L’zar turning himself back in after their private New Year’s Eve party. She’s been dragged into this enough.”
“Yes, she has, and none of us wants to involve her any further. But L’zar needs to keep his focus fairly centrally located, you might say. The Border reservations are too much of a distraction. Too much we can’t control that could go wrong. And this portal isn’t working.”
Cheyenne ran her hand over the top of her head. “Yeah, I get it. I can’t believe this.”
“We’ll make sure not to bother her.” Maleshi nodded. “And it’s not like we’re heading that way for a social call. She won’t even see us there.”
“Yes, she will. Bianca sees everything.” Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne shrugged. “I have to tell her we’re coming. She deserves to know that, at the very least.”
“Sure. Make the call. Both of them. You can get those FRoE agents to step aside for a few minutes, right?”
“I should be able to, yeah.” Cheyenne pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Thank you.” Maleshi set a hand on the halfling’s
