The last thing any of them expected was for Bianca Summerlin to whirl with her arm drawn back before swatting the air with every inch of her strength behind that blow. After a loud smack of flesh on flesh she stepped back, shaking out her stinging hand.
L’zar lowered the illusion making him invisible. He stood in front of Bianca, staring at her with wide golden eyes and rubbing the darker-gray splotch on his cheek, grinning like a lunatic. “Bianca. It’s been a while.”
“Oh, shit.” Byrd lifted a fist to his mouth and coughed. “She just slapped him.”
“Shut up.” Lumil elbowed him in the ribs with a loud thump. The goblin hardly noticed as he stared with all the others at the unexpected reunion of Cheyenne’s parents.
Bianca’s jaw worked silently for a moment, then she lifted her chin and regained her calm, collected composure. “I don’t want to know where you’re going or what you’re doing or why, but let me make this perfectly clear for you. If you don’t bring Cheyenne back here at the end of it, I will ruin you.”
Lumil sucked in a sharp breath. Standing on either side of Cheyenne’s parents, Corian and Maleshi exchanged wary glances.
L’zar lowered his hand from his stinging cheek and dipped his head. “I have no doubt. Still, that’s for our daughter to decide.”
“No.” Bianca took a step toward him and seemed to grow a few inches taller in her fury by sheer willpower. “She’s nothing but a pawn to you, L’zar. Cheyenne is my daughter.”
He searched her face, still grinning, then took a step back and spread his arms, bowing his head. But he didn’t break away from her gaze. “I can’t argue with you there.”
Bianca looked him up and down, then spun away and walked three yards back toward the house before turning around and planting her feet again. One finger tapped the side of her navy dress pants, which was the only sign that she’d been furious enough to yell no more than two minutes before. Her gaze flickered briefly toward Cheyenne, and she nodded before having to look away again.
Never thought I’d see her embarrassed and vindicated at the same time. How the hell did she know he was standing right behind her?
L’zar motioned with a quick gesture for Corian to lead the others toward the unprotected Border portal. Corian and Maleshi moved past him, followed by the goblins, and then a hesitant Cheyenne and Ember. The drow turned back toward the mother of his halfling child and placed a hand over his heart. “Lovely to see you again, Bianca.”
Her only reply was a bitter laugh and to further raise her chin without looking away from his golden eyes.
With a soft chuckle, L’zar bowed again and turned to step off her lawn and through the spire of black stone to enter the in-between.
Bianca Summerlin stood on her lawn and stared at the place she’d watched them all disappear. The only thing that broke her rigid vigil over the portal was the sound of Rhynehart’s men returning after their twenty minutes were up. Rhynehart approached her slowly and gestured back toward the house. “Ms. Summerlin, I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s not safe for you to stay out here.”
“I’m much safer standing here than whatever’s on the other side of that thing.” She shot him a quick sidelong glance, then stormed away from his agents across her perfectly green and exquisitely manicured lawn, scarred by the jagged spears of black stone that had taken her daughter.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Cheyenne stumbled forward and bent over, propping her hands on her thighs as her lungs burned with their need for air. The rest of the group coughed and gasped, drawing in raw breaths after their painful welcome to the in-between. L’zar was the only one somehow unaffected by the doorway. He cleared his throat once and kept walking without so much as pausing for a deep breath. “We have a lot of ground to cover. Keep moving.”
“Oh, my God,” Ember wheezed, straightening to her full height and panting to catch her breath. “Is that supposed to happen?”
“Every time, yeah. I totally forgot to warn you. Sorry.”
“No, no problem.” The fae girl took a deep breath and stared around them at the landscape of nothingness punctuated by puffs of black smoke and the thick black fog covering the ground. “We were all a little distracted before stepping in here. Is that smoke?”
“No idea, Em. I’d give up trying to make sense of anything you see here. It’s most likely not gonna happen. We just need to keep moving.”
“Yeah.” Ember floated steadily beside her, and both girls moved a little faster to make sure they didn’t fall behind.
“I don’t get it, though. How are we supposed to know where we’re going?”
“That’s the thing about it, fae.” Byrd turned halfway around as he walked and spread his arms. “You just keep going and going, and if the madness or the monsters don’t getcha on the way, ta-da! You get a prize.”
Lumil grunted. “That’s a stupid way to put it. It’s not a prize if that’s how this is supposed to work.”
“Hey, for some people, not dying in this place is a prize.”
In front of them, Corian growled softly as he scanned the landscape, which offered no discerning features to mark their way. “This is not the place for the two of you to spew your endless verbal diarrhea. Keep it up, and you won’t get a prize.”
“My bad.” Byrd raised his hands in surrender and flinched sideways into Lumil when a mound of colorless earth released a geyser of black smoke into the air.
The party walked for a time impossible to measure, keeping the conversation down to a bare minimum as they focused on staying together and keeping a sharp eye open for attack.
Ember patted Cheyenne’s arm hesitantly when a
