The fae was almost hyperventilating as she stared blankly through the open doorway. Her hand lifted slowly to gently touch the side of her head in reassurance. “That was way too close.”
“Come on, Em. I’d never hit you.” Cheyenne sucked in a sharp breath and shook out her hand. “Ah! What was that stuff?”
Corian shot her hand a sidelong glance. “Something meant to stay with you for quite some time if I had to guess.”
“You know, I had a black-magic potion tossed all over my shoulder and had to deal with those open wounds for days. This just feels like I put on a glove lined with broken glass.”
“But it’s not cutting you, right?”
Cheyenne glared at him and ignored the rhetorical question.
“You still have the darktongue salve, right?”
“Yeah, I still have it.”
“I’d get it if I were you. For your foot, too.”
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on what just happened and how those things got in?”
Corian turned to face her and blinked slowly. “We’ll focus on that as soon as you clean up. The longer we stand here arguing about it, the more time any potential side effects have to develop. The nasty kind.”
Cheyenne looked at Ember and nodded. “Are you okay?”
“Uh, maybe?” The fae swept her gaze slowly across the metal fragments, the bits of ground steel bugs, and the charred spell dents littering every surface of her room. “I’m not convinced this isn’t a super-messed-up dream.”
“It’ll sink in soon enough.”
Cheyenne shot Corian a warning glance and shook her head. “That’s not helping. I’ll be right back, Em. Just gotta grab the magical first-aid kit.”
As she left the bedroom, Corian nodded at Ember and turned toward the door. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
“No! Please don’t.” Ember shrank beneath her comforter and scanned the room again. “Just in case.”
“All right.” The nightstalker stayed awkwardly by the door, gazing everywhere in the room except at the fae girl in her pajama tank top, ducking like a kid hiding from the boogieman.
Cheyenne lifted her backpack off the floor beside the couch and grabbed the zipper. “Damnit!”
She jerked her burning hand away and shook it out, then unzipped the main pocket with her other hand. When she removed the brown glass jar of the darktongue salve from the bottom of her pack and tried to open it, the mere pressure of her agonized fingers against the jar made her snarl.
Okay. Maybe there are nasty side effects that show up fast.
She took the salve with her, limped to Ember’s room, and held it out toward Corian. “I need some help.”
He took it from her without a word, unscrewed the lid, and scooped out a giant glob of the sticky white substance.
Cheyenne’s eyes grew wide. “Hey, that’s expensive stuff, or so I’ve been told.”
“Uh-huh.” He crooked his goo-covered fingers at her, urging her toward him.
“You can put some back. It only takes a little.”
“Not after an attack like that. This is for the whole hand.”
“Aw, really?” Cheyenne eyed the large glob of salve on the nightstalker’s fingers and grimaced. “Like, all at once?”
“Like, all at once.” Corian smirked. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to massage it in.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.” He waved for her hand again, and she slowly extended it toward him. “Mostly because I told you not to use attack spells. I’ll call this a fair trade.”
“You know, I liked it better when we were punching each other in the face and calling it training.” Cheyenne pulled back her hand before he could touch the salve to it. “Is my skin supposed to be doing that?”
“Give me one example where a drow lighting up like radioactive waste is a good thing.”
“Fine.” She stuck her hand out the rest of the way and looked at Ember. “Hey. You’re pretty quiet.”
“Ya think?” The fae snorted, but it pulled her out of her near-catatonic state, and she gazed at her friend. “I don’t even know what’s going on right now.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll fill you in on all the—ah! Goddammit! You asshole.”
Corian clutched her injured hand in both of his now and smeared the healing salve all over it. “Can’t be gentle with this one, kid. Go ahead, let it out. I’ll try not to be offended.”
Cheyenne’s eyes twitched as tears spilled over and trailed down her cheeks. “I take it back. This is much worse than the holes in my shoulder.”
Her mouth fell open and she gasped, staggering back against the wall and clutching her stomach in a silent scream. Corian’s grip on her hand was as firm as ever, and he kept rubbing the salve in.
“I’ve seen way bigger guys than you pass out with much smaller surface areas covered in this stuff.” Corian chuckled. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
The halfling grunted and said, “Apparently, it takes me having no clue what I’m doing and a bullet through my hip to make me pass out. And that one time I saved an entire FRoE team from being crushed to death. I think that’s it.”
“Well, it looks like you won’t be adding blowing up O’gúl beetle spies to that very short list.” He released her hand and raised both of his, stepping away to give her some space. “Give it a minute.”
She blinked through her watering eyes and tentatively opened her hand. The green glow rising through her skin had disappeared. “Feels like my hand fell asleep.”
“It almost fell off.”
“What?”
Corian shrugged. “Probably. You didn’t want to test that theory, did you?”
“You’re full of stupid rhetorical questions today.” Cheyenne shook out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “I can handle this.”
“Wanna take off your shoe?”
“Hey, if you try rubbing that stuff on the giant needle hole in my foot, I promise you you’ll end up getting kicked in the face.”
“I’ll let you handle
